Of the Before and the After

The Potting Shed by Lore Pemberton. 

On my Christmas wish list, Click on the image to get to her website.

I had planned to pop on here and say something cheerful about winter being nearly here, but it feels like we have crossed that invisible marker here in the Midlands. Winter is already here. The past week has been full of huge downpours, torrents of raindrops that hurled themselves at the windows and roof, drumming percussive music through the week. Whole days have been blackened by rain clouds, battered by winds. Taking the train to Gloucester, I could see the silver glint of flooded fields by Bredon Hill, the hill itself looking dark and already folded into hibernation. Occasionally, a wild sunbeam would break through the cloud, sending down a fierce bright light that made me blink. 

On Monday, my friend came over with her little boy. 10 months old and already staggering around like a wee drunk man, bow legged and hands raised up for the sheer joy of motion and speed and independence. He is a joyful whirlwind, a tiny tyke, a terror of all cats and bearer of childhood nursery germs that I had long lost all immunity to. 24 hours later, whilst hoovering up what I hoped was the last of the rice particles he had liberally blessed the carpet with, I felt an ominous itch in the back of my throat. 

This has been a proper, old fashioned cold, the like of which I haven't experienced since the Kid left primary school. Stuffy of head and nose, full of catarrh, throat like sandpaper, eyes like heavy hot marbles and sleep punctuated by a cough that would scatter the crows. Bravely I have soldiered on through it, meeting grant application deadlines, project end deadlines and meetings that could not, would not be shifted. But now I'm ready to lean into it, give in to it. Lie on the sofa with a cool flannel on my forehead, a soothing drink to hand and someone else to cook. To give credit where due, N has been dying to do this for days, it's only now that I have the capacity to lay down tools and let him. 

Own. Worst. Enemy. 

But I am ready for winter now. For fresh air walks in the morning that leave your cheeks pink and tingling from the nip of a frost. For gentle yoga meditation in a candlelit evening, emerging blissed out into a house that smells of rich stews and baking bread. To take up a craft again, pick up the knitting needles or crochet hook and not care if the end result is any good. For the time to make bread and stews and soups. For woodsmoke, and citrus, and spices. 

Not that I can smell anything right now, and I was about to write "stupid cold".  Which is reflective of how I treat most of my conditions. They are stupid because they get in the way, they stop me from doing the job I loved, they cause me pain. 

But it occurs to me that this is the wrong approach to these things. It lacks grace and understanding. It tries to set the bar to how things used to be when, truth is, it can never be that again. As a friend said last week "it's okay to be angry about them but don't let that anger become all you feel". So, it is time to reach an accommodation, an acceptance of where I am now. To develop an intuitive understanding of what my body is trying to tell me, instead of rushing over it because there are things to be done. To consider a new approach to my body instead of feeling like a failure because it doesn't work like it used to. 

Chronic pain is the worst bedfellow, it sucks as a walking companion, and I've raged bitter war against it, but maybe, this Winter, I can take the time to recognise it for the signpost it is. The one that guides the way to a better, more sustainable life, overriding the itching temptation to eat all the chocolate oranges under the tree and carry on as before. 

'Before' is a closed box; 'After' is a wide, open landscape to explore. Let's see what I can find there. 

Last week, I was mostly being

Poleaxed by my thyroid. 

I’ve had an under-active thyroid for about 10 years now and mostly, I don’t notice it. I takes me meds and goes about me days. 

So much so that I’d forgotten how it feels when the drugs don’t work. Or, more accurately, when the levels need adjusting. Just a tiny 25mg boost, the smallest of tablets, easily lost under the microwave or in the toaster as it pings out of its casing when the wrong amount of force is sleepily applied while the cats wind around my ankles, wanting to know why breakfast is taking So Long. 

When the levels are too low, I achieve a state somewhere the other side of tiredness. I jokily call this my dormouse condition after Alice's sleepy Wonderland dormouse but he's positively the life and soul of the tea party in comparison

A lethargy wraps itself round me like seaweed. Every moment requires an extra effort as though I’m wading through water, chest high against a tide. Steps are slower, movement languid. I’ve been known to sit down abruptly in the middle of a downward dog, or belly flop out of a plank, just resting, resting, until I admit defeat and roll up the mat. 

