Right then

Here is a small piece of good news for today because, just, fucking hell. 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/13/harvest-mice-found-thriving-15-years-after-reintroduction-efforts

In other news, I considering starting a Kickstarter to fund my fledgling sheep farm in rural Scotland/Norway but for now, I'm going to go pet my cats and hug my boyfriend tight. I know all things pass but right now, just, fucking hell...

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?

As the Day Flies

 Whitby Abbey - strong Goth game that day

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

Mind you, Monopoly will do that to a person.

 

All the stone colours and a suspicious gathering of The Birds

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

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

 

My quest for weird graves and memorials 

continues - this couple had 12 - TWELVE - 

children and died on the same day as each other.   

  

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

 

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

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

 

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

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

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

Highgating it outta there

For some reason, it was decided that the hottest day of August would be a perfect day to spend wandering around Highgate.

Actually, I know the reason why: we'd arrived in London the day before for a 40th birthday party and, as we were in the North London area, the Boyfriend was extremely thoughtful (despite the kind of hangover that makes you want to pull your own brains out and replace them with a cold cloth) and tagged on to the Sunday a trip to Highgate so I could fulfill a dream of many years standing.

The weather was not so thoughtful. There were no cool breezes, there was no smidgeon of rain to alleviate the suffocating heat. There was a veritable rush for the crypt in the cemetary just because it was several degrees cooler in the dark than it was outside. Frankly, I think we'd have rushed in if there had been zombie hordes awaiting us inside: fine, eat my brains, just let me lie down in the cool while you do it.

Actually I would not as zombies are my one irrational phobia. Although, having read Zora Neale Hurston's account of meeting an actual real zombie in Haiti (Tell My Horse), I'm not sure it is an irrational phobia.

But I can feel the question hovering behind the eyes of anyone reading this...why spend a gorgeous summer day in a cemetary?

I wish I knew the answer to that.

I suppose it's the mix of architecture, peace, surprising flashes of nature and social commentary that I love and that make graveyards, especially the big old Victorian ones, so appealing to me. Or it could be that, from a small age, a regular occupation when staying with my Nan was to go visit the small village cemetary where she would lay flowers for her father in law and own mother, reserving a little bit of spite for Doris, her unforgiving (her son married beneath himself when he took up with the baker's daughter) mother in law. Truly all life is contained in these places.

My sister and I "adopted" a small and neglected grave of a young girl, Rebecca, almost hidden in the corner by hedges. We pulled out the weeds, begged flowers from my Nan for the rusty pot and generally chattered about childish things to the tiny headstone. You could say that we were always morbid wee things, although my sister seems to have grown out of it these days.  

Anyway, enough memory lane. To the present day and Highgate. Gosh that place is beautiful. We paid our respects to Douglas Adams (it would have been rude not to leave a pen) and Karl Marx before heading to the west side and the guided tour. 

A confession: I am not much of a fan of the guided tour. There, I've said it out loud. That's despite having worked for a museum where the only way you could access the building was by guided tour (it was the exception to my own rule). I find that you have to stand for too long in one spot, that you don't get to see the bits that are most fascinating, that the chance to just sit, soak up the atmosphere and stare around you is missing.  

However, wandering on your own is distinctly not allowed in Highgate. According to a friend of mine who's PHD means she spends a lot of time wandering around cemeteries, and who has been allowed unescorted access to Highgate, there are quite a few holes in the ground, falling tree branches and other dangers which mean 1000s of people doing it is a health and safety red tape nightmare to be avoided. Much like the holes in the ground. So I can understand it, but knowing there are vast spaces I didn't see fires my curiosity. And I wish I'd been able to pay my respects to Lizzie Siddal.

And now, nearly a month on (another confession: I started this post a week after coming back but life has a way of getting in the way of my plans just recently), I imagine that the heat has dissipated and those huge trees, creators of so much of the H&S nightmare, will be starting to change colour. I'm trying to come up with a plausible reason for visiting North London again... I'd like to go back, do another tour, see more of the east side, not be viewing it all from the wrong side of a night out.

But is is my favourite cemetery? No, that space is reserved for Key Hill in Birmingham, an oddly isolated place where it suddenly grew silent around me (and a former colleague found evidence of a voodoo ceremony), and Haworth, not isolated at all, thanks to it's central location and the hordes of Bronte worshippers. But there is something quite special about Highgate nonetheless. I can understand why so many people have written about the place. Next on the bucket list of graveyards - the Pere Lachaise and Arnos Vale. Just not at the same time.

