My Week in...Sounds

Laura Marling on the car stereo. Oh, but she just keeps getting better! I've been listening to her albums in sequence and you can chart her growth and ability throughout the tracks. Just wonderful, thoughtful, unpretentious music. 

My parents laughing over a distanced dinner as we saw each other for the last time this year. 

The sound of my work key turning in the lock for the last time this year. 

The ding-dong of the doorbell as the blessed delivery man brought unto me my replacement phone. See also the happiest of noises the phone makes when I turn it on and end my unplanned digital detox. 

The pingpingping of said phone, reactivated with my sim, bringing up a host of notifications. WhatsApp, in particular, was on fire the week I was without, as our quiz group made arrangements for our festive Murder Mystery evening. 

The sound of the knife cutting through fresh stems of coriander as I make myself a soup for home-based lunches this week, accompanied by the release of that lovely fresh smell. 

The little "stamp" of Mabel's feet on the grass outside as she tries to catch something invisible amongst the blades. She rears up like an arctic fox and then STAMP go her tiny front paws. At least 5 times a night, without fail. And without fail it makes me laugh. 

My grumpy Matroyshka are reluctant to concede to the festive

spirit but they have allowed a string of tiny lights along their section

of the bookcase...

My Week in...Sounds

Am currently working through my bank holiday induced hangover, drinking all the tea and wishing I was still in bed. Actually, I may haul this laptop upstairs shortly and work from that very location. God, I love working from home. 

For now, the last week in 7 sounds:

Mabel's (aka May-boo, the Squeaks, Obbly-bobbly and Get-Down-From-There) welcoming meow when I come home from work. Always accompanied by a little kitten skip of joy. 

Live music at a beautiful location.

The decorator at work singing as he goes (the museum reopens in 8 days - I'm just hoping his singing powers his painting arm). 

The new Fontaines D.C. album. Also, the Idles. Less enamoured of that, to be honest. 

My friend's laughter recounting her stay at a truly terrible B&B in Portishead..."and we have Al-pen" (you had to be there). 

The wind rustling the trees at the allotment. Also, the sound of very ripe damsons plopping on the ground. Followed by the sight of the storms rapidly moving in my direction. 

The sound of shovel cutting through earth as the Boyfriend digs in the frankly greedy number of plants we brought last week. 

When this is all over

I'm finding that life at the moment is made immeasurably better by thinking about what I'll do when things get back to normal.  Nothing too big, nothing silly, just something positive to look forward to. What are you planning to do when life returns to normal? Or our own personal versions of normal!

I'm planning...

A big long walk in the countryside

A trip to Ikea to buy lampshades. We've owned this house for nearly a year, we need some damn lampshades. No, I don't want to order online, I want to browse and eat meatballs.

Painting "my" room. I need paint. Paint is not being delivered. This will have to wait till we're all out and about again

A visit to a garden centre AND a farm shop. Truly, these are wild and crazy plans

Planning our holiday next year: Paris to Bordeaux where a friend of ours lives. Can.Not.Wait

Those are my feet, as I contemplated possible wall colours. 

Tray of seedlings on top of the wardrobe... 

Good things this week? Both Ed O'Brien and Laura Marling have released albums of thoughtfulness and grace. The Hive online bookshop has both supplied me with books I'd like to read and donated a percentage to the local(ish) independent bookshop of my choice. I managed to score some rhubarb for a crumble and some asparagus for a pasta with goats cheese. The boyfriend had a fit of unaccustomed energy and defrosted the freezer. I now have a hose long enough to water the entire allotment without the need for trudging to the tap and back with a medium sized watering can. There are seedlings everywhere. 

As the Day Flies

 Whitby Abbey - strong Goth game that day

Blimey, didn't September go fast? Likewise, as we're in the 3rd week of it, October is going much the same way. I used to think my parents were lying when they said that time moved faster when you were a grown up. As I watched summer days and wet Sundays crawl past at the speed of a snail on weed, I could only assume they were mad or lying. How could time go faster when every minute of the torturous game of Monopoly I was playing with my younger sister, because there was nothing else to do, was lasting an hour?

Mind you, Monopoly will do that to a person.

