A Found Thing

I had a bit of a blogging break recently as I rushed to get some work finished up before we went away. There was work that I'd not managed to do because the heatwave knocked me for six and other work that was fast approaching a deadline and more work that had been put aside because I'd got carried away helping a client set up an exhibition. 

Actually, the latter made me realise that, whilst the freelance life suits me, I do miss the energy and buzz of being in a museum, working towards a common goal, rather than sat solo in my little office, tapping silently away. It's nice to have a taste of it every now and then. So now, once a week, I catch the train into Gloucester and work and chatter and plan and help out. It's a lot of fun and very good for my soul. 

Last week we made an escape up to Northumberland, that beautiful county full of moors, hills, woodlands and beaches. Ruined castles staring moodily out to sea. Viking lore. Big brooding skies that stretch over wide empty sands. Hills turning slowly purple as the heather flowers. Yeavering Bell. Lindisfarne. The Laidly Worm of Spindlestone Heugh. Grace Darling and the heaving North Sea. Corned beef pasties. Craster kippers. I'll blog more about it next time. 

The week has helped to reset my head and revive my energy. Grief is a strange, shifting thing that, this year, has made me mostly sad (as opposed to last year's incandescent anger) and feeling as though joy might have been locked up forever. I could find enjoyment in the moment of things, but that pure joy, with its giddy laughter and keen eye for nonsense, had gone. 

Or rather, not gone but hiding. Time away, some spent with good friends, and the absolute determination that I would not go through life joyless, found it for me again. I'm very grateful. 

And also grateful for the shift from August to September that occurred while we were away. There has been much-welcome rain. Dew on the ground. Stripy spiders creating complex and beautiful webs right across the very path you need to walk down. Socks are required once more and I had to, brace yourselves, Put A Cardigan On last night. When Mabel comes in at night, she is no longer dusty from lying under bushes, but speckled with water from damp grasses. The smell of the air is different and I can feel my lungs opening up to it. 

The Kid looked after both house and cats extremely well. So well that neither cat bothered to get up when we got back. Actually, that's their standard behaviour. The house was clean (we had given him 4 hours warning of our return) - even the bins had been emptied - and I think he'd seen it as a bit of a holiday for himself too. It is hard: at 24 you don't want to go on holiday with your Mum and her partner necessarily, but you can't always afford to go by yourself. Have decided to put the offer in of a break regardless and see what he says. 

A stay away always makes me think back to my stint in hospitality, over 25 years ago now. How I took pleasure in making sure guests had everything they needed so that the first thing they could do was kick off their shoes, make a cup of tea and just sit for a while in a chair that held them like a hug. I wanted them to say "oh it is good to be here." 

What does not make people say that is making them track down the nearest supermarket for milk the minute they arrive, or expecting them wrestle with a coffee machine/kettle that needs a NASA degree to operate and then sit on a sofa that fair rattles the bones. Luckily, we were only there for a couple of nights before moving on to our Friends in the North.

I think self-catering providers should be made to stay in their own properties for a month before letting paying guests in. Trust me, once I rule the world, that will become law. 

N starts uni on Monday and is keeping a very careful lid on how nerve-wracking he's finding the notion of returning to education. Rationally, we both know he'll be absolutely fine. Irrationally, I'm fighting the urge to make him a packed lunch and iron him a clean handkerchief. 

Later today, I shall take myself off to the allotment to see what it's been up to during my absence. Hopefully there will be more damsons on the wild trees for me to scrump on the way back. I'm going to make a hearty risotto full of mushrooms and garlic. I'm going to put on fresh bedding that carries the smell of autumn with it. I'm going to soak for a long time in the bath and remove the summer peach polish from my toenails. I'm going to book tickets for See How They Run. 

But first, I'm going to savour being back in my little office, tapping solo at my laptop, In Our Time teaching me new things at a low volume, gently closing the window against the sound of the aggressive needless lawn-cutting going on outside. It's good to be back.  

Folding Away

Earlier this week, as I sat in the quiet cafe, music playing quietly enough for me to ignore it and, on the yellow formica table top in front of me, a hot chocolate cooling from molten lava temperature, I paused in my reading to look up and consider the question that has stumped philosophers for centuries...

Is there anything more comforting and more guaranteed to give you a feeling of wellbeing than sea-cold toes thawing in warm dry socks while you drink hot chocolate?

Some serious consideration of other comforting things - the first chilly night under a winter duvet, a hug from someone you genuinely want a hug from, soup and toast, a cup of tea after a night on the tiles -  I have to tell you, dear readers, that no, there is nothing more comforting than that. 

With one of the eternal mysteries of life solved, I returned to split my attention between the second book of the day and that hot chocolate, upon which the crest of whipped cream was slowly, tantalisingly, melting down the side of a mug so big, I could have put my head in it. 

I'm not long back from a quick break to the sea where I did little else other than watch the waves, eat, walk, sleep. Repeat for 2 days. I spent some time picking up pebbles and examining them. I spent even more time reading and writing (took 6 books with me and read 5, leaving Shuggie Bain for a time when I can deal with desperate poverty and lost lives, i.e. not yet). It was bliss and I came back feeling both well fed and well rested. 

I did, despite my age and the fact everyone else over 40 on the beach were wearing sensible stout boots and walking shoes, paddle barefoot in the shallows. Why would you not? Yes, it might have been so cold I could barely feel my feet after 5 minutes and, on 1 occasion, actually raining, but I hadn't gone all that way to not get my feet wet. 

If anything, I just wondered at the people in the stout boots. Did they not want to recapture that feeling of childish glee, that abrupt sucking in of breath that comes when the foaming waves carry themselves over your toes and you realise the water temperature is closer to ice than bath?

Their dogs weren't so inhibited and bounced soggily up to me hoping I was carrying biscuits or would throw the salt water dripping ball for them. Some just wanted a pat and 1 enthusiastic retriever (is there any other sort?) wanted to pause a foot away from me to give himself a vigorous shake. The owner was mortified. 