And my brain slows accordingly. A simple “thank you for your email” email (because we do like to clutter our virtual correspondence with false gratitude) seemingly takes forever as I wait for the words to travel their long way down from my brain to my fingertips. And then I delete it because it doesn’t read how I imagined it would. Try again. Coaxing some fabrication of work from me. 

This is not any brain fog, this is a brain pea-souper. 

And I sleep. Oh, how I sleep. Hours lost in a weighted, dreamless state. In bed, on the sofa. Once, I woke from a shavasana pose on the yoga mat. On another memorable occasion, with my head on the back of my chair and overdue attendance at a Zoom meeting. 

There’s no warning to this sleep, no yawning, no eyelids growing deliciously heavy in the heat of a summer afternoon. This sleep clubs me around the head, knocks me out even as I think “gosh, I feel a little ti...”. The sounds of a busy city don’t even begin to penetrate, N could start up a drill in the room next door, marching bands could pass by with beating drums. I blink once, twice, gone for 60 minutes. 

Abandoned is my usual practice of  "don't just put it down, put it away" (my Canute-like effort to keep the rolling tides of clutter at bay). Bags slump from shoulders, papers flutter to the floor in a breeze and are left there. The very act of opening the dishwasher to put a mug in feels like a Herculean effort, so I don't make it. 

And clumsy! Even by my usual klutzy standards. Last Wednesday I dropped my glasses, picked them up only to have them slip out of my fingers, picked them up again and managed to hold onto them until they reached the table, where I put them down and...they promptly fell off - twice - because I misjudged the placing. Fragile items are moved carefully out of my reach and I am banned from ladders. 

Luckily, my meds were upped on the Thursday, in time for my birthday weekend. The energy returns overnight and I'm able to cook, put things down without dropping them, walk to the allotment without tripping over my own feet. Make it through a work day without my eyes closing. 

You can imagine the relief at being able to function again. Piles of things (okay, mostly my books) have been tidied away, rooms cleaned, washing done and emails whizzed through. I managed a full yoga session. Booked Eurostar, more doctors appointments, a cottage up north, cat sitters and meetings. I cleaned my desk, wrote a schedule, trained some people. 

It's been like Mary Poppins without the disturbing chimney sweeps and trippy animation. 

Sleep occurs at the proper times and I wake feeling refreshed rather than as if I've been clubbed over the head. To sit up straight rather than wanly slumping is to feel a renewed vigour. I terrify clients with my energy and effectiveness. 

I weed, hoe and plant out. Carry full watering cans to the sunflowers, strim back the impudent nettles. And then I sit down, look around me and think "what can I sort out next?"

It's good to be back. 

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. 

The Full Duck

As you may remember from some posts ago (helpfully signposted by this 'ere blue linky), I have had eczema for a number of years now. It's appearance was gradual and spasmodic for a long time, lulling me into a false sense of "this is manageable" and "if I just cut out cheese, that will cure it". 

Friends, it has been 7 years. There is only so much Stilton this woman can refuse in her lifetime. 

Over those years, I have run the full gamut of interesting remedies in an attempt to look less like I have some disfiguring, contagious disease. There was the black clove oil that was recommended as a drink or topical application. As a drink it made me boke; as a topical application, it sent me shrieking to the bathroom for the soap. There was the giving up cheese, then all dairy, then bread, then all wheat and gluten, then sugar. My poor family, never knowing what to serve me. I was the worst dinner party guest. 

N gave up cooking altogether because he was afraid of making it worse. And if you're wondering how hard it is to quit sugar, let me tell you: bloody hard. It's in everything. It's even in mayonnaise! And gluten-free gravy granules! By all things good and righteous, when has gravy ever needed sugar??

Then there was that month where I tried the SIBO diet (I'm not linking it because it's EVIL) and spent the final week of it eating crisps every night and weeping on the sofa because it's so sodding restrictive and joyless. The Cambridge diet is a barrel of laughs compared to that thing. 

I tried acupuncture, going to see a very nice woman who held my hand, listened to my woes, told me my adrenal gland was out of whack and then stuck some needles in me. It was very nice, like a therapy session only pointier, and I did enjoy the massage at the end, but it cured nothing. 