 

All the stone colours and a suspicious gathering of The Birds

But now I know what they mean. Whole weekends wink by, weeks barely have chance to nod in my direction and months wave as they scoot past, scurrying towards the end of the year. This is particularly frustrating this month as October is my favourite month of the year: the leaves are turning and falling, conkers shine from the undergrowth, pumpkins and squash are plentiful, and the air fills with woodsmoke, damp and general bosk. It's always a race for time for me to get out for a decent, long walk in this month but I suspect I'm not going to make it this year.  

  In past years, the Dog and I would be walking autumn every day, early in the morning when crows were still sleepy with their caws, the mist hung around the ground like an embarrassed teenager and the dew soaked our feet. Since he died and I couldn't face the pain of replacing him, it has required thought and planning to take myself out. This year, I have the allotment to force me.

 

My quest for weird graves and memorials 

continues - this couple had 12 - TWELVE - 

children and died on the same day as each other.   

  

We'd planted some baby plants, cabbages and the like, a few weeks ago and went back, after a particularly wet week, to find that slugs had done their work. Bastard things. Until I can find a tame hedgehog, or we build a wildlife pond and transport some frogspawn, then train the resulting frogs to eat all the slugs, we are cursed with the wretched things. The slow worms we found hiding out under the membrane don't seem to be doing much to help - have they started hibernation yet? Regardless, an actual encounter with slow worms is a rare treat: they are beautifully marked and a sign that we're managing to maintain a balance on the site, despite one plot holder's advice to "jes' put down loads o' weeeed killerrrr". No.

Anyway, a return visit today showed that the slugs hadn't eaten every single leaf, so I've left them, more in hope than experience, to fend for themselves and instead busied myself weeding, planting out onion bulbs and looking around.

The giant elder that borders our plot and the one next door has shed its leaves, revealing a silvery, crumply trunk and the faintest hints (if you squint) of mistletoe on the top branches. The brambles have also shed their leaves, although a few blackberries cling on - not even the mice want them at this time of year. The trees and undergrowth that line the canalside of the allotment are still in dense with foliage: it will be interesting to see what winter reveals when it really bites and we finally get to see the bones of the site.

The squash and the sweet potatoes have lost the will to live and mouldered away. Only the chard seems to be thriving. Thank god for the chard. Our neighbours on the left and left again have been served "non-cultivation" notices on their plots and, if it weren't for that, I suspect we would have been too.


Although 3 beds have now been uncovered and worked over, it's slow business taking over a site that had been effectively abandoned for 2 years: the sheer amount of work in clearing a space to grow anything in is overwhelming at times, not to mention our own ignorance of how to work it. But I paid close attention to advice received at the beginning of our tenancy: work a small bit at a time, don't try to do it all at one. Our left-hand neighbour didn't, rotavated the entire plot at the beginning of summer and then hasn't been near it since, except to stare in horror at the weeds that had multiplied in his month's absence.

On the left of him, they'd spent an industrious weekend clearing and burning scrub before disappearing off to Glastonbury for the weekend, returning to much the same scene of weed-takeover and despair. Allotments are hard work and it's easy to feel overwhelmed when you try to tackle the whole plot at once. So I don't: little and as often as I can fit in. Hopefully I'll be up there again before my op on Monday afternoon.

But it was good to be up there today: the air smelt of earth, rotting leaves and woodsmoke, the sounds of the city move further away and you become aware of a settling of the soul. The ache in your arms from hoeing is more real than any looming work problem and perspective on life is gained. If only vegetables were as well. But the chard is good, especially when cooked like this:

• Shred finely and stir fry till beginning to crisp in sesame oil
• Add sesame seeds, a little garlic/ginger/chilli/whatever you fancy
• Squeeze in some lime juice and a small drop of fish sauce
• Add cooked egg noodles and continue to stir fry until chard is crisp and your mouth is watering
• Serve with soy or chilli sauce, coriander and, if feeling particularly greedy/in need of a cultural mash-up, some toasted sourdough. 

 

Gruff Rhys and Boy Azooga making our Saturday worth a train trip for: there was applause. 

There was dancing. There were monumental hangovers the next day...

 

Life hasn't been all work and delayed allotmentearing though: we managed to fit in a quick break to North Yorkshire where I finally got to fulfill a long-held dream and visit Whitby. We climbed the steps like Mina and Lucy (minus the nightgowns, it was far too chilly for that malarkey), sat on the bench overlooking the town and explored the abbey, swooping around with imaginary cloaks of darkness. Well, I did, especially when the starlings swirled in mini-murmurations overhead. 

