Adjusting to summer

The absolute blowsy nonsense of peonies. 

Rewatching a favourite film in the oldest cinema in the UK. 

What happens when no mow may gets out of hand (the camera is 2 feet off the ground)

First strawberry joy.

Tiny wee Mabel seeking cool spots. 

Trying to overcome my distaste for summer (so sweaty, so much flesh on display, enforced outdoor activities) and recover some time for blogging. 

I hope you're all well. Does this year feel like a mad rush for you too? So many of us feeling like Alice's White Rabbit. 

But there are peonies and peas growing sturdily and long evenings with wine and birthdays coming up. 

 

Into the August Mix

So far in August, apart from staring glumly into our rapidly emptying water butts and asking each other who's turn it is to cook ("I'm sure it's your turn", "Can't be, I did it last night", "we had sandwiches last night", "yeah but I made them", "that does not count as 'cooking'" and so on until we agree to have sandwiches again), we have enjoyed the simple pleasures of a drought and a looming wedding. 

I have discovered that swimming at my nearest salt-water lido early in the morning is a delicious, if breath-sucking, thing indeed. The birds are still yawning, the trees cast elegant shadows over the pool and lawns. Swimming capped ladies of a certain age, knobbly and soft with life, bob alongside each other, chatting. "I told him, it's no good you saying that Steve will fix the tap, we've seen hide nor hair of him for weeks; he'll only show up again when his latest fancy piece kicks him out." "Ooh, you never said that!" "I did, I'll not put up with idleness."

Afterwards, I reward my fortitude with hot chocolate and a toasted tea cake. Sometimes I go in the evening, a welcoming cool down, but the conversation isn't the same - it's more likely to be that Steve and his fancy piece, plus approximately 5 billion kids and a similar number of teenagers casually trying not to catch each other's eye - and the cafe is closed. 

Trees at the Lido park

Bridesmaids dresses have arrived and are hanging in my wardrobe ahead of the Big Try On. A froth of netting, embroidery and chiffon, with a sprinkling of sequins, in blush pinks and creams. I can't decide if it looks like a cupboard some sinister fairy Bluebeard would have, or as though Tinkerbell sneezed in there. Either way, the nieces will look twirly and special on the day, which is all they're really worried about. I have threatened both nephews with a lovely peach satin page boy outfit, complete with dicky-bow, as spotted (and photographed for future sartorial threatening) but am graciously holding back on that reality. 

N and I have started a new Friday ritual where we go for a walk somewhere lovely and rural. After the other week's epic, uphill, flying ant experience, he picked a woodland walk that was on level ground and didn't take 4 hours. It was pleasant, a woodland I'd not visited before, and cool under the shady trees. Huge dragonflies zoomed around a clearing we stopped in for lunch, and there were dozens of butterflies leading the way along the paths. We're undecided about this week - part of me has given a small sob at the thought of 35 degree heat - and may decide to be sensible and forgo it until the following week when it is a sensible 22 degrees and I can move without melting. 

A walk that didn't make me feel like my lungs were about to fall out. Still nice though. 

There's been a new addition to the family this week. Well, 3 new additions. Earlier in the year, I'd pointed at the shubunkin in the pond and said, "that one looks pregnant," which N had scoffed at until Monday when he spotted 3 very tiny shubunkins flitted between the reeds at the shallow end. Babies! This is very exciting and has resulted in much peering over the edge and trying to spot them again. The other fish are too taken up with clopping at unwary flies on the water's surface to bother them now. 

We've also had our first ever dahlia success. Having been handed a bag on anonymous tubers and the vague instruction to "plant them in the spring", we weren't really sure what we'd get. Was it even a dahlia? I'm pleased to say that it was and that they are beautiful. Tiny wee firecrackers of colour, just as the nemesia are giving up the ghost. I can't go out and photograph them for you right now as I'd burst into flames. 

The Kid started a new job this week. After 4 years working in care, looking after adults with physical and mental disabilities, before, during and after the pandemic, dealing with an increase in aggressive behaviours during the lockdowns, struggling on the minimum wage. Excuse me a small amount of anger, but all that clapping resulted in absolutely zero in terms of better wages or better working conditions (fancy a 12 hour awake-all-night shift followed by a 3 hour 'essential' team meeting anyone?). 

All the most intriguing paths were strictly non-humans only

Anyway, he now has a job at the lovely Pitt Rivers museum in Oxford, long one of our absolutely favourite places. When I asked him how it was going, he said, in a tone of great wonder, "I can walk into the research room any time I like". Which pretty much sounds like the dream to me. 

We have a trip to the sea coming up shortly. Not having seen our friends in the north for nearly a year, catch up is overdue. After my quick solo break in May, I made a resolution that we would get away more and remember to tell N about it as my finger pressed "BOOK" on the next break. We're going to see Lindisfarne, Bamborough and Alnwick, because he's seen none of them (he hasn't lived!) and then we're having a massive gathering of the clans, plus quiz, food and cake. I Can. Not. Wait. 

