A Perfect Equinox

On this fine 1st of October morning, I am tucked up in the spare bed in the Retreat (aka my office), under the duvet with coffee fragrancing the room and a stomach that's gently rumbling in anticipation of brunch. This is where I go when I wake at 6am, my brain won't let me sleep any longer and I don't want to keep N awake with my own awakeness. I'm comfortable and warm. 

I am also 7 days married, the wedding ring light and glinting on my hand. 

Yes, 12 months of planning that included, roughly: 90 sunflower seedlings sown, 144 squares of bunting sewn, 120 invites, at least 3 lively debates about the benefits of eloping (me) versus staying here and catering for gannets (him), one dress meltdown and a tablecloth near-emergency. But the day was bright and clear and autumnal. Just as we'd wanted. 

The whole thing was just as we'd hoped and neither of us stopped smiling or laughing the Whole Day, which was perfect (although it's taken a week for the muscles in our faces to stop aching). Everyone we loved, liked or tolerated for the sake of each other were there. The ceremony was simple but perfect. I got a fit of the giggles at the sight of this man I've known for 20 years standing there being very solemn and serious. 

Friends currently on sticks (unrelated accidents) formed an arch that we charged through after the vows. The green shot silk of my dress and his tie shimmered in the sun. The bride and groom, bridesmaids and anyone else sensible enough to take our advice, wore trainers. 

The day before we'd spent hours decorating the venue with sunflowers, seed heads, berries, rosemary, ivy and grasses spilling out of the vintage vases. Around them I'd scattered dried lavender heads, gourds and pinecones. What I'd hoped for - a feeling of harvest, of abundance - translated nicely into reality without any need for fiddly bits of wire or complicated oasis bases. Just keep stuffing those jugs till they'll take no more. 

On the welcome table, mossy twigs, ivy, hawthorn, oak, rosehips, blackberries, conkers and thistles spread along the gauzy surface with its brown paper and string wrapped coleus. We invited people to leave a message and take a seed packed. Wildflower seeds we'd gathered from the allotment. 

We'd got bottles of bubbles, sketch books and pencils for the children who'd been dragged along. We were left some lovely, from the heart, drawings. And some more risque ones from the adults as we got further along into the night. I don't feel you need to see those. Let's just say, I'm glad we didn't put disposable cameras out. 

The food was, according to all who spoke of it, delicious. I managed a side plate, quickly grabbed under the insistent gaze of my Friend from the North. N was similarly frogmarched in the buffet table direction. Later we danced to Divine Comedy's Perfect Love Song, a stumbling shambling dance that we should probably have rehearsed more but we were too busy grinning to care what people thought of our moves. 

At 9pm, we had the additional treat of a firework display courtesy of the wedding taking place in the hall behind us. All the benefit, as it banged and zipped over the lake and trees, oohs and aahs coming naturally, none of the expense. 

When the last taxi door had slammed behind the last guest, we thanked the bar staff (who'd been kept busy ALL night) and headed across the fields for our bed in the hall. Obviously, we had no torch. Equally obviously, there was no light of the moon as it was a new moon. There may have been a detour through a field of nettles and an encounter with a gate that would not open no matter how much I pulled it. Luckily N pushed it just as I was about to hitch up skirts to climb over, and it opened just fine. 

I'm reading and rereading this, feeling that my retelling is perhaps a little sparse? In truth, it's because I'm still too full of it. Too full of the magnitude and the happiness of it. Neither of us stopped spinning that day and, although we've had to return to work pretty sharpish, that feeling of spinning hasn't gone away. When I look back, I remember nothing but laughter. Shapes being thrown on the dance floor by friends. A lot of beer. Joy. 

Two Go To An Island

Oh Lindisfarne, you are so beautiful and strange. Driving over the causeway, a mild frisson of fear that maybe you've got the tide timings wrong, and the sea is going to come rushing at you as you get halfway, is always something special. The vast flat expanse winks with shallow saltwater pools as you cross. One day, I've promised myself, I'll do it by foot to get a real idea of what it would have been like, back in the 7th Century, to undertake that crossing. A leap of faith that even I, a faithless person, can appreciate the magnitude of. 

Whizzing across on tarmac just doesn't contain the same profundity. 

And once across, everywhere you look, that shimmering North Sea surrounding you, the air full of gull cries and oozing seaweed smells. Boats lean drunkenly into the sands, lobster pots sink into each other with resignation. Years ago, when I first came here, there was a sandwich shack selling fresh crab sandwiches. I couldn't see one this time around. 