There's been over the counter remedies, under the counter remedies and remedies that look like they've been scrapped up from the floor behind the counter. Try this cream! Try these herbs! Try this meditation! When I finally braced the Guardians of the Diary, the Gatekeepers of the Knowledge, i.e. the bulldog-like receptionists at my local surgery, I had a telephone appointment with a doctor who sent me a steroid cream. 

Fine, fine, I'll take the damn steroids. And I dutifully applied it. 

Woke up the next morning and thought, "gosh, the world is very blurry", looked in the mirror and promptly screamed, scattering the cats and setting off car alarms all around the city. I'd woken up with eyes so puffy, I was viewing the world through 2mm slits between my eyelashes. I looked like the Stay Puft marshmallow man in Ghostbusters, but with breasts and towering peri-menopausal rage. 

A panicked call to the Guardians later, I was on the phone to another doctor who laughed, LAUGHED (did I mention the towering peri-menopausal rage?), told me a reaction to the cream was highly unlikely so it was probably hay fever, but he'd send along a prescription for the gentle 'baby' version of the cream. Are you surprised when I say I did not get that prescription filled?

Failed by modern medicine, I went back to the Quacks. I think it's safe to say that, by then (2021), I'd run a marathon of quackery and, because a lot of the this damn stuff was on my arms and face, considered having cards printed saying "this is eczema, not leprosy. You are safe to approach" that I could hand out to people in the street to prevent the screaming whenever the wind blew my fringe off my face. I cut a deeper, thicker fringe. Considered hats.  

Then there was the very nice nutritionist who talked a lot about gut health, made me have expensive blood tests and then got me to buy expensive supplements that made not the blindest bit of difference. 

I chickened out of booking a course of sun beds (another suggested cure, something to do with the UV light), I must confess. I meant to go but was completely intimidated by the people manning them. The mahogany glaze to them. The terrifying fingernails. The, oh my dears, over-emphasised eyebrows that seemed to waggle independently at me, signalling that I was out of my depth. The eyebrows don’t lie.

I have avoided totalling up how much this, this, nonsense has cost me. The endless creams, the dietary alternatives, the appointments with specialists, the supplements, and the end result has been a savings account that echoes and skin that still frightens the horses. 

This year, I said to N, I'm stopping this. I need to take a break from it all. This is more than one woman can manage, and this particular woman has had it up to here with other women in health food shops putting their heads on one side and saying "has madam tried this supplement? It's only £45 and your soul for 2 capsules? You need to take 4 capsules a day in water that's been collected under a full moon from half way up Mount Kilimanjaro - the water is not provided, you'll need to gather that yourself. We have an offer today: buy this and get a life time's worth of anxiety for free!"

Up with this QUACKERY I will no longer put. 

Oh, except for this place, this Chinese herbalists, which has had some great reviews, so I'm going to give it a try. This is my last quack of the duck, if you will. 

And that is how I ended up in a room filled with disturbingly detailed anatomical drawings, listening to some truly dreadful "relaxing" music (the CD gets stuck and judders at the same point every week, and I'm forced to listen to the sound of the recorder ddd-dddd-ddd-ing for 30 seconds until she gets up and thumps the CD player) while a woman sticks pins in me and then trains a heat lamp on particular spots. She asks me nothing about what I eat, is utterly unconcerned with any stresses I may have experienced and makes no attempt to jazz up what she's doing. She flicks the needles in with the casual skill of a professional darts player. 

It is practical and, I cannot tell you, a huge relief. Her whole attitude is one of "yep, seen this before, get up there and let's get on with it."

Then I flip over (I say flip, what I mean is that I roll over with the grace of a beached whale and try not to fall off the table) so she can practise the mysterious art of cupping. No, NOT that sort of cupping - get your minds out of the gutter - but the sort that people like Gwyneth Paltrow used to have done. Did I say I was done with quacks and quackery? It seems I have actually decided to go the Full Duck. 

At the end, she pummels me for 10 seconds in a brief, non-relaxing, massage, charges me an extraordinary amount of money, and sends me away with parcels of tea that look and taste like rotting undergrowth. I swear it is the same smell you notice along the canal in the depths of a damp winter. 

And what's my verdict after 4 weeks of going the Full Duck? 

The eczema on my face and scalp has gone. Completely vanished as if it had never been there in the first place. The stuff on my arms, back and knees is still lingering, reluctant to leave a party no one invited them to, but the areas are reduced, not quite so red and angry. I no longer have to hold my hair in place, like a man with a comb-over in a high wind. People no longer recoil in the street. Small children no longer cry when I look at them. Dogs no longer howl and flee. Birds sing and my life feels less like one angry ball of itch. 