Today I did something I've never done before...I complained about a school. Bear with me. I'd been thinking about it for the past 2 weeks, but shied away as I'm not, by nature, a teller of tales or caster of stones. However, after the 4th incident of finding the grammar school were using a sprinkler on their goddamn CRICKET field, I properly lost my temper and did it before I could calm down again. I was, I think, calm and polite, yet unequivocal in how that's really Not On. So there. I am now one of Those People, who write do-gooding complaint letters and twitch their net curtains and write down reg numbers...actually, I draw the line at the last unless a Proper Crime has been committed, however badly the woman at No 1 chooses to park. 

The canal at 7am. Gorgeous and shady. 

So I am a snitch but we are hours away from an official drought announcement and subsequent hosepipe bans. Some places are without water already. The allotment ground has cracks in it wide enough for a finger to fit in. We slop grey water from the house to the garden. Everywhere is tinder-dry. Whole crops have been lost and farmers are caught between a drought and a Brexit. Now is not the time to be scattering water like so much privileged confetti. 

And if they can just wait till Monday, there shall be rain enough to green their pitch. 

This morning I harvested a lot of wildflower seed heads from the allotment, so I can spend this afternoon decanting the seeds into tiny envelopes for our wedding guests. Some people pick sugared almonds (although why? Those things are harder than the science questions on University Challenge with Jeremy Paxman yelling "Come ON!" after 2 seconds); at my cousin's we all got little Burts Bees lip salves and hand creams, which was sweet. I like the idea of wildflower seeds though, and even if all they do is throw them away (as happens so many wedding favours), the seeds will still find a way. So if you'll excuse me, I need to get my shaking hand on. 

Have a splendid weekend, everyone. Hold on in there, rain's a-comin'. 

PS, I'm trying not to bombard you all with too much wedding talk, but it has to be said, the damn things take up a lot of time and attention. Tell me if you're bored and would prefer my hot take on the Tory leadership race. Although no one really needs that. 

A Returning

 Last Tuesday I declared to N that I was feeling restless, missing the big long walks I used to be able to do before the arrival of grinding arthritis in my feet. I felt that the steroid injection had done its job so well, that it was possible to tackle my first one in 4 years. And where I wanted to go was a bit of a trip down memory lane. 

You see, I used to live at the foot of this hill. In my dog days, I would walk with him to the very top on a regular basis. We saunter up past the standing stones, up along the crumply fields with their intriguing hummocks and folds, along through the copse full of twisted trees that soared over our heads, and out into the wide open space. 

This place. 

It has air. Big skies. A curiously shaped stone. A tiny whimsical tower. It has the curves and falls of its Iron Age fort. It has my heart. In a way I cannot define, I belong to this place and I’d dreamed these last 4 years of being back up there. 

The old dog is gone now but I still packed an extra sandwich, an extra bottle of water, like I used to do. And we walked and walked, slowly. Not saying much, focusing on each step. Drawing the thick summer air into our lungs. Feeling muscles sit up and say “I remember this”.  

At the top, we sat and drank it all in. Had the place entirely to ourselves - crowds get drawn to the Cotswolds, the Malverns. This is ours. I let myself feel the sheer joy of being back up here after so long, after thinking I’d never get to see it again. There were a few discreet tears of sheer bloody joy. Relief. Thankfulness. 

Buzzards wheel and scream freely up here. The wind tugs at your hair. Memories wave from the corner of my eye. Turn my head too quickly and they shyly hide again. The clouds tumble over themselves in the sky, chasing their own shadows on the ground. 

We walk the perimeter and I can feel the ghosts of the tribes that called this place home jostle beside me. They chatter and laugh, argue and fuss. They cook and craft, look after the beasts they’ve brought in with them for protection. Until one bloody day when their fortress falls. Skeletons have been found in the ditches. Broken weapons. This place holds them and me. 

And then we leave. I look back as much as I look forward. Tired and dusty back at the car. T shirts sticking to our backs, water bottles empty. Feet firmly back on the ground. 

Invisible Sharks

The other day I lowered myself into the pool for one of my weekly swims, ready to enjoy the warm water, the solitude, the movement without pain from my feet etc etc, when I realised realised that most of the pool lights were switched off. No one else was around and it was quite dark in there. This was a little eerie, to say the least but it takes more than eerie to put me off, so undaunted (nothing gets between me and my swim...apart from my own laziness), I took another step down the ladder and...

froze. Literally. 