There was also that strange glitter in the eye of residents, a twitch to the professional smile, that indicated they were, at the end of this long summer, coming to the end of their patience. It's a look I recognise. It's a look I once had. It states very clearly, to those in the know, that the person before you has dealt with approximately eleventy-billion people asking the same damn silly question about the tide/Vikings/whereabouts of ice cream/Lindisfarne Gospels/insert own tic-inducing question. 

Like a parent of small children, they will have been repeating the same information/issuing the same demand (do not feed the dog pickled onions! Yes, you have to get across before the sea starts coming in! Do not put your sister's fingers in the electric socket! No, you cannot eat ice cream in the museum!) since time immemorial (or, generally, since around March when the weather starts to get a bit nice and people think they'll start taking trips again) and they are oh-so-tired. 

To wit: the exchange I overheard in the Lindisfarne Gospels shop and experience entrance, where we'd gone looking for a bit of Viking history on the island - everywhere else having been a bit light and sniffy on the subject. 

"So, these are the real Lindisfarne Gospels in here?" asked a very English woman (no, not me) as she clutched her battered debit card (a day on this island is an expensive day) to her quaking bosom. Bravely asked, I thought, having recognised the glaze and twitch of the stout woman behind the counter and also having clocked the sign outside that said 'replicas'. There is an intake of breath and, as one, the entirety of the population in that space, including me, leaned forward for the answer...

"NOOOOOAH!" Came the roar of a woman asked that question just once too often in a 24 hour period. "Those are in London [she all but spat the word]! These are REPLICAS, like it says on the sign! But you can see allll on 'em pages 'ere. You can't in LONDON!"

At which point, I quietly put down the postcards and headed outside so I could laugh without having a replica holy book thrown at my head, so I missed finding out whether the customer paid up and went in anyway. I suspect she did. It's what the English do. 

And where was N? Leaning on a wall outside, eyes closed and wishing he was in a pub after having suffered through the castle and then the priory. To be fair, he enjoyed both but his stamina for old buildings and epic vistas is not quite as well trained as mine. I'm working on it. By the time we get back from Bruges later this year, he will also be able to show unlimited enthusiasm for flying buttresses and an unflagging determination to see one more gargoyle/Medieval masons mark. Or I'll have completely broken him and he'll refuse to go anywhere with me ever again, preferring to whimper quietly on his own at home, rocking gently back and forth, whispering "please don't tell me again why the Dark Ages is a misnomer". I'd say we're at the 50/50 possibility mark of him going either way at the moment. 

ANYWAY, back to Lindisfarne. The castle is a stunning piece of architecture and has been nicely done up by the National Trust who've employed their now-standard method of interpretation, printing bits of letters and diaries on to unlikely places. Here, their focus is on the early 20th Century and the members of the Bloomsbury Group who came here, particularly Lytton Strachey, who could be a bitchy little number when he wanted. I always wonder why people invited him anywhere. But there he is, snarking all over a tablecloth or a coat, wittily snarking no doubt, but snark nonetheless. He'd not have got to pudding stage at my house, much less been allowed to stay for weeks as he did here. 

But it is charmingly done, and we enjoyed it, although we (I) lamented the lack of information about residents and owners pre-1800 about from one timeline. We also enjoyed the sight of the staff running around like startled chickens when the fire alarm went off. The newest and youngest member of staff, poor lad, repeatedly asking his walkie-talkie "is this a fire alarm?" as if it were some sort of Delphic oracle. As both N and I have health and safety training under our belts and were the nearest responsible adult to him, we informed him that, yes it was a fire alarm, and his procedure right now should be to evacuate people. Yes, even the old lady determinedly doddering off in the wrong direction. 

On second thoughts, maybe never invite us anywhere? We can risk assess a scenario in our sleep. We are the most fun at parties. But at least you'll never be sued over a trip hazard. 

Luckily for all, it was a false alarm caused by someone vaping (what is the matter with these people?) under a smoke detector, and we were able to troop back in after a half-hour wait surrounded by glorious views. Quite the nicest fire alarm evacuation I've ever been involved in. There was much rejoicing when the all-clear was given. 

Then to the Priory, which contained a nice line of simple, hands-on activities (fit the task into the slot) for kids (and me), some nice finds and the most glorious architecture. That's really what you come here for. The sight of those towering arches, the broad sweep of the walls, the expanse of what would have been windows looking out over the sea. You can imagine easily how it would have felt to see these strange ships appear on the horizon, land. Those strange men in their furs, armed with axes that would wink maliciously in the sun, a completely pitiless band of warriors. Would they have been silent, or howling a war cry to the skies as they made their way up the dunes?