I just laughed and mopped up the worst with my scarf. That scarf did a lot of standing in for a towel over the 2 days. 

Going through the photos, I realise I mostly took closeups of rocks and pebbles because I find them fascinating and have promised myself to, one day, properly get to grips with geology. No fossil finds, but lots of lovely glittering lines of quartz running like galaxies through the rock. 

I've kept a couple of little videos of the sea on my phone to return to when times get stressful. Which they will. I'm learning to take those times as part of the ebb and flow of life (I do this at the age of 45? Truly I am the enlightened one!) and not to let the stress overwhelm. Let it flow, man, it'll pass. 

And whilst it was tempting to burst back home and insist to N that we "move there instantly and run a little B&B and I will run a craft shop as well and you will run your garden design business and it will all be splendid", I resisted. I think sometimes he takes these flights of fancy seriously and then frets that he'll come home one day and the house will be for sale. Maybe, if I was 25 years ago but still the me I am now, I'd take them seriously too. 

For now, they are daydreams occasioned by being in a nice place and having the usual irksome details of daily life (who's turn is it to cook, who did the last lot of laundry, did you feed the cats already, why are your shoes there?) left behind. 

For 48 hours, I could allow myself to focus on nothing but the sea and the tides. I embraced that lovely Italian idea of far niente, pleasant relaxation in carefree idleness. Something we don't do enough of as adults. I saw no news, no social media and no emails. I did gaze for a long time at the sea, and the long bluing horizon. 

So I'll fold those impossible daydreams away with the post-holiday washing, put them on the shelves with the strange rocks, and not think of them again until I'm back there. Or somewhere else with cobbledy streets, pastel coloured houses and a pub serving the best seafood I've eaten in a long time. 

And for the next week, whenever I turn out of a pair of socks or my bag or a coat pocket, and a small gift of sand sprinkles the carpet, I'll allow myself a moment or two of unfolding. 

Inhale Deeply

Hello! Well, it has been so long since I last blogged that, coming back to it this morning, I couldn’t remember what I’d last written and consequently lost myself for an hour this morning, rereading, following back, plunging into that memory pool, occasionally asking myself if I’d really meant to write that. 

Generally yes. What I mean to write, I write. 

April and the 1st week in May were…bonkers. So much so that I’ve reached 7th May and fallen at its feet, kissing the ground with gratitude. I think I will lie here for a little bit and recover. 

treated myself to some freesias because why not?

Truth is, I did something I’d promised myself not to do since going freelance, and I’d over committed. In order to fit it all in, I worked over the bank holidays and weekends, push-push-pushing words into those coherent sentences that funders like.  

So. Many. Damn. Zoom. Meetings. Daily, twice daily, thrice daily. Finally, at the suggestion “we catch up via a quick Zoom”, I snapped and demanded an old fashioned phone call instead, unable to face another disjointed conversation full of “oh you’re frozen again” or “hang on while I share my screen.”

And I physically zoomed too: one 7 day stretch saw me dash between Birmingham (again), London and Gloucester. I have seen more train interiors this month than I have in the past 2 years. I have driven to Ely. 

But. Now May is here and the deadlines have been met. I have felt the weight of them fall from my shoulders like a heavy overcoat. 

sweet peas planted out in April

N is cantering through his last month of work. In September he starts a Masters in landscape architecture. No one chooses to be made redundant but there is no denying the freedom, once the period of adjustment and mourning has been got through, to go in a completely different direction that it gives you. 

Speaking of which, never have I ever heard so many tone-deaf comments as I did when the news was first announced. Redundancy is up there in the list of the Big Life Stressors (bereavement, moving, illness, divorce, redundancy, etc) and yet his shoulder rang with the metaphorical thumps of people saying “think of all that free time!”, “wish I could be made redundant!” and “it happened to me and I was over the moon!” 

The problem with comments like that, as well meant as they may be, is they diminish how the person actually feels. That period of mourning and adjustment as you realise the future you thought was secure has just been snatched away, that the small work ‘family’ you’d been part of will soon all be moving on without you, is necessary. Trying to cheer someone out of it just makes them feel worse. 

And now he's through that - jubilant to be leaving a work environment that had steadily grown more toxic over the past 2 years, coming out of meetings with deep sighs, shakes of the head and a wondering "I don't have to worry about that any more". There are plans for the future, university in September and then the wedding at the end of the month. We’re in a good place. 

Shelves at the Coffin Works. One of the helter-skelter visits I did. 

My poor allotment. I managed 1 trip up there, nearly 2 weeks ago. To be fair, the ground was so dry, it needed a mattock to break it up (it's a clay soil so when it's dry, it's solid). It needed the recent drenching. Tomorrow, recently nadgered ankle withstanding*, I'm planning a few hours up there, taking my sandwiches and my time over the jobs to do. There are seedlings ready to go in, another brick path to be built and, no doubt, strimming to be done. I love No Mow May but if I went with that at my plot, I'd never recover the ground. 

I have alpines to plant on the tricky dry bed, cornus cuttings that have rooted and need a place to be, a couple of achillea that 'fell' into my basket and a honeyberry (lonicera caerulea) which I also failed to resist. 

May is full of green and so beautiful that, now I have the time, I'm standing to stare. Trips to garden centres that are bursting with lushness. Going to see friends one evening, the lanes were so soft with new growth, bluebells shyly scattering the grass, that I had to stop the car to stare properly. I'm going to do that more, not just now, but this year in general. 

Things I have read and seen:

• Earthed by Rebecca Schiller, Some Tame Gazelle by Barbara Pym, Unreliable Memoirs by Clive James and South Riding by Winifred Holtby, which stayed with me for days afterwards and I'm recommending all over the shop. 
• Dinosaurs: the Final Day with David Attenborough. Just mind-blowing. Astonishing finds and research pinpointing the moment of asteroid impact that did for the dinosaurs. And continuing the asteroid theme, Don't Look Up. Funny and poignant, Meryl Streep acting it up a storm. An allegory for our environmentally-stricken times that can also make you laugh. 