Still angry, but without the itch. Bring out the Stilton. 

February Round-Up

This month has passed in a flurry of things, not least of which was the return of the Kid from Sunderland. Sad as he is that the relationship has broken down, he's also overwhelmingly relieved to be back down here and away from what had become (as far as I can tell and I'll never be able to tell all because there are things you don't tell your mother) a pretty toxic situation. 

So, for now, he is regrouping his energies, taking his Nan's dogs for long walks, eating better than he has in a year and studying while he waits to be able to start his new job. 

Tiny Wee Mabel spent most of the storm actually UNDER the duvet. 

She has ideas above her station. 

I had a fancy-pants night out at the theatre last week, to see The Play What I Wrote at Malvern. It was very funny but, oh dear, I’m guessing no one under the age of 40 would even know who Morecombe and Wise were, let alone get half the jokes. It did make me feel very old, even while I was laughing. And it was just lovely to be out with a friend, grabbing an early dinner and generally behaving like I was a Person of Culture. 

Last Wednesday I was in Gloucester for an exhibition and a client meeting. Which was a success. I could hear my bank balance shouting hooray all the way over there. 

College is has been interesting with bits about soil testing and taking all forms of cuttings: leaf, root, hard wood, soft wood. I think a lot of my dissatisfaction with it last year was down to my own physical limitations. At my own plot, I can take my time over digging and the heavy stuff. At college, you have an hour to double dig, so you have to crack on regardless. Of course, I could have told them but, frankly, didn't want to. 

Guerilla Girls nailing it once again. 

Speaking of physicality, I had my long-awaited MRI scan on my foot in January and then the consultant appointment yesterday. At which, as soon as I sat down, he pulled up the images and all but yelled "fucking hell, you have the foot of an 80 year old!" He didn't swear, obviously, but you can bet I did. Having that sort of thing said without any preamble is most definitely NOT a Good Thing and there was a certain amount of shock. 

Next up will be a course of steroid injections and, when I reach the limit of how many you're allowed, an op to fuse the bones. It is what it is and there is, apparently (I asked), nothing I can do to make it better now. I think this will take some processing. 

Trees spotted from a train. Are they dancing or gossiping maliciously

about the new sapling in the next field, who does she think she is, giving

that oak the glad eye? Ooh, I know, doesn't know her place. 

In other news, I've been sowing seeds in my lunch breaks, which is an entirely civilised way of having a lunch hour, and storing them in our dinky new greenhouse. Or I was until the storms of last week nearly lifted the greenhouse off it's feet to see how it would fly. It felt a bit like that moment in the Wizard of Oz where Dorothy is clinging desperately to the house as it's whirled away. Luckily, N emerged from his office in time to hear my shout, so came to the rescue. We wrestled the cover into the shed and left the frame to fend for itself, which it did.

Unfortunately, the wind also rattled the shelves with such ferocity that the seed trays fell off. Result: a big yup of compost and mixed seeds on the floor. God only knows what will end up being planted and where.

Brand new, newly new rhubarb leaf. A sight to gladden

this jaded heart. 

And that's the full extent of our storm damage; we really have escaped lightly. Up at the allotment this morning, all that was changed was the water butt - now lying on it's side - and a branch from the elderly elder was down. It was a mighty relief. 

As was the sight of a brand new, crinkly rhubarb leaf in all it's glorious pink-green colour combination. There were green buds appearing on things, new raspberry and wineberry shoots, birdsong to gladden the heart and a little bit of sunshine to cheer everything on. All's not lost. 

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"

Betwixtmas

I’m sure I’m not the person who came up with this term but I can’t remember who did. Whoever they were, full genius marks to them as this is the perfect word to describe this period between the tired damp fag end of this year and the bright shiny start of next. 

Ordinarily, I’d be spending it clearing out cupboards, catching up with friends and family, taking long walks and generally filling my hours with activity. This year, recuperation means I can’t. I’m forbidden to lift anything heavier than a quarter full kettle, banned from all housework and under orders not to get cocky about the speed of recovery. 