There have been catchings-up with friends, some of whom are moving on to career pastures new; gigs in areas of Birmingham I've never explored before, nights of scrabble, games of pool and family gatherings. My walks to work along the canal have taken a misty-foggy turn where the leaves hang damp and sullen, and the sky is low around the ears.

There has also been the arrival of 2 cats into our lives, Thor and Loki, from the local rescue centre. They are big beautiful boys and, after 4 weeks, have the Boyfriend wrapped around their (rather large - Loki's in particular) paws. It's rather endearing. This is the place to come if you ever want to see a grown man spend an inordinate amount of money on a "cat tower with crawl spaces and specially designed scratching posts". Which they are absolutely going to ignore in favour of the sofa/antique trunk/carpet. Because, cats.

There has to be a beginning

In this case, a slightly delayed one as the post I tried posting twice over the weekend did most emphatically not want to and it was too hot to make it behave like a blog and not a recalitrant teenager.

So here we are. This is not my first time blogging. I ran one for years that closed simply because the weight of the situation I was living in felt like it was too much to allow me to write freely. We will see if this new situation does.

But I am tired, oh so tired, of how social media is so damn polarised. Micro-blogging isn't satisfying and Twitter threads are annoying. Also, it's getting harder and harder to find the good news in anything or the reasoned voice or the nuanced debate. It's all shouting and no platforming and seeing how controversial you can be just for the sheer "likes" of it. 

I don't likes it. If I want ranting and irrational screaming into the void, I'll stop taking my hormones and wait for the fact no one ever puts a glass in the fucking dishwasher to become overwhelming. As my boyfriend would say, hold my pint. 

So this blog is very firmly about the good and real and positive in the world, because I am in a place where good and positive things are happening (glasses/dishwashers aside), so I want to share it. My mental and physical health are better than they've ever been, just in time for the menopause, and I have the best walk into work ever.

 

  
We goes along the canal which is mostly calm and peaceful. The houseboats are starting to line the bank: collie dogs and terriers jump off as they moor and start chasing each other, there is a smell of bacon frying and the gentle sounds of a couple rowing over who did the most work at the locks..."If you can't cope now Sandra, how will you manage when we get to Birmingham?"

In the picture above, behind the row of trees, is my allotment. Waited 2 years for that to become available and then started the moving house process pretty much as soon as the paperwork was signed. Safe to say, not much has been done there yet bar sticking some membrane over the beds and strimming the wild patch.

But it is my long-awaited allotment on which I will grow raspberries and small fruit trees and flowers and you know, stuff. Plus, it's a 5 minute walk from the new house and is right next to the nature reserve as well as the canal. The reserve is rather splendid with orchids, foxes and badgers, slow worms and butterflies. There was a homeless man camping there for a little while but he seems to have gone now. I hope he has a house of his own too.


Then we go past the bus depot wall which has a pleasingly rusty, weather-worn surface. Eaten away by time and oxidisation (now isn't that a good word to say?), it's exactly the sort of wall that the Smiths would have posed in front of for an album cover before Morrissey became too, well, Morrissey.

So now, for the final stretch, I have This Charming Man playing in my head, looping the chorus over and over like a stuck piece of vinyl. Until I look up. 

The duck has something important to tell you: "Pause the shouting, settle on down and let the good stuff roll over you." 

At least, I'm sure that's what he would have told you if duck bills were engineered to say things like that. As it was I didn't ask, merely nodded and moved on after the shot, promising that this will be a blog free of nasty things. Let him contemplate all he surveyed while I crossed the bridge and made my way past Asda. Which is unphotogenic and nasty, so I didn't photograph that.


What I am reading this week: Case Histories by Kate Atkinson. There is a new Jackson Brodie book due out soon, so I'm rereading. The woman is juggling so many plots, it's making my head spin (in a good way) and there's nary a wobble in any of them.

What I'm watching: the Women's World Cup. Turns out I don't hate football after all. 

What I'm listening to: The System Only Dreams in Darkness by The National. Earworm courtesy of the Boyfriend. Also watched the Stormzy set at Glastonbury. That was something else. 

What I have been doing: yoga. Specifically a return to a proper class. It kicked my butt, oh me of "I've only got 15 mins, that'll do" home practise.