There are 3 more weeks of May left before we tilt into the birthday pell-mell of June and July (our families seem to cluster around here and November-December for birthdays) and I can allow myself the luxury of Days Off. Things I will do in May:

• Eat asparagus in a variety of ways. 
• Ditto new potatoes
• Make elderflower cordial
• Inhale deeply when I'm around flowers
• Admire the wisteria at the allotments
• Watch butterflies
• Quit Twitter because, ugh**
• Yoga
• Write

What does May hold for you?

*the arthritis means that when I've been too much on my feet, I get unsteady, leading to Undignified Trips and, in this case, Falls. I've been resting this thing since Wednesday. Lots of ice etc. 

** Done!

PS If I've missed any of your posts and/or comments, I'm sorry. Slowly getting myself back into order. 

Writing Wednesday

Well hello there! I woke up this morning, at the reasonable hour of 6am and decided that today is a day I write. This is the most joyful thing about working for myself: I can make that decision. And, as I put in some hours at my desk on Sunday while the football was on, I can do that with a clear conscience. 

This morning I had time to do a quick Spanish lesson, followed by a Scottish Gaelic one. Five minutes of each, via Duolingo. I've been doing the Spanish, on and off, for about 2 years or so but the Gaelic is new and I'm doing it simply because I like the idea of it. So far my favourite word has to be 'snog'. Pronounced snok it actually means 'nice'. Which snogging is, so it all works out. 

My favourite word in Spanish? Esta aqui. Which means 'is here' and feels very grounding. I also like that the 2 can be smashed together: esta aqui snog. Here is nice. 

Which it is. 

Also nice? Narcissi purchased on a whim. 

I've also started doing some exercises I found on the Versus Arthritis website. These are stretches and there are ones for specific areas of the body but I tend to stick to the morning, day and evening sessions. 15-20 minutes, whatever time of day I chose, to keep things moving, muscles supple and joints lubricated (isn't lubricated a dreadful word?). Today, I did the morning ones and then headed for the kitchen feeling in the mood for muesli. 

This I make myself: oats, seeds from pumpkins, sunflowers and poppies, raisins, ginger (good for inflammation caused by arthritis), topped with grated apple and zapped in the microwave for 30 seconds because I don't like cold milk. Do I feel impossibly smug about my virtuous breakfast? Why yes. Yes I do. And should the rest of the day go to pot and I finish it by eating nothing but toast, no matter. I'm ahead of myself. 

Mornings and evenings also involve a dose of swamp juice as prescribed by the no-nonsense acupuncturist. Bless her, she describes it as a little bitter. A better description would be "the cocktail I'll be served when I'm in hell". I follow it with a peanut butter chaser to try and neutralise it. 

Nice too? The first hot cross bun of the year. 

Last night, we finally managed to catch up with the latest Stanley Tucci episode. Oh my. The urbane coolness, the suavity and understated sexiness of the man. And Italy, although Italy's sexiness is more one that flaunts itself with deep eyes, lowered husky voice and suggestive finger running up your forearm. Oof. 

They are a TREAT and I'm spinning out the series for as long as possible. One episode a week least I binge and wake one morning to find myself miraculously conceiving a small child with serious glasses, crisply pressed shirts and a knack with a negroni. 

If you haven't seen them yet, do. But have something delicious to eat at the ready because you will get hungry. 

Always late to a party, I finally got round to reading Normal People at the weekend, having avoided it for a long time on the grounds it was about Young People being young and sexy and I couldn't muster the energy for it, let alone feel like it had anything to offer me. 

Except that it did, of course. Rooney lingers with exquisite precision over the tiniest of details, the cup being placed back on its saucer, the strand of hair, the muted clap of a laptop shutting. Everything is understated but positioned Just So, each word placed carefully. But that's not to say it isn't compelling or that the pace is too slow. She moves it forward, keeps us moving and growing with Marianne and Connell and leaves them at just the right moment. Not perfect, but as near dammit as I've read this year.

Brace yourself for my hot take on a different bestseller from 6 years ago next time.  

And surprisingly nice? A 'virgin' pina colada at a fancy-pants night out for 

International Women's Day last week. It was like a pudding in a glass.  

The wedding invitations are finally complete and at the printers as I type. There has been the usual faff around timings and what to put on the insert and who, of the extensive guest list, we can actually fit into the registry office. I have come down hard against inviting random old friends of N's parents who he hasn't seen for over a decade just because they were at his brother's wedding. And he has come down hard against my nonsense about time and need to be everywhere FIVE minutes before the start. 

Mum is fighting against children being invited (I think she had a bad experience at her own wedding), but we have so many friends with kids, that it seems a shame to ban them and aren't weddings all about family anyway? Besides, parents I know with kids will be overjoyed to have a legitimate reason for a night off and will be unlikely to bring the little treasures along with them. Mum and I are taking a trip to Brum Rag Market in April to buy the fabric for the dress, which will be a relaxed experience in no way ending in a row. 

It will totally end in a row. 

N and I have both come down hard on the subject of presents. A plus of marrying at this advanced age is that we have enough of everything. We have no need for matching etched wine glasses, plates, bed linen or matching dressing gowns. We have enough cutlery, mugs and cushions to see us through to the next world. Anyone buying us a "Live Laugh Love" sign will be banished to the cold outer edges of our circle and then get it gifted back to them at Christmas. So we've opted for donations instead, splitting it between the MS Society and Medecins Sans Frontiere. 

As I type, the utterly, breathtakingly, wonderful news that Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is at Tehran's airport, allowed to fly back to Britain, has come up on the news. After so many years, this is an incredible piece of good news and a true ray of light on a very dull and rainy day. 

Which is a good note to end this post on. May your Wednesdays have rays of light too. 

And a nice surprise at a client meeting. 