Truth be told, this chafes a little bit, until I stretch too far and then the wound site chafes even more than my forced inactivity, and then I give in and have a doze on the sofa. 

Christmas dinner was a triumph, cooked by N - his first ever time of doing so. Yes, it was 2 hours late and we forgot the crackers, but there was no rush. These are the long slow days of not very much at all this year. I'm rarely properly up before 10 and he, with his infinite capacity for sleeping in, can get a good 12 hours before he wakes. 

It made me weep the morning after I'd come home when he appeared at the spare bedroom door (where I'm sleeping currently for maximum comfort) just as I was trying to struggle upright. He'd set his alarm so he could be ready with a cup of tea for me. That is consideration. 

Yesterday we had snow, as did many places. There is still something magical about this white stuff whirling down and covering everything, making it clean and bright. The cats were perplexed by their first encounter with it, although Mabel did decide to enjoy it after her initial jump back in surprise. Today, when more fell, she leapt into the air, batting it with her paws and generally acting like I wish I could have done. 

A friend of ours with a recent negative Covid test came over for a game of Trivial Pursuit, some damson gin and a lot of cheese. It brought a lovely dose of new energy and conversation to the house. Her present to me this year was a handmade apron with a fab print and a Granny Weatherwax hat on the pocket. It may have been the residual anaesthetic, but I was incredibly touched and a little weepy with it. GW is a heroine of mine and the most perfectly realised female character ever written by a man. That she'd remembered that and got it worked into a handmade gift was a truly generous thing. 

Apart from getting weepy over an infinite number of things (Mabel giving me a headbutt, Thor bringing me a gift of wool from my stash, N tweaking my toes as he walks past, the end of Ghosts, episodes of The Repair Shop), what have I been doing with myself?

Reading, making plans for next year, filling notebooks with these plans, making a sourdough starter, watching Christmas films. Chair yoga. Writing. Playing games. 

When I was little, this betwixtmas time would have been spent in much the same way (minus the yoga and sourdough, plus arguing with my sister), with the excitement of New Years Eve growing every day. For NYE was when we were sent off to stay with my maternal grandparents. We'd arrive in the afternoon so we had time for the usual rituals: visiting the tiny graveyard, playing Poohsticks from the bridge over the stream, exploring the small church that we never tired of, feeding the ducks in the farm pond across the road from their house. 

Dinner would be early and we'd be allowed to stay up, trying small nips of things from the leatherette-clad bar in the corner of their living room - advocaat is my Proustian madeleine - watching Clive James being incredibly erudite and witty as the clocks chimed 12 and we chomped a supper of biscuits and cheese. 

The next day would be our second Christmas as they were always elsewhere for the official one. Our parents would arrive, heroically hiding hangovers, a huge joint of beef would be roasted and there would be presents, crackers, squabbling and people trying to politely refuse the homemade wine my Grandad devoted hours to making but that always tasted like vinegar at best. 

I was lucky with my childhood Christmasses and the hardest lesson with growing up is that these can never come again. Both grandparents are dead, to begin with, second Christmas is a distant memory and besides, the wench is middle aged. This does not make me sad or melancholy though: this year, as I turn these memories over, I am just grateful for all the ones I've had and all the ones I hopefully have to come. 

All things considered, I'm having a pretty good end to a year that's been a test for all of us. There was no right or wrong way of passing this test - it is enough to have endured it. I'm impatient for recovery, for the new year, for change, as are so many, but I'll step carefully over 2020, rather than my usual full headlong pelt forwards. And I'll raise a glass to all of it. 

All I Want for Christmas?

 A decision of the utmost kind was made last week as we decided not to go for a tree this year. Part of me hates this but part of me is also glad. Mabel has grown to the length of a roadside atlas but she still, judging by the way she tries to sit on my chest in the morning, thinks she is tiny and palm-sized. Knowing her nature, there is no way she'd resist getting up inside a tree. And knowing Christmas trees, there is no way it would still be upright every morning.  

It felt like a level of stress we could do without this year. 

So instead, I treated myself to some tiny lights strung on copper wire to decorate the bookshelves. This weekend, I may hang some baubles from curtain rails, as well as some more lights. Candles are dotted around and, thanks to the judicious use of museum wax, they can't be knocked over by small, curious  and not at all malevolent paws. 