I couldn't tell you because there is No Viking History on the island. Despite the Vikings definitely having made history here. It is very strange. I've been told several times that I should go to Yorvik in York for my Viking fix. But I have been there and I have no need to see freshly-graduated students, the ink on their acting degrees still wet, stomping around the entrance asking "do ye be a witch?" in cod-rural accents ever again. 

Regardless, Lindisfarne is eerie and beautiful, strange and glorious all at the same time. I wish I could be there in winter, watching the storms rage around the ruins. One day. Maybe. There are other places to get in touch with my Viking ancestry after all. If I really wanted to.  

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. 

Seed Behaviour

 

 

“ In my defence, I hadn't planned to go to the allotment.”

“That might be a defence, it’s not an explanation.”

“Well, I went to deliver L’s card and present for the baby - 4 weeks late but hey, I brought it big enough - and when I got to what I thought was her address, a bedraggled teenager answered the door and told me she'd moved to number 16. 

"Right, and that has to do with..."

"Wait. So I knocked on number 16 and a clearly stoned woman answered and looked confused for some time before saying 'I'm not Louise?' I told her I didn't think she was and she looked disappointed, so I backed slowly away."

"Keep going,"

"So then I considered standing in the middle of the street and shouting 'Louise!' but thought that might get me arrested and that would ruin your weekend with admin, so I started to walk back."

"Thank you for considering the admin,"

"You're welcome. Anyway, on my way back, I bumped into R's father in law and we got talking about the plot inspections and then we were at the gate of the site but hadn't finished talking, so I followed him in and down to the plot. And J was on his, so I said hello and then figured I'd check for beans and courgettes but there weren't any."

"This is fascinating,"

"I know! Anyway, I noticed that some of the cosmos and calendula had gone over and were scattering seed, so I decided to gather as much as I could except I didn't have any paper bags, only the pockets of my jeans. So that's where I put them."

"Ah-ha."

"Exactly. Only I forgot they were in there until I got my foot stuck in my jeans later and turned them inside out, which is when the seeds fell out and why there are now seeds all over the bedroom floor."

"Gotcha. Going to pick them up?"

"Yeah, in a bit. Don't stand on them."

"You're too kind."

This is the kind of conversation that occurs when N goes away for a few days and then comes back to find seeds on the bedroom floor. I won't repeat the conversation we had when he moved a towel in the airing cupboard and sweet pea seeds fell on him. 

 

Honestly, he acts as though this is strange behaviour. 

 

Getting Back To It

It was with some relief that I returned to work this week. As I'm working from home and it involves sitting at a laptop, this is something I can do without worrying about being asked to lift anything heavy. The heaviest thing I lift is the kettle (filled to the minimum required for a coffee boost). I may still be banned from doing any yoga, digging or anything interesting, but I can still use my brain. 

And my brain is glad that I can because it was getting impatient. I could almost feel it itching with ideas and plans, which is always a good sign I'm recovering. That said, one podcast recording, one meeting and an afternoon of emails completely wiped me out, leaving me yawning and barely able to hold a crochet hook by 7pm. 

I'm so much better that I was even allowed out for a walk all by myself last week. True, I did try leaving the house in my slippers (got 3 paces out of the door and realised what I'd done), the pace is slow and the distance not far, but the joy of being able to get out into the air is not to be underestimated. 

 

And then it snowed! And got very icy! A fear of slipping kept me from going outside again for 3 days - I really do not need to fall over right now. Although, I managed to almost take a tumble in my own home by getting my foot tangled with a phone charger cable, so maybe I just shouldn't be allowed to stand up on my own. Or at least move from my seat without supervision. Sadly N wasn't taken with the idea of being my personal watchdog - "mind out for the wool! There's a pile of books to your left!" - on the grounds that he has a proper job what pays the mortgage. 

He has promised that we'll take a trip up to the allotment at the weekend though, so I can't complain about him. 

So far in lockdown we've had surprisingly few rows. The most recent involved him playing The Idles very loudly while he hoovered and I dealt with laundry upstairs. I loathe that band. I mean, really hate them. They make me want to tear off my ears and beat the lead singer into silence with them. I don't know why, I just do. So I did the only reasonable thing and sat upstairs, seething, until the album ended and I could go back downstairs and tell him to put his damn earphones in.