January at the Allotment

Mostly this morning, I am extremely tired thanks to the winds that blew a hoolie round the house all night and made me fret for the safety of our newly-constructed mini-greenhouse (fret not, it was still standing when I dared open the curtains this morning). So I've given myself permission to spend the morning messing about with seeds before I crack back onto work this afternoon.  

Yesterday, I grabbed a lovely couple of hours at the allotment. There was more digging of the long bed to be done but I'm pleased to report I'm now on the last third of it. The resident robin bobbed about nearby, on the look out for any worms, so when I sadly chopped one in half (and I was genuinely sad about it), I threw him the pieces and he darted off with his takeaway lunch. 

Which reminds me, my Mum recently told my niece about the legend that robins are the spirit of departed loved ones, come back to check on you. Pause. "I don't think Grandad is a robin," niece said thoughtfully. "I think he's a pigeon." 

Which has made us all laugh for weeks, every time we see a pigeon. 

It was good to be up there, with only a scattering of other people around, tending their own plots. The "You want a weed killer on that" man was there, hands in pockets, shuffling about his plot and stopping everyone who walked past to say "Werrrllll, I haven't seen so-and-so for aaaages. He's prah'bly quit." You may imagine that he is a bundle of joy wrapped in a holey jumper with a bad, slightly Hitler-ish moustache to bristle at things. 

Also up there were the Descriptive Couple. They like to allotment loudly, telling each other what they're doing. "So, I'm putting in the broad beans while you weed around the onions, right?" "Yes! And then I'll prune the raspberries while you turn the compost." "This is all great fun, look I've found a millipede!" When they got their plot, they smeared mud on their cheeks and danced around, hugging each other. They are adorable but not peaceful. 

And there was me, digging, sitting with a coffee, pruning, sitting with a coffee, picking up the blown over fruit cage, sitting with a coffee. I'm probably known as She Who Sits, but my brain is always busy. 

It was certainly good to be up there and feeling more positive about the place than I had been back at the start of January. Then, it had all felt overwhelming and depressing. Now, I was reminded that I've done this before and I can do this again. That, although the squirrels have dug up my spring bulbs (*shakes fist in general direction of squirrels*), the rosemary is shyly flaunting it's perfect little blue flowers. 

The raspberry canes had buds on them and the rhubarb had new shoots and everything, despite the cold wind whipping at my ears, felt ready to get going again. 

Back at home, thawing out with a hot chocolate (a particularly nice one, worth breaking my no-sugar vow, from the Harth chocolate company), I watched with increasing amusement as N put up the greenhouse. I thought the moment where he appeared consumed by the plastic covering, flailing his arms from underneath, as though covered by fog, was funny enough, but he then manged to put it over the frame with himself inside and the door still zipped up. Nearly spat out my chocolate as he mimed being stuck and then picked up the whole thing, turning around in circles. 

Funny man. 

This year, I've made myself a planting calendar of all the (70+. Yikes. Now I know where my money went last year) seeds I have and when to plant them. Oh yes, shit just got real as I am determined - once more with italics, determined - to make more use of the plot this year. No longer will I wake in August and realise I am 4 months late getting pumpkin seeds started. No longer will our windowsills be crammed with leggy seedlings, desperate for repotting. No more will I glower resentfully at those plot holders who appear to have it all planted out and ready to go. 

Oh no, this is my real new years resolution. I shall be the allotment holder all others envy. My potatoes will be plentiful, my berries bountiful and my squash splendiferous. People will congratulate me on the progress and ask for advice. I shall smile quietly and gently steer their gaze from that giant yup of dead wood at the end of the plot. 

Fake it till you make it. 

January Blathering

 A truly wondrous thing happened yesterday…brace yourselves…we opened the attic hatch!

I know. Extremely brave of us. And I say ‘us’ loosely because it was just N up the ladder. I don’t do ladders. 

Anyway, when we brought the house back in 2019, we’d been completely stymied about how to open the hatch (don’t laugh). Then my neighbour had given dire warnings about the depth of the insulation and how he’d had to have it boarded over before he could use it. So we pretended it didn’t exist until this year when I had a small, totally reasonable, meltdown about how much I hated tripping over the boxes of Christmas decorations in July and other assorted detritus of life that were better placed in an attic out of sight and reach of toes. 

This then prompted an overdue January clear out of things upstairs. So many things that a black bin back was required for the first time in about a year (I really do try to keep our general rubbish levels down). Do you do a Big January Clearout? It's incredibly cathartic, almost a meditative act if you don't go at it like a bull in a china shop, which only results in more, broken, stuff being thrown away. 

Tiny Wee Mabel giving the world her best side-eye as she's

cross about the cold turn the weather has taken

I'm no Marie Kondo (gods forbid) but I do like the process of opening a corner/cupboard/drawer/box and working through the contents one by one. Looking at them and recognising that, if they've been in there 5 years and never looked at, it's time for them to go. In my case yesterday, that was scraps of fabric, a box of rusty pins, varying lengths and tangles of embroidery threads, remnants of wool not long enough to make anything with, wrapping paper that was too creased and crumped and sellotape-marked to reuse, broken buttons and knitting needles, and other random items that I'd once thought would have a purpose but turned out not to have. 

Where once there was an overspill of chaos and failed projects, there is now a contained order in labelled boxes on neat and clean shelves. It won't last but while it does, I go and stand in front of them every now and then just to appreciate the scene. 

It's representative of the more ordered me I like to tap into every now and then. She doesn't make an appearance very often. 

Just a happy Boo in his box. 

Also on the agenda at the weekend was a visit to the wedding venue. After a false start with a place that looked enchantingly like an Ewok village but had no wheelchair access or facilities beyond some basic toilets, we finally hit upon a place that has enough of a Wild Place look about it for us to be happy. 

As you can be sure there will be a lot more of that in the months to come, I'll leave it for the time being. Once we've got the Great Guest List Row out of the way. 