Something awful had happened. Something catastrophic. Something that caused me to inch my way into the water muttering out loud, "Holy Mary Mother of God, Jesus and all his blessed Saints" like Mrs. Doyle falling down the stairs (yep, I'm working that 2% Irish DNA in my system until I get a damn passport). A scene which, by the way, is completely overshadowed by the "So you're a racist now Father" spiel from the same episode* - also brilliant but not the comic masterpiece of a middle-aged Irish housekeeper falling down a flight of stairs while reciting the above. 

I digress. 

Anyway, what had brought this on, you ask? Well, the water was FREEZING. Like a good 10 degrees colder than it had been yesterday and there'd been no warning from the girl on reception, no cheery "brace yourself!" as I walked past her. It was like stepping down into the North Sea in February.

So what to do? Get out or stay in? Get out, get warm, get to work early? Stay in, stay with the schedule, stay active?

Reader, chump that I am, I stayed in. 

I stayed and I swam the hell out of that pool. Desperate not to turn blue, catch pneumonia or go to work early, I stayed in that water and I swam. Cut my usual 14 strokes per length (it's a small pool okay?) down to 10 and swam like it was the only way to ever be warm again. I swam that mother-fucking pool and felt like a champ. 

Until I paused (for breath) and looked back. 

The only person in there was me. The lack of light made the water looked a darker blue than usual. It also looked a bit choppy because of aforementioned activity. It was still cold and far over I could see a weird shape in the water.** It looked like it might be moving, but of course, that was just the movement of the water.

Before I really had time to get my rationality back on track, they were back and populating the pool. The Invisible Sharks. These had been my secret phobia when I was a kid: scared of sharks and convinced that no matter how inland the pool, how chlorinated the water, or how populated with people, there were Invisible Sharks in there and they were looking for small scared kids who splashed too much and didn't swim so good. 

Suddenly I am 6 years old again. 6 years old in a rainbow striped swimsuit. Not a strong swimmer and not confident enough to stand up against the swimming instructor who can't understand why I'm having trouble. At the far end, the bigger kids are diving for black bricks thrown into the water for them to retrieve and I cannot for the life of me imagine why they would willingly do that, what if there are sharks in there? Obviously there aren't because I can't see any but What If They Are Invisible? 

God only knows what I'd been reading to invent invisible, chlorine-loving sharks. I hadn't watched Jaws (and no, I still haven't). I hadn't been taken on holiday anywhere sharks lived. I hadn't got a relative with a nasty shark-related injury. But there they were, all of a sudden, and you could only see them if you stared hard enough at the way the water moved in the pool. 

It took years to forget them.

I became an adult, I swam in shallow waters, sometimes in the sea but mostly in pools. I insisted on being able to see the bottom of whatever it was I was swimming in. I forgot the sharks but they hadn't forgotten me. 

Of course, now I am an adult and Above Such Childish Things so I gave myself, and the sharks, a stern talking to, took a breath and started swimming again. Carefully, so I didn't disturb the water too much. God only knows what I must have looked like, a middle aged woman staring down in the water while head is held resolutely above, fists clenched, making my front crawl very unwieldy as well as incredibly slow. 

5 more lengths and it was time for me to get out and head to work***. The sharks stayed away and I emerged intact and triumphant. Stuck my tongue out at them as I left. The hot water in the shower afterwards has never felt so good. 

 

*Wikipedia link to the episode if your fancy is to have all the humour sucked out of it

**turned out to be a differently coloured tile I'd never noticed before, but still

***I've since swum 4 more times, so I'm completely over this phobia and not at all crazy.  

Notes from the Peculiarosity

It's been a chaotic few weeks here at the Peculiarosity. Hospital stays, ill health, trips away, family and friends, weekends full to bursting and so on. Time for blogging has been limited and then limited further by my own health issues, which have a habit of draining the life and colour from everything. 

But I am feeling better (finally speaking to a doctor who said quite frankly "you must be really pissed off" - YES I AM - helped enormously) and this coincided with the swimming pool I go to on the way to work reopening. Oh bliss. That half an hour swimming in warm water, watching the reflection of the water on the ceiling, no phone for anyone to reach me on...it's one of the most lovely parts of my day. 

And now, Christmas! I love this. Not for the presents (although I can't deny those help) but for the lights, the greenery brought inside, the food and the catching up with family and friends. I like receiving cards. I like the darkening mornings and afternoons. I even like the sound of the rain drumming against the windows...providing it's on a Sunday and I don't have to get up from under my nice warm duvet. 

This year, for the first time in 6 years, I even have a real tree, which we soaked in water for 2 hours before bringing it in, in the hope that'll help it retain the needles. The Christmas Diplodocus (how do you say it? Di-PLOD-ocus or Dip-loh-docus? I prefer the former) is at the top and the Christmas Stegasaurus is in the middle. I have a thing about dinosaurs. 