 

It could be said that he was reasonable in asking why I hadn't mentioned it at the start, instead of waiting until the end, by which time I was in the right frame of mind to throw things (I didn't, credit me with some dignity, if not rationality). But I was not in a mood to be reasonable. At least, not until several hours and a bottle of wine later. 

This morning saw a lovely doorstep visit from my son and his boyfriend. They delivered and received belated Christmas presents, and he received a pile of post he hasn't thought to have redirected. That is something he's going to have to deal with soon as they are moving up to Sunderland at the end of Feb. I am trying to gather the tatters of my rationality around me about this - he's not moving to Australia, the house they're getting has a spare room for visits, he's healthy and happy - but it's a close thing. 

Not helped by my recent afternoon organising all my photos into neat digital files. I tumbled right down memory lane to the time when it was just him and me, and the places we visited, the hills we climbed and the books we shared. Lockdown or no, I will be giving him a hug goodbye before he goes. 

 

In other breaking lockdown news, I took a pair of scissors to my fringe in between meetings on Tuesday and instantly regretted it. Usually I trim mere millimeters off so it rests just below my eyebrows, hiding my massive forehead and enabling me to see, but I'd got fed up with seeing all that hair, so grabbed the blunt kitchen scissors and hacked off a centimetre, without factoring in the spring-back effect. 

Oh dear. Released from the weight of itself, the rest of the fringe has sprung up even further, leaving me looking perpetually surprised and slightly lopsided. I find myself tilting my head to one side in Zoom meetings, trying to disguise it. It'll settle down and grow back again, I know but my eyebrows are seriously traumatised by the sudden exposure and my neck is developing a crick in it. 

Really, it's just a symptom of wanting something to change and I'm craving a bigger chop to my hair all over. I'm thinking to the ears, nothing too drastic (I shaved my head once in the mistaken belief I would look like Winona Ryder with her pixie crop - I very much did not), but enough to rid me of all this hair. I keep picking up scissors and putting them down...N may have to hide them before the week is out. 

My attempts at sourdough have all failed miserably. The starters I started refused to develop, lying sulky under a sour brown liquid and giving off a smell that no mother could love. I do not have much luck with bread making under normal circumstances. My loaves always resemble dwarf bread (see Terry Pratchett for that running gag) and could potentially be classed as weapons if dropped from any height over 2 foot. So I called it a day on that Earth Mother dream and ordered some instead. I will feed back (pun fully intended) if it's any good. 

I did once think I'd be an Earth Mother sort of person: keeping chickens, baking bread, hoard of angelic children being homeschooled around me. Then I discovered that chickens smell (and are quite deranged), I can't bake a bread worth eating and children really get in the way of your reading time. And I don't think clogs are acceptable footwear. Besides, I'm not a one for labels - they always seem too much to live up to. 

All photos from a handful of the museums, galleries, hills and beaches I've visited with the Kid. Yes, I am milking this.

All the Small Things #5

The boyfriend and I have somewhat different sleeping patterns. I am the proverbial up-with-the-lark, waking between 5 and 6 in the morning, brain whirring, eager to see what the day holds, sleepy and muddled by 10pm, longing for my bed. 

He’s the opposite, one of those fabled night owls who would sleep till 11 in the morning, revelling in bed while the world cracks on outside, still wide awake at 1 in the morning, listening to the city’s night sounds. 

This could have caused problems but since the creation of my retreat (aka the spare room), it doesn’t. I creep out of bed, make myself tea, greet the cat and come back up into the retreat to read and gently ease myself into the day. 

At weekends, I treat myself to breakfast in bed, nothing too fancy or messy. Today there’s sourdough bread, honey and cherries from the farm shop, peanut butter (my food addiction and strictly limited so I don’t end up having to be craned out of the house) and a nectarine because it had hit that sweet ripe spot overnight. A copy of Bloom to browse through because recently I’ve lost concentration for books. 

It’s been a tough week for many reasons, so I’m resetting this weekend. No Twitter, no news, limited online time. And lots of good food. 

Middle Way or the High Way?

This year, after 8 years of living on my own, I made the headlong plunge into living with someone again. 8 years since my ex-husband moved out, 9 years since our relationship hit the rails so hard, I wasn't sure any of us would come out alive. 