Last night I started crocheting myself a hat. I've been at a bit of a loose crafty end since finishing the last Attic 24 CAL in time for my Mum's birthday back in December. I've taken the time to do some repairs (pockets in jeans, buttons on shirts etc) but my next crochet project (which I can't mention here in case they read about it) won't start for another couple of weeks. I'm not doing the CAL this year as I feel I need to use up the wool I already have rather than buy another big bag of more. 

Glowering skies over the allotment

Plus my ears were really really cold when we were doing root cuttings at college last week. A fascinating process and I'm really hoping the phlox I used actually take. The soft-wood cuttings we did a few weeks back did very well until they did too well and I didn't pot them on in time, so they died. The leaf cuttings are just sitting there as if to say "What?", practically shrugging at me. I love the process of taking cuttings but I'm not convinced the plants are so keen. 

Anyway, my ears were cold and I don't have a hat, so I'm making myself one out of fetching dark red wool that's quite fluffy and has a wee bit of sparkle in it. I was given the wool years ago, so it's nice to finally have a purpose for it. 

In other news, I'm unofficially doing Dry January, alcohol being one of those inflammatory things that I'm trying to avoid, as well as Buy Nothing January, which is not something being marketed far and wide as A Thing, but the result of noticing that, really, I have everything I need, so why buy more? Honestly, I'm feeling very virtuous and smug about it all. Veering dangerously onto the path of Puritanism? Nah. Too many rules. Just an attempt to live more lightly on the planet. 

Took a walk in the park and successfully identified a 

Prunus serrula (Tibetan Cherry) by it's bark. 

I signed up for the George Saunders newsletter. Heard of him? He wrote one of my favourite books, Lincoln in the Bardo, a few years back and I've got his latest, A Swim in the Pond in the Rain, on order at the library. He releases an e-newsletter every week or so (if you're on the free list, which I am) and he set an intriguing writing exercise yesterday, involving a word and time limit. I may try it later this week. 

On the subject of books, I read John le Carre's Call for the Dead yesterday, which was slim but excellent. It's interesting that as uninterested in the Cold War as I am, he can still draw me in and I'm a little in love with the shambling Smiley. And I'm also ploughing through Pandora's Jar, despite not being particularly interested in Greek mythology. But Natalie Haynes is a chatty writer and entertaining to boot, so it doesn't feel like a slog. 

And here I shall leave you to return to some proper work. As much as I enjoy letting free a long stream of blather, there are things to attend to. As we plunge into the dark and rainy second week of January, I wish you all a good one. Hope it's full of warming meals, warming fires and warm toes. I'm off to throw a jacket potato in the oven. 

Ditto this Cornus alba 'Sibirica'. 

Rounding off the Edges

 I joked earlier this year that insomnia, of which I have suffered with regularly, was the gift of time. Except for this week as it appears to have morphed into the gift of "eating toast at 5am, then falling asleep again at 7, only to wake at 8.30 feeling like you've been hit with a sledgehammer, one that leaves toast crumbs in the bed". 

Part of this recent bout I can lay at the door of my foolish decision to watch the Mark Gatiss adaptation of MR James' The Mezzotint. It was early evening, I was surrounded by people I love, I thought it would be fine. Except that, 4 nights later, I'm still campaigning for the light to be left on overnight and hiding my head under the duvet so I can't see the fingers lifting the window. 

None of our windows lift up, but there we have the rationale of my brain. 

Part of the insomnia is, no doubt, also due to the lack of Fresh Air and Exercise. Not necessarily my fault - every time I've set foot outside the skies have darkened and the rain has hurled itself at me like an overexcited puppy. "Oh aces, you're here! Let's play! Look, look, I did a massive wee on you!" Splendid.  

This also means I haven't set foot in a shop beyond our corner shop for weeks. Not a disaster, you might think, but I am out of nail varnish remover and about to enter 2022 with chipped navy blue nails. This is probably a metaphor for the year or something. 

Speaking of foot, I have just brought myself a pair of orthopaedic trainers, for I am having the foot bones of a 70 year old and up with stylish trainers they will not put. I need supported arches, comfortable soles and flexible uppers, not jazzy laces, flat uncushioned soles and a natty little logo. Do the young people say "jazzy" these days? See? I even have the language of a 70 year old.

I may make "supportive, comfortable and flexible" our new family motto. 

I have vowed (but not made a resolution because, ugh) to get out more from henceforth, but it was felt by both N and me, that a period of quiet reflection and retreat and (in my case) work, was needed after this year. It has been a lot, this 2021. But I'm not subscribing to this general mood of "2022 WILL be better!"

That's too much pressure to put on an innocent new year. It will be different, that's all. 

Still haven't chosen my word of the year. The workbooks and exercises I usually go through to find it have remained dusty and unused. I'll come to it eventually, or maybe not at all. I am trying to find my ease in the world, after a long time of trying to force myself into situations that made me feel like the proverbial square peg. 

This world needs more rounded edges. 

Something brave that I did do was sign up for a writers course. I am scared just putting that much information in the world, so I'll end here. Thank you all for stopping by here as often as you do. I shouldn't measure my life in Google Analytics, but when you put stuff out there, you really want to know someone is reading. Vanity, vanity, all is Google Analytics. 

Wishing you all a different, healthy, rounded 2022. Make space for yourself and repeat after me: "supportive, comfortable and flexible"

The Shed Makes An Appearance

Saturday was a very momentous (can something be "very momentous"? Surely the "momentous" cancels out the "very"? I'll stop now before I tangle myself in linguistic knots) day - for it was Shed Day. My brother-in-law - owner of the only van in the family and a man who seems to have forgotten the purpose of Saturdays (i.e. that it is probably the law that people are not forced to leave their houses before 8am) was arriving at 8.30 with necessary help. 

 

Thank god I know him of old and was in fact already at the plot and ready to rock when he arrived at 8.15 (we are a family who can't bear to be late - or even on time - to any appointment). I'd actually been there since 8, ferrying stuff down from my car and pausing to appreciate the quiet and the view. 