I shall miss hanging up the dinosaur though. And my Nan's weird 50s polar bear. And continuing the tradition of buying one new ornament a year, started 22 years ago when my son was only 6 months old. But I figure the world will not stop just because I don't buy a novelty glittery sloth clutching a piece of holly. 

Last year, we had our lovely stripy Loki to keep us company. The way he would fall asleep on the tender part of your leg, gradually allowing his full weight (and he was a hefty boy) to turn your limb numb was a real sign of affection. Or cold. It was hard to tell which. 

Sadly he went to the great sandbox in the sky just as lockdown #1 bit. Now we have Mabel, who is slender and slight and altogether too flighty for sitting on knees for longer than 2 minutes. She has the attention span of a butterfly and the ears of a bat. I have already purchased her Christmas toy of a pudding on a string with a bell and some feathers. She has no idea what time of year it is but she knows that this pudding must SUBMIT to her will and claws. 

I am feeling rather smug and ahead of myself though: last night I wrote all my Christmas cards, today I shall post them, I've delegated all remaining present buying to N as I've finished getting what I need from the shops (my side of the family is all done *smug level increasing*). I even found time to buy myself a stack of secondhand books, but then, the world could be burning and I'd still find time to nip into a bookshop. 

The cats are currently out of their tiny minds with joy as I'm making pompoms for a door wreath (oh yes, the whimsy is strong in this one). For every 2 I make for the door, I make one for them to bat around and tear apart with all the ferocity of a lion attacking a wildebeest on the Serengeti. 

 

N reminded me yesterday, with the gift of flowers, that we are now exactly 18 months into living here. A time that has both flown by and stretched out to eclipse all other time. I can remember we lived separately and in different places, it just feels like another lifetime ago. 

Partly this is down to my own ill health. Beset by a number of ailments that doctors either scratched their heads over or snorted and told me to stop being dramatic, it has not been the easiest of 18 months. BUT. I am from sturdy Lancashire stock: lying around bemoaning my fate is Not Allowed and would probably make the assorted Doris's and Gladys's in my genealogy spin so hard in their graves, buildings would topple. So I am looking for answers and cures where I can providing no one uses the phrases "clean eating", "crystal therapy" or "this tea tasting like manure will really detox your liver". 

So today I see a nutritional therapist and on the 22nd I go into hospital to have a part of me removed that's responsible for some of the problems. Merry Christmas! 

This obviously means self-isolating for 2 weeks (from next Tuesday) and then not being fit enough for the usual round of families etc. Do you know what? I am completely happy with this. My op is at a small private hospital 10 minutes away (it was that or the choice of 2 huge public hospitals 40 minutes away), which means N can get to wave through the window on a daily basis - although I suspect I'll be booted out by Christmas Day - and then, oh then!, I get to REST. 

Oh yes friends, REST. Properly, staying in bed, no-lifting-heavier-than-a-kettle, no gallivanting, REST. After the 1st 2 weeks, Covid situation allowing, I can welcome visitors to my bedside with an air of regal suffering. I shall be gracious in my acceptance of gifts and good wishes with an air of benevolent, plucky elegance. 

Plus I shall off my face on some massive painkillers, so you know, it's all good.

 

Slowing it Down

 Today is the start of my very favourite month and with it, I can feel the very bones of me start to relax and my brain take a sigh of relief. October brings cooler nights, my cloud-like duvet, the click and whir of the heating in the mornings, stews and soups, nesting and resettling. I find summer quite unsettling with its exposed flesh, eyes squinting against the sun, chafing and sweating. Hurrah for October where the sun still shines but the temperature is cool. I adore it. 

This week has been a week off for me and N, although he did have to work on Tuesday morning (endless Zoom!), so I grabbed the chance to catch up with a friend I haven't seen for over a year. We headed to this arboretum, which has the national collection of acers and Japanese maples, both trees I love, and we caught up on all the changes.

The last time we had seen each other, N & I were separated (long story), I still rented in the House of Inconvenience and the Kid lived with me. On her side, her daughter was about to get married and her long-term partner was seriously ill. Laurie was a wonderful, gentle, charming man, full of old-school manners, a passion for theatre and horse racing, and I adored him.