It has been a strange 8 years by any stretch and come with the proviso that the Kid has lived with me 99% of that time. There is a big difference, however, between living with your lover and living with your child. The first and foremost being that you can, to a certain extent, dictate the rules to your kid, but it's not really on to try it with someone who's supposed to be your peer. 

And I should say right here and now that the Kid is now 21 and living at home while they save for a house. It's like having a flatmate but one who looks uncannily like you and who knows where all the emotional blackmail buttons are hidden...

So there I've been, mindlessly minding my own business and getting on with the job of living in a way I want to. Leaving clothes where they fell, changing the bedding as often as I wanted (once a week, whaddaya think I am?), sitting up in bed reading till midday, making only toast for meals. I have wandered where I want and with whom I want. 

I have filled the shelves with my own books and found things; the freezer with the foods I love; my days with the things I want to do. Slept in the middle of the bed. Had a bath as often as I damn well pleased. Smoked, not smoked, smoked again. Realised that living in a village surrounded by mud and oomska for 8 months of the year when I hate mud and oomksa (both of which are very different to gardening dust and soil) is no good thing for any sanity. Realised that living in a village where the light is gone by 4pm in November and the nights are so slow-black sloe-black that you could scream Milky-Woody-rhyming-couplets at the top of your lungs and no one would hear.

Left the country for the town, left the town for the city. Changed jobs, changed houses, hung the pictures on the walls I wanted. 

Dealt with grief and joy in equal measure. Sat with the feelings, absorbed and examined them, kept some for my mental backpack, lost others along the way. Turned vegan, turned back, went halfway there again. Took up meditation, fell asleep, took down meditation. Dealt with health issues, new births, old deaths. Ditched the TV. Read over 100 books in 12 months just because I could. Took up yoga and surprised myself. Surprised my family. 

Listened to Radio 4 and eddikated myself. Listened to 6 Music and discovered new bands. Went to gigs for the first time in decades. Saw films I would never have seen, discovered a love of the hokey horror and stilted speech of the old Hammer Horrors, Godzillas and King Kongs

Wore the clothes I wanted with no one around to ask "does my bum look big in this" or to put their head on one side and say "are you going out in that?" Lost 4 stone. YES you read that right - 4 stone: the slow drip of pounds coming off and back on and permanently back off again has punctuated the days of these 8 years. 

I have pupated. Shed the chrysalis of my old self. My wings are battered but they carried me and the Kid through the world with a strength no one knew I had till it was tested. I am me with a carapace, with balls on, with an armoury of self-resilience. I can deal with my own spiders (with much squealing, eyes shut and a need for a hefty drink afterwards) and empty my own bins. 

So pity the poor man, especially one who had imagined himself living blissfully, serenely, peacefully alone for the rest of his days, coming head to head with me over where plants should be planted or pictures hung. Do we build the chest of drawers now or next week or when the heatwave/my temper breaks? How many times has that dishwasher been on today? Have you used fabric conditioner in the laundry? Why do you have the bath water so hot? Does this meal have meat in it? Why do you do everything so quickly? Why are those pictures crooked? Do you really need to keep that? How many copies of The Crow Road do you have? How many pairs of trainers do you need? Are you really only using half of the wardrobe space?

I work fast, in order to get things done and out of the way, thereby giving myself more all-important lying-down-and-reading time. He does things carefully, with meticulous planning and measuring, and with exquisitely painful slowness. As he takes measurements, I hop from one foot to the other, whining about how it's fine, hurry up, yes of course it's straight. 

As I fling paint, plants and pictures around with merry abandon, I feel him wince. Heard him say with more dismay than admiration, "god you're quick" as I rollered a triple length of wall within the same space of time he'd taken to do one. "Did you mean to get that much paint on you? Can you actually see out of your glasses now?"*

Surely, he suggests, as he gazes ruefully at the positioning of a plant he'd had his eye on for the back garden, now firmly set in the front, surely there is some middle ground. 

Middle ground. The OED defines this as "an intermediate position or area of compromise or possible agreement between two opposing views or groups." When I look up compromise (purely for the hell of it and because I'm stalling for time because really, really really, I know he's right but I'm not willing to let this go quite so easily), I read that "the secret of a happy marriage is compromise" but also that compromise means"the expedient acceptance of standards that are lower than is desirable."

Aha! I cry. Accepting standards that are lower than is desirable! And then I realise that he's not listening, he's looking at the crooked pictures again. 

Bugger.

*not really, was the answer. It was like looking through a yellow mist. Yes, our living room walls are yellow - it's like living in a bowl of custard and I love it.