 

The skies over the city were beautiful, that wispy blue that promises bearable heat later, the Malverns crisply outlined. As all normal people were still in their beds, or their pyjamas at least, it was so quiet, nary a car or a clang of deliveries to break the spell. It was so quiet and early, the plot fox trotted unhurridley along his regular route home without even giving us a second glance. 

 

One big downside about my plot is it's location. It's at the bottom of a steep slope down to the canal (the shortest route) and a good 500 metres from the main car park (the flattest route). We opted for the shortest and then spent 20 minutes (it felt like much, much longer), lugging shed panels, fruit cage sides, bags of tools etc down. And then going back up it a further 3 times as the need for different screws/nails/opportunities to prolong the agony arose.

 

It is funny listening to boys constructing things though. The chants of "to me, to you" which never gets old, the gentle ribbing about the right way up to hold a shed panel, the banter around roofing felt and the nailing down thereof, the bordering-on-heated discussion about the right way round to put the fruit cage...

 

While they bantered and "discussed", I stayed out of the way and got on with putting a small fence made out of tree stakes and green-covered wire at the top of the plot. This is for the sweet peas that are currently running rampant at home as we wait for the frosts to be done, to climb over. Then I used my new edging tool (new tools!) to edge the beds and try to halt the gradual grass takeover.

 

Luckily, the work I'd been putting in in digging the area, raking, digging it again, raking it 500 times more in an attempt to get a flat space on sloping ground, really paid off, as you can see from the jaunty angle the door of the shed is leaning at. Bugger it all. 

 

 

But actually, I don't mind too much. I'm just so pleased to have a shed! Finally, a place to store tools so I'm no longer carrying them around with me. A place to store a deck chair so I have somewhere to sit, instead of plumping down to the ground and then trying to lever myself back up again. A place to store a little camping stove so I can brew myself some coffee! 

 

By the time the boys left, we'd been there for 3 hours, and I spent some time afterwards just sitting and smiling around myself, strangely reluctant to leave, enjoying the peace and quietly making plans. 

 

 

The first plan is to paint it. Bless my Dad, he was a man of practical thinking and his practical thought had been to paint only the bits of the shed that people could see, not the bits of shed that were inconveniently against the hedge. This is a school of thought I fully subscribe to, but as it's completely exposed on all 4 sides, I need to paint them. I've managed to find a Cuprinol wood paint of the same shade he had already used for the front (a rather subtle Green Orchid), so I spent a happy half hour yesterday painting the left side. I shall be away up there again this afternoon to do more. 

I haven't gone mad with populating the inside just yet. I want to paint the interior and put up a handy potting shelf before I do. I'll also get a sowing guide up in there as I'm quite bad at remembering when things are supposed to be sown. 

 

By the way, if you're looking for allotment inspiration, I can do no better than recommend this episode of Gardener's World. Our allotment Facebook page quite lit up after it's airing and there was a healthy debate about whether we'd like little doors and closed off plots, or whether we'd miss the chatter of other plot holders. I do like the chatter but sometimes, after the 14th person has said "you need a rotavator on there" to me, I can see the appeal of a little hedged off, door closed area. 

 

It's amazing how much happiness this 6x4 wooden structure has brought me. I'd rather have not had it and still had my Dad around, that much is never far from my head, but having it here feels like having him here. Not in a creepy looking-over-my-shoulder way, but in a reassuring way. He's not there but a piece of him is. And that's quite nice.

A little change here, a big change there...

To everyone who has been within conversational reach of me recently, and there’s not been that many thanks to lockdown, the following will not come as a surprise. 

I stopped liking my job last year.

And in that, I'm not alone. The pandemic has affected people's attitudes to their work worldwide: the pressure of working, often the only person left as everyone else was furloughed, balancing the needs of the museum with the safety of the volunteers and team just became overwhelming and triggered a minor breakdown. 

When that happened, it also triggered a small epiphany: the only thing that gave me any sense of satisfaction was working outside with plants and nature. The allotment became everything and, rather than fading as life attempted a return to normal, that remained constant. 

I tried changing my hours, throwing myself into new projects, delegating more, but nothing worked. It wasn't satisfying and I was frustrated by the lack of flexibility that came with being tied to one building, 4 days a week, 9 till 5. I knew I wanted a career change, I knew I wanted to work outside and I knew I wanted fulfilment. 

In short, I wanted to work with plants and the only thing that held me back was my lack of knowledge. That and my lack of time. 

So I've reached a turning point in my path. A crossroads, if you must. I could continue with my salaried job and a gnawing sense of time wasted, or I could forge my own way, accept instability and welcome the flexibility to learn something completely new. 

 

It might not surprise you to know that I've chosen the latter. As from April, I will be a freelance museum consultant, entirely dependent on my own ability to charm people into giving me work but also entirely free to start training and getting some experience in the plant world. 

And, heavens help me, am I terrified! I've never done this before. Never freelanced, never charmed outside of an interview, never faced a new venture without knowing where my income is coming from. This is scary stuff but I'm ready for it. 

 I think. 

It does mean that my grand plans for the allotment are on hold. This year it will be more about ticking over, planting and digging rather than constructing elaborate fruit cages, buying trees or even getting my shed. Oh my shed! I stand on the plot and dream of it, painted blue with yellow door (not looking at all like an IKEA, no matter what my friend says), a shelf for potting, hooks for hanging tools and a wheelbarrow (also currently existing only in my head) resting neatly on the side. 

I've promised myself that for every job I get, I'll put 10% aside for shed, shed-related purchases and general pursuing of dream plant-based job. 

All that's left to do now is hustle some work my way. 

If you are feeling particularly generous or flush, and you'd like to see the shed manifest itself, there's now a Ko-fi link at the top of the blog page where you can click through and donate. But no pressure, no expectation, just undying gratitude to anyone who wanders that way..

Wish me luck!