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.

Of Blackberries, Beans and Bugs

I am currently nursing a great number of wounds. They itch and sting, little beadings of blood frilling the edges. Washing up becomes a game of chicken: how long can you hold your injured hands in the hot soapy water? Sock elastic irritates and chafes them. 

It is blackberry season after all. 

The path along the canal and the allotment site are full of brambles that, right now, and for a limited period only, are bearing possibly the ultimate in seasonal foods: blackberries. And I allow no nettle, stinger or sneaking creeping branch to stand between me and a good crumble. Hands and ankles are sacrificed to the cause as I strip all the ones I can reach free from the bushes; a good number of clothes too. However, my blackberrying limits are reached once the leopard-spotted spiders start to weave webs and take up residence on the bushes. My raging (and totally rational, thank you very much) arachnaphobia prevents further picking.

I don't know what this plant is! And they are all over the site. If anyone does, let me know.

But it's all worth it when you make a crumble so awesome, it renders all other Sunday activities futile (the secret is extra oats and ground almonds in the topping). 

Once stripped, the brambles on the allotment are being mercilessly cut back as they are threatening to strangle everything within reach, including the autumn raspberries that have appeared at the top of the allotment. Some of the blackberry branches are thicker than my index and middle fingers together: the original secateurs gave up the ghost, so I had to return with new ones so sharp they cut the air. There is now a heap of drying, dying branches waiting for right amount of autumn for a bonfire. 

There is an small amount of it now I realised the other day, as the 16th Century building I work in takes on it's end of summer briskness that's enough to warrant an extra layer. As I cycle through the park, there is a chill around the edges that raises goosebumps and catches the fingers. Not enough yet to make your breath mist in front of you, but you can smell it just round the corner. This is fine with me as I love autumn. Actually I only know of one person who doesn't: she hates what it signifies, the drawing in of the nights, the months of winter, the gloomy light. This is possibly because she lives in a small town, a glorified village really, where the street lights are few and the social gatherings limited. 

Autumn makes me think I could live in the countryside again. And then I remember. For country dwellers, the Great Muddening draws nigh. That time of year where you can't move without it sticking to your boots, or the paws of your pets. You find it everywhere and for the next 4 months, the mop is rarely dry as you try to fight the rising tide of it. Having been the owner of a long-haired Alsatian-cross, I would find it drifted across the floor, almost like tidal-sand-patterns but gritty and in my kitchen. 

For now, late summer sees the allotments running wild with weeds gone rogue (the photo above of the site next door, the tenant of which rotovated the plot in April and then left it - the weeds are nearly as tall as his shed and seeding all over the place. Rotovating merely creates more weeds, I've decided.), plants gone off-piste and insects galore. Our site is full of crickets chirping like mad, chorusing through the days, and the oregano is bustling with bees and butterflies galore, making whoopee while the sun shines.

Of course, these days always feel like the last time to make the most of summer produce, rushing to grab what I can find. Tiny courgettes are in the market; the last of the summer fruits; runner beans and tomatoes still on their vines, smelling like my paternal Grandad's greenhouse. 

Now there was a man of infinite patience and a desire to stay out of the way of his termagent wife. She could rule the house with an iron fist, and she did - the tiny bungalow was her territory - but the garden and the greenhouse was his. I cannot smell tomatoes without remembering him. And I cannot look at runner beans without thinking the same. His patience extended to slowly removing the stringy edges, then painstakingly slicing, with his old wooden-handled knife, the beans into matchstick thin pieces, equal in length and thickness, one eye on whatever race meet was showing on the telly. 

A rear-gunner in WWII, shot down over Italy and left permanently deaf from the roar of the plane engines and gunfire, he dwelt mostly in his own little world of silence. Returning from war an atheist, he became an engineer, had a realistic and uncompromising view of his own worth as a human and helped raise 3 children, teaching his youngest to overcome his stammer with endless calm. Followed the horses, supported Arsenal, accepted the never-altered weekly dinner (served at lunchtime) menu without complaint. 

I can never manage to get my beans as fine as he did and my knife is plastic-handled but every time I slice them, I'm 6 again, colouring in and chatting aimlessly, listening to the horses race on the radio, in his companionable silence.

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.