 He was full of stories of a life lived to its very corners. Always open to new experiences and ways of thinking. You could sit down and have a long chat about the new Hockney works of art and end up discussing who would win in the 3.15 at Cheltenham, via diversions into who played the best Hamlet (David Tennant - which we'd actually all seen together - and Andrew Scott, in case you're wondering), the best type of soil to plant brassicas in and his experience as an evacuee. 

He was the least judgemental person I have ever met. 

So we walked and talked about everything under the sun, but especially about Laurie and how the lockdown has given my friend a chance to mourn him fully, without distractions and with a tenderness I hope I evoke when I die. We parted with full hearts, bellies (thank you marmalade and poppy seed cake) and, in my case, a Japanese hornbeam for the garden. Purchased at the garden centre, not just dug up and lifted off site. I haven't yet reached my Nan's level of pinching off cuttings in gardens and carrying them home in a box of wet kitchen paper, but I fear it won't be long. And even she drew the line at digging entire plants up. 

That one expedition aside, we've done very little this week and gratefully so. N cleared out the horror-show that was the shed and rearranged it so I can now get to my bike without having to step over 5 bags of different compost, shift rakes and spades to one side and then disentangle it from the hose. Pots are neatly stacked in size order and the tools form an orderly row at the end. I went in and spun round for the sheer novelty of being able to do that without being impaled on a garden cane. 

Today we were supposed to be heading to Ikea but have made the decision not to. Crowds still make me panic at the moment, add into that masks and the standard Ikea-chaos, and it was just asking for trouble. So we're going to order what we want instead and spend the rest of the day pottering around the house. 

Pottering is very much the word of the week: I've painted a wall in my retreat room a dark blue which I shall sprinkle with hand-painted constellations; my sister, her daughter and my mum all came over for coffee and cake one afternoon, we took in an exhibition of drawings and etchings at the local gallery, we've visited the allotment, I made apple muffins which are absolutely perfect for this time of year and had my first CBT therapy session, which interesting. 

We're watching Us, the Simpsons, Bake Off, Ghosts and football (well, N is, I'm reading on the sofa and making the right noises). I'm reading again and sink into a book every morning with a sigh of pleasure. We're eating foods that bring pleasure and drinking a red wine that demands respect. We're shifting furniture around and making cosy for the coming months. 

The kitten, Mabel, is now nearly 4 months old and a long, lean kitten she is now. My morning ritual goes something like this: get up, make tea, feed her, feed Big-Cat-Thor and let him out just before she pounces him, trying to get him to play, take her back upstairs with me, into the retreat. There, once she's settled down after checking my toes are still not something she can eat, gnawing on my book/phone to see if they are edible, sniffing the plants to check they haven't become tasty overnight and knocking any pens or hairclips off the dressing table onto the floor, she settles around my neck, purring like a tiny earthquake, for a snooze while I read. As she's still housebound for another 6 weeks at least, her fur is incredibly soft: it's like wearing a silken thermal scarf. 

The only dark spot on her otherwise light and playful presence, is her behaviour with B-C-T. To be fair, he is a grumpy old so and so: although he's only 5, he seems to have embraced a middle-age more suited to a Dad in a 1950s sitcom. If he could smoke a pipe, wear slippers and read the Telegraph, I'm pretty sure he would. However, Mabel is more of a freewheeling, playful, hippy spirit, what's yours is mine, hooray for today, kind of personality, coupled with a wilfulness that all toddlers exhibit. Her favourite thing is to sit on the arm of a chair until he passes underneath, whereupon she leaps, all 4 legs spreadeagled, onto his back, causing him to race around, growling and spitting, with her clinging on like a rodeo girl. Once he manages to shake her, there are a few minutes of feverish fighting before he manages to break free and make an escape. 

We're hoping time and neutering will calm her down with him, but if you have any tips, let me know. Heaven knows, I can't be supervising their behaviours all the time. 

This evening, I'm off to a friend's house for dinner. We scored a perfect Bunty hit in a charity shop a few weeks ago, spotting 10, original, 1960-70s Bunty's in damn good condition for £3, so tonight we'll sort through them, eat roast chicken, drink some wine and indulge in a good old gossip. We are both full of plans for things we'd like to start up, including a local group for peri, full and post menopausal women in the area. She is just post and I, with my hysterectomy planned for next year, will be thrown full on into it before too long. Until the question of the hysterectomy came up, I hadn't given my fertility another thought: I'd had the Kid and was happy at that. Once it did though, I found myself questioning absolutely everything about myself, the very fundamental core of myself and feeling almost bereaved. It was very odd. 