There's a whole world of shed love on Pinterest - most of them compeltely unrealistic

I almost wanted to change my search terms to "normal sheds" or "working sheds"

Still, how nice would they be on the plot?

Sigh

Planning the Plot

After having got a lot of frustration off my chest with my last post (although I'm still angry about diet culture, but that's not today's topic), and with still being very much confined to barracks, unable to get to the allotment recently, I've been trying to satisfy my desire to be up there and working on the plot by planning for it instead. 

Sometimes it's hard to believe that I've had it 18 months already. When I first saw it, I realised that I'd basically been let a meadow and told to get on with it. Even a rotavator couldn't cut through the grass. But plots are hard to come by and, after waiting 2 years, there was no way I was going to turn it down. 

A lot of it is still meadow with 6 beds dug into it and the large fruit cage area. N likes the grass and there's no mistaking that it's a haven for insects. Unfortunately it's also a haven for bindweed, which basically uses it as an evil highway as it inches it's way towards the veg. 

Being a bit anti-herbicide (i.e. I've read Silent Spring - no good can come of them), there's nothing for it but a great deal more digging. The top 2 thirds of the plot will be slowly but surely cleared, much as I have been doing with copious use of membrane and spade. Sometimes there is nothing for it but graft. 

I ran wild on the Higgledy Seeds website, ordering masses of cornflowers, nigella, calendula, candytuft, cosmos, chrysanthemums, gypsophilia and sweet peas to create the wildflower/cutting flower area that'll bring all the bees and butterflies to the yard. It was a real boost to the senses to browse that site and if you're thinking of supporting an independent seed merchant, I heartily recommend it. But get in quick. Ben, the owner, recently announced that he's restricting sales this year to keep his vision for the business rather than watch it spiral out of control. A brave decision, I think. 

Speaking of keeping visions, its still important to me to keep the plot as wildlife friendly as possible, so not all the grass will be going. The final third of the plot will become a mini-orchard with apple, plum and cherry trees with enough space for 2 of each. The grass can remain down there, and once I can clear the remainder of the fallen and falling elder, I'll start working on that area, making space for the saplings to go in, as well as creating space for the shed.

Oh yes, this year I am determined to get myself a shed. It feels ridiculous to keep lugging tools up there only to find that I really need something I didn't have enough arms to carry up with me, or driving the car the 2 minutes so I can take up more than 2 tools and a rucksack. Plus, I want somewhere to store a deckchair. What is the point of all this work if you can't sit and stare at it in comfort? 

And as for what will be growing (apart from flowers and trees)? I made the executive decision that there will be NO runner beans this year after 2020's over-beaning. Yellow courgettes, borlotti and black beans, asparagus, raspberries and rhubarb. Rocket and other salad stuffs, big indulgent tomatoes. Leeks, potatoes and onions. Calabrese and purple sprouting broccoli, sprouts and red cabbage. There will only be a couple of small squash as N doesn't like them, so it's silly to grow big varieties just for me. 

I think that might be enough. 

Rather than winging it, I've got myself a special allotment diary and have been putting in seed buying and sowing dates. That should mean that we avoid gluts and I no longer miss prime planting windows for the foods I love. 

Right now, of course, this all feels very far away. The sky is sending down the occasional flurry of snow and when I stand up, I'm reminded of how removed I am from optimal health, let alone physicality. But then I see the delicate green tips of bulbs pushing through the ground and am reminded that all the seasons swing round again and it won't be long before I'm back up there, smelling the earth crumbling between my fingers and watching things turn green in the light. 

November at the Allotment

It's weird writing about my last 4 weeks at the allotment because, as from today, I won't be up there until mid-January, February if I'm really unlucky. And as for actually being fit enough to achieve anything, well. Let's just say that chair yoga can only do so much for your digging muscles. 

But enough bleak imaginings of the future state of things. I did actually manage to achieve quite a bit in autumn. N treated me to a "swoe" after my allotment neighbour watched me hacking away with my old hoe for 10 minutes before handing me his swoe, saying "please try this, its just painful to watch you". Never underestimate the power of poor hacking when it comes to getting plot pals to lend you effective tools. 

Anyway, can I just say that the swoe is my very very very favourite new tool to play with? A stainless steel, double-edged blade that you slide forward under the weeds, pull back and hey presto, weeds 0: you 100. I LOVE it and it repaid my love by making short work of many weeds, especially in the fruit cage area. 

Which was just in time for the grand erecting of the cage. Accompanied by many a rude word as N wrestled to get the poles in the Y-joiners (Y join? Because this big mallet says so). When I went up the next day to attach the mesh, it was still standing. Thank god, because I can just imagine the furious words that would have been spoken if it hadn't been. 

And there had been plenty enough of that when we were trying to level the ground for the cage to sit on armed with 2 shovels and a spirit level designed more for the hanging of pictures than the levelling of topsoil. As you can see above, I now have a heap of soil I was planning to shift back into the cage to tamp down and plant the raspberries in. Sadly, rain and work have stopped play. It ain't happening now. But I have learned that most things are recoverable or catch-up-able with at some point, so I'm making myself Not Worry about it. 

Besides, it's so wet up on the plot, all I'd end up with is some sad raspberries, a piece of ground that looks like the Somme and an extra 6 inches in height from the mud stuck to the bottom of my boots. Let it go, Collett, let it go. 

Behind the cage you can see the formerly grassy knoll which I'd spent some time clearing and then reinforcing along the path edge in October. The plan is to terrace them eventually but not for a while yet. Rhubarb has arrived and been planted in one of the beds I grew the courgettes in earlier this year. I will not be wanting quite so many in 2021, so the 'barb can have the space instead. 

November was also the month of the Great 'Gras Bed Experiment. As I've already said, somewhere on this blog, I'd spotted asparagus ferns in this space (a great big long bed, practically the width of the plot, about 2/3rds  of the way down) but the whole area was so choked with weeds and grass, I couldn't be sure. Nothing to be done but to put down some membrane and wait. 

