Lightly living

Okay, so I have a confession to make. 

Brace yourselves. 

It is May and

Deep breath 

I have been putting the heating back on every now and then. 

Oh my parsimonious northern ancestors must be spinning in their coal dust filled graves, beating their spectral be-clogged feet against the boards but it had to be done. 

For, my dears, it is so cold and wet and recent news events so very saddening that a little joy must be got from somewhere. And for me, that somewhere is in having a warm living room. Just putting on another jumper wasn’t going to cut it. 

Heating scandals aside, the past 3 weeks have been mostly about work. One project has just kicked off with a flurry of activity and another, shorter-term one, has involved many tech frustrations, so my attentions have been focused on the laptop. 

That said, I managed a shop and a lunch with a friend the other day, during a short burst of sunshine. 

Today I discovered that the best music to knead gluten free pizza dough to is Fontaines DC. And then I realised that gluten free dough needs no kneading because there’s no gluten to make it lovely and stretchy. God only knows what sort of rock-like substance it will turn out to be, even with the addition of yeast and xanthan gum. I shall report back from the culinary front line. 

N and I have taken the leap and finally got round to booking: 

1. A man who can to build us a pergola. Which we’ve nicknamed the Degoba System

2. A new sofa to get rid of the second hand one i brought with me. It has held me comfortably but I’m tired of owning furniture that looks like it would be more suitable in a country house hotel in the 1980s. Instead of the sleek young hip thing that I actually am, obviously. 

Side note: do the young people still say “hip”?

3. A weekend away. The cats are booked into the cattery, we’ve gone all out and splurged on a Premier Inn (don’t even go there - I’m just grateful not to be self catering) and The Kid has been warned as we’ll be in his neck of the woods. 

The piano was sold. The Kid brought it with a small inheritance over 10 years ago and it’s sat, unplayed, in the last 4 houses we’ve lived in. There’s only so long you can hang onto something that big in the hope they’ll open the lid and start playing again. As Sunderland is a bit of a trek for a Sunday morning tinkle on the ivories, and neither N nor I took it up during lockdown, it was time to say goodbye. The room suddenly looks bigger, lighter somehow, so I’m refusing to be sentimental about it.

And in another dramatic act (remember I got rid of my to-be-read pile?), I threw out my diaries. This was the one change that made N hesitate and say "you sure?" And yes, I'm sure. My diaries were my regurgitation of a day's event's or life's happenings and it felt suddenly vastly unfair to leave them for the Kid to deal with when I'm gone. 

They were incomplete (only lasting a handful of years) and private. And, importantly, mine. I read through pages at random and confirmed that my decision to get rid was the right one. I am no David Sedaris. So into the recycling they went. No dramatic burning in the grate, a la Alec Guinness.

In case you're wondering if I'll regret it in a few years time, I can honestly say I won't. This is not the first time I've got rid of diaries and, should I take it up again, it probably won't be the last. Write it down, write it out, then get it right away. 

Live light, sez I. 

Besides the Kid will be happier with the collection of interesting stones and maybe-fossils he'll inherit. And in keeping with my philosophy, I use the term "happier" very lightly indeed.  

So long, old joanna, you were tuneful while it lasted

Bechamel Smechamel

I have no idea how the title for this post came about. I often have ideas for posts without having the time to write them, so I drop a title into a draft, fully intending to come back to it some point soon to finish my rambling, usually nonsensical thought. 

This time I didn't. Bechamel smechamel? Clearly I was making my famed (in my own kitchen) sort-of-bechamel sauce at the time, and clearly something had been said or occurred at the time of making it. Can I remember? No. And I've been wracking my brain for weeks. 

Oh well, we will no doubt learn to live without my pithy and no doubt witty conclusions on the topic of bechamels. A sad conclusion but we soldier on. Instead, I feel it's time for a book update. 

Oh yes, I have started reading again. After being genuinely concerned that I may never do so again.  Hallelujah. Praise be to whichever deity you prefer. 

It was Twitter what did it. On that entirely rational (not at all a shit-show of crazies crawling out of the woodwork *rolls eyes*), Joanne Harris was tweeting about Chocolat and I realised I hadn't read that in years. 24 hours later, I was still thinking about it, so I picked the book up and started to read. 

Hurrah for Chocolat! What an indulgent read that was. Harris herself has said it's not the best book she has written but it is so very evocative nontheless. I could smell the food she described and see the characters. Obviously having a pre-sleaze, pre-greasy-looks-like-he-needs-a-wash-and-a-good-talking-to Johnny Depp as your point of reference for Roux is always going to help. 