And now for 3 things that are rather marvellous:

The question of presents has arisen and I may have become a little overexcited when I idly googled "Nightmare Before Christmas" and "Christmas sweaters" and a whole new world of kitschy items featuring my favourite skeleton* appeared on my screen...The boyfriend has been gently steered in the direction of a hoody that I now know I really need for Christmas. 

This great little article on the winter blues and how to deal with them. "I stopped complaining about it getting cold and dark, I stopped dreading the arrival of snow." It's not telling you anything you don't already know, but sometimes you have to see it to know it.  

The Bonington Art Gallery in Nottingham have a great exhibition programme. I'm hoping to get to see this while I'm off work in December. 

Hoping to get back into the swing of blogging again, now mojo for all sorts of activities has returned. Just don't ask me about the allotment...

*Surely everyone has a favourite skeleton?

Moving, if not necessarily, grooving

Just recently, my once daily yoga has taken a hit and, in truth, it's difficult in the new house to find a space to do it in. This is likely to continue as the boyfriend sees things like "putting-stuff-in-attic" as long term projects (don't ask, I've been through this argument from all directions; it's a cul-de-sac), so the little 3rd bedroom is stuffed to bursting and my anticipated yoga space simply isn't there. 

Although I'm back in a structured class setting once a week, it doesn't feel like enough to keep me sane, and booking more than one a week is not something I really want to do as I have an issue with taking orders. Ever wondered what that sotto voce noise is from the back of an exercise class? That's me, muttering through gritted teeth: "you bloody well hold the pose for 4 breaths then."  

I've felt the need to move more since moving. Get the blood flowing and my muscles feeling flexible, not rigid and complaining. Or, not so complaining as they could be. So I have returned to swimming. Loved my birthday swim so much that I took the plunge (I'll get me coat) and signed on several dotted lines to join a local gym with a pool, albeit a small pool. 4 people in there and we're ducking around each other. Luckily, as I go before work, there's usually only one other woman in there who relentlessly swims backstroke accompanied by much splashing. 

And me, head just above water, doing my own, inelegant, version of an extended doggy paddle. Don't care. Love it.

And now, for a round up of good things that have made me happy!

1. A waste-free world in a disused Centre Parks? Best. Conversion. Ever.

2. The rise again of the Doc Marten boot. God, I loved these when I was a teenager and now they do a vegan range, I'm tempted again...

3. Maya Angelou wrote cookbooks? These I need to find. Also, isn't the image accompanying the article just wonderful? Wish I'd been at that dinner party.

4. This inspiring and moving story of Esiah and his seeds.

5. From roadside verge to wildflower meadow, a new scheme in Norfolk. 

6. Absolutely, absolutely gorgeous stained glass art.

7. I don't know what it was, but something about these photos brought a lump to my throat. My Northern roots, I guess. 

8. Some rewilding news from grouse estates in Scotland. About bloody time.  

And yes, I do know what's happening in the news. No, I can't bear it. Yes, I am refusing to talk about it here. No, I won't tell you what to think. Yes, it is all a shit show.  Spread love where you can.

Now We Are 43

So today I reached the grand old age of 43 and how much better is it than 33 or 23? 

IMMEASURABLY BETTER! 

There's no getting away from it, and nor do I want to: I'm enjoying my 40s more than I ever did the previous decades. Becoming more comfortable in my own skin helps. I'm now more likely to think "fuck it" and go for a birthday swim without worrying about what people think about my thighs, backside or upper arms. Nuts to them, I love being in the water and no side glances are going to stop me. 

Plus, my short sightedness means I can't see the side glances. Ageing has many benefits. 

Of course swimming does make a person hungry, so this was my lunch, hoovered up within minutes of getting home...

 Seriously, this was a huge box of broad beans. I spent 40 minutes double podding the feckers. 

What hasn't been smashed has been frozen for emergency, post-swim, post-yoga dinners. 

 

BROAD BEAN SMASH (or, Poor Man's Avocado)

Ingredients:

• Box of broad beans brought from local farm shop for a fiver
• Coriander
• Lime
• Sea salt

 

Look how cute they are when podded! Like little wee kidneys in the palest of greens!

How To:

• Pod the beans and simmer in hot water for 10 mins.
• Drain and leave to cool for 20 mins.
• Sit down with a podcast and double pod those mothers (i.e. remove the grey outer skins). This will take a while and can be fiddly, hence the podcast as a distraction.
• In a large bowl, smash the beans with a fork or masher until mostly smashed.
• Add chopped coriander, lime juice and zest, and sea salt to taste.
• Serve on toasted crusty bread. Add a fried egg if you need more substance to your lunch.
• Revel in the glorious green. Eat. 

 And this is 3/4s of the way through, when I remembered to take a photo. 

Seriously, this tastes damn good and has none of the slimeyness of avocado. 

 Follow with raspberry pancakes because it's your birthday and you damn well will if you want to.

Take a nap.