It was down for about 8 weeks in total, and the last week of November saw me lifting the cover and starting to fork the earth over. It shifted easily but I soon started uncovering some rather disturbing looking growths, like long brown wizened fingers coming up from under the earth. 

Freaked out yet? I was, slightly, until the penny dropped. Yes, these were asparagus roots! A quick google confirmed it. And the fact that you're not supposed to disturb them. Bugger. I quickly covered the back over and moved delicately over the rest of the bed, managing to clear the dead weeds from the surface of about half of it. Keep your fingers crossed for 'gras please. 

Remarkably, some of the wild flower and anemone seeds I'd planted were still throwing out flowers right up to the end of November. It's extraordinary how mild it's been - there is even the occasional bee, looking bewildered and even more bumbling than usual. 

And that's me done there for the year. I'm trying not to fret about having to leave the plot for so long and, no doubt, after the op, I'll be too busy recovering to worry about it. But I shall miss this place, nonetheless. It has given me such pleasure and solace over lockdown. A place to breathe properly, to get some peace and space. It'll still be there, waiting for me, when I can get to it though. Bindweed and all. 

My week in ... Smell

December has landed with a squelch today with the rain falling steadily since the early hours and showing no sign of letting up. I made my final dash for some Christmas shopping during my lunchbreak and came back with an additional pile of books to see me through to January. Possibly even February, who knows.

It does mean that a corner of my bedroom now smells like an old bookshop, which frankly, if it was sold in a cologne, I'd buy.

And with that so-neat-you-nearly-didn't-see-it segue, here is my week of smells...

 A booze-laden Christmas cake, made by my Mum. Covered with a decent coating of marzipan and a layer of icing so thick, it makes your gums tingle. The smell of the fruit, the brandy and the almonds is almost too good to resist (in fact, it hasn't been resisted...)

Scented candles from my son's new start up. I'm burning Mocha in the bedroom, Toffee Apple in the bathroom and Roast Pumpkin in the living room. They smell amazing all the way down to the bottom. 

New pyjamas, freshly washed and folded away with bits of lavender between them. I go for surgery on the 22nd December and want decent, cosy pyjamas to while away my January from the bed as I recover. 

Mabel's fur after she'd been out on a cold and frosty morning. I am slightly obsessed. 

Leaf mould, moss and turned earth at the allotment. I'm in full on rush mode as I try to get everything done before I have to self-isolate. 

That wonderful fresh fruit and veg smell from a nearby farmshop. I love it there and this was probably my last visit before I have to self-isolate. It smells so much better than supermarkets with their pumped in "fresh" bread smell. 

Basil, chopped and scattered into the tomato sauce on my homemade pizza. A blast of summer to the nose. 

October at the Allotment

To paraphrase Snoopy and his novel's opening line, it was a dark and stormy October. Well, not all of it was, but a great deal of it and conversations at home went something like this. 

"I'm off to the allotment."

"Really? I'm sure it's going to rain."

"Nah, my weather app says it's good. See you later."

...

30 minutes and heavens opening later

...

"You're back then. Enjoy the allotment?"

"Shut up." exit stage left, squelching, to change clothes. 

I did manage to harvest the 3 Kabocha squash that had survived (all my pretty little patty pans had rotted) and they are now safe in the utility room awaiting their fate as risotto, soup, cake, stew and fritters. They are a gloriously grumpy shade of green, the sort of green that's resentful of the other brighter greens around it, with bumpy tough skins. Inside, the flesh is a glorious orange, the middle chock full of seeds that I've carefully rinsed and saved. There's one roasting in the oven behind me right now, getting ready for a monster risotto-making session. 

Would you look at the size of this absolute unit?

Not the biggest squash I've seen but one I can at least eat, rather than turn into a small house. 

The brassica cage took a battering on more than one occasion. Each time I went up it needed the netting securing or the canes replacing/refirming. It is not, and the constructor of it (not me) acknowledges this, the best brassica cage in the world, far too flimsy and complicated, but it has done a fine job of keeping the butterflies off. There is at least one baby cabbage snug in it's nest of leaves. I have 12 more seedlings at home that are hardening off. As soon as a decent cage is constructed, they can go up. A bit late but may as well see what they can do. 

My folks came over and helped us with the fallen tree clearance. 2 of the 3 elders at the canal bank end of the plot had come down some time ago but the tree surgeon the council employ had proved to be mythical, so my Dad brought his chainsaw and we set to work, spurred on by the thought of the coffee and bacon sandwiches in the rucksacks. 

Inside the Kabocha. Would ya look at that orange!

The 3rd elder is still standing but minus all bar 2 of it's branches. Elder are a bit unstable frankly and as 2 had gone, I'd decided to rid myself of the 3rd while a man with the right bit of kit was there. Unfortunately the man without the right bit of kit kicked up an almighty fuss about the destruction of a "perfectly good tree" and a proper domestic ensued. Ended when I capped my argument with "mo' digging, mo' opinions". 

Essentially, do some more work up here and you get to dictate what happens. 

My folks, doing what they do best and have been doing for years. 

Quite took me back to my childhood. 

All that aside, there is now a large pile of elder logs forming an excellent habitat for bugs and hedgehogs over the winter. Bonfires are still banned on the plots, so it'll be staying there for quite a while. To be honest, there is so much bug life on the plot that it won't take long for the greater part of it to rot down, as I've seen with The Pile, made up from the barrow-fuls of grass and weeds that I'd put in a heap at the bottom. Once about 4 foot tall it has, within the space of a few months, settled down to just under half of the original size. 

This month I'll be putting up stage one of the fruit cage and planting in some rhubarb as well as the rest of the brassicas. 

I'm so grateful for this space, even in the dark days of late autumn. Just to have somewhere to sit and be is a huge benefit. And it has come back to me that planting is an act of hope. Every time you drop a seed or a plant into the ground, you're hoping that the conditions will be right, the world will not have ended and the seasonal cycle will once more bring you back round to pumpkin time.