Anyway, a leaflet entitled "So, You're Past It" or "What is the Point of You Now?" handed out by doctors doesn't really cut it in the information/support stakes, so we're thinking of setting up our own. And a podcast where she demonstrates her considerable knowledge of history and I play the one who says "ooooh, really?" a lot. And and and. 

So many plans, so little time. Or rather, given that a growing time obsession was one of my "I think I'm going mad" triggers, enough time. If you really want to do something and its the right fit for you, it'll happen. Breathe, look at the trees, take it slow. 

Things I have learned recently

I started (and abandoned due to lack of time) a post last week after recovering from a bit of minor surgery that was to remove some pre-cancerous cells from my cervix. As the letter from the doctors said, "this is not cancer, but has the potential, if left, to turn into cancer." 

That was a less reassuring statement than I think they meant it to be.

 The boyfriend strimming away with an expression of fierce concentration, 

seconds before the strimmer wire ran out and we admitted defeat.   

 Must say that, damn, they worked fast. Not only in the treatment but in keeping the gaps between letters and treatment short. The speed they work at reassures me: within 4 weeks, I'm back in the coloscopy room. Within 30 minutes, I'm back in the car, pre-cancerous cell-less, asking the boyfriend if he wants pasta for tea.

For all the moaning that this city's hospital gets, I've never had anything but positive (if they can be called that) experiences with them. Although management not letting the nurses park on site (we were gossiping during procedures) is frankly outrageous, and I hope each and every one of the management who are allowed to, stub their toes on the way to their cars.  

 

The bramble mountain. There are wallflowers there too. 

One day I'll explain my wallflower intolerance. 

Spent some time on the allotment this week. One of the beds that we'd covered in membrane had finally given up and was living-weed-free, so we cleared the dead stuff, strimmed the paths and wilder areas, tacked down membrane that had worked it's way loose and hacked back at the brambles that resembled triffids (after I'd raided them for blackberries, obviously). Found what looks to be asparagus gone wild, albeit asparagus with it's own beetles. 

Little wee red and black beetles copulating freely with nary a care in the world for my

 asparagus. Little buggers.  

 

Those blackberries may be the only crop we get from the allotment this year: the ground underneath the dead weeds is so hard and compacted that it broke the fork. And then the spade. Hopefully the deluge of rain that's promised for tomorrow may actually soften the ground enough for us to do something with it. 

Met the allotment neighbour - an earnest young man with a small baby and 2 allotments. He's clearly going down the self-sufficiency route, which I once considered, having fancied myself as something of a Barbara Goode. Truth (and experience) is, I'm more of a Margot Leadbetter. And I cannot warm to hens.

 

Said bent fork. Useful for picking up brambles that you've cut down. Sod all use for anything else. 

 

So the message to take away from this post is:

a) never skimp on your garden tools - a bent fork is use to neither man nor beast
b) always have your smear test
c) always know your own body and have the courage to say when something ain't right
d) don't let your boyfriend see the "What Symptoms To Watch Out For Post-Surgery" letter because he'll then use it as a running gag for the next few weeks
e) spend a really uncomfortable night sleeping on a deflated airbed the weekend before so that, honestly, the procedure was a doddle compared to waking up at 5am after a heavy night and trying to stand up in a 2 man tent. 

I am not, and never will be, a happy camper. Although the marshmallows toasted on the open fire were almost worth it. The first sip of coffee in the morning after? Definitely worth it. 

You can't see them, but there are people there too. Taken before the great marshmallow rush.

But here are a few things that have made me happy this week:

• sea eagles are making a return to the Isle of Wight 
• the wild tiger population is finally rising
• the amazing pink seesaws
• this twitter campaign
• the museum I work for finally getting it's National Lottery Heritage Fund grant after 2 years of work, research, bid writing and trying to find match-funding
• finally starting to learn Spanish thanks to the Language Zen app. Been meaning to for years, can't see any reason for delaying it
• late, so late, to the Community party but loving it
• Medieval marginalia, a small obsession of mine, on Instagram. No, that's not me. This is me.
• My epic Saturday night Scrabble win

 Yeah, that's me on the left. I lost the next night, so we're all good.