 I then decided I wasn’t ready to leave Europe and headed off to Italy with Extra Virgin and Ripe for the Picking, both of which I’ve read multiple times before (I find it weird when people only read a book once - “oh, it completely changed my life, here you have my copy, I’ll never read it again.” Bizarre. ) but needed for the sunshine, good food and a life that is completely removed from mine. I am now seriously considering an olive tree.

While N watched an umpteenth game of football one evening, I read Cold Comfort Farm. This is my lovely Folio copy with illustrations by Quentin Blake. How perfect are these? I love the book without them, but they are the edible-gold-covered-cherry on the light and fluffy cake. 

I then disappeared to run a bookshop, grow up on a sheep farm, catch up with a journalist/recipe blogger, follow Death's assistant around and laugh my self silly at the monstrous Poppy in The Unfortunates. She may be my favourite appalling character.  

"I said 'We'll probably put you in the Pomegranate Rum, unless the P of W is expected, in which case you'll get bumped to the Willow Rum. And Bobbity will be determined to find you a congenial horse, but you must stand up to her, because no such animal exists. Tell her you have an allergy. I'll tell her. Also, she makes unspeakable soup so be prepared to fill up on bread. And when we have people staying to hunt, be sure to take your bath early. If you don't there'll be nothing left but a miserable trickle of lukewarm water.'"

All of the books are on my Bookshop.org affiliate page (see that link there, no not there, there - top right of this blog...there we are, well done), apart from Ripe for the Picking and The Unfortunates. 

 I've already started reading The Lost Gardens of Heligan. A very small to-be-read pile has been allowed to creep back in. It consists of this, a Susan Hill and a PG Wodehouse. That's as many as I'll allow myself just now.  

As I type, the rain is absolutely throwing itself at the window like tiny watery kamikaze pilots. I've taken a quick break from work which has taken off like a rocket thanks to some work from quite a large organisation. My intention to take my foot off the accelerator has been forgotten and I'm pinging from one email to another. But I'm loving it.What bliss it is to schedule my days to my best times of day (note: not between 2 and 3pm). 

Much like Aunt Ada Doom. There be a countin' coming...

The Shed Makes An Appearance

Saturday was a very momentous (can something be "very momentous"? Surely the "momentous" cancels out the "very"? I'll stop now before I tangle myself in linguistic knots) day - for it was Shed Day. My brother-in-law - owner of the only van in the family and a man who seems to have forgotten the purpose of Saturdays (i.e. that it is probably the law that people are not forced to leave their houses before 8am) was arriving at 8.30 with necessary help. 

 

Thank god I know him of old and was in fact already at the plot and ready to rock when he arrived at 8.15 (we are a family who can't bear to be late - or even on time - to any appointment). I'd actually been there since 8, ferrying stuff down from my car and pausing to appreciate the quiet and the view. 

 

The skies over the city were beautiful, that wispy blue that promises bearable heat later, the Malverns crisply outlined. As all normal people were still in their beds, or their pyjamas at least, it was so quiet, nary a car or a clang of deliveries to break the spell. It was so quiet and early, the plot fox trotted unhurridley along his regular route home without even giving us a second glance. 

 

One big downside about my plot is it's location. It's at the bottom of a steep slope down to the canal (the shortest route) and a good 500 metres from the main car park (the flattest route). We opted for the shortest and then spent 20 minutes (it felt like much, much longer), lugging shed panels, fruit cage sides, bags of tools etc down. And then going back up it a further 3 times as the need for different screws/nails/opportunities to prolong the agony arose.

 

It is funny listening to boys constructing things though. The chants of "to me, to you" which never gets old, the gentle ribbing about the right way up to hold a shed panel, the banter around roofing felt and the nailing down thereof, the bordering-on-heated discussion about the right way round to put the fruit cage...

 

While they bantered and "discussed", I stayed out of the way and got on with putting a small fence made out of tree stakes and green-covered wire at the top of the plot. This is for the sweet peas that are currently running rampant at home as we wait for the frosts to be done, to climb over. Then I used my new edging tool (new tools!) to edge the beds and try to halt the gradual grass takeover.

 

Luckily, the work I'd been putting in in digging the area, raking, digging it again, raking it 500 times more in an attempt to get a flat space on sloping ground, really paid off, as you can see from the jaunty angle the door of the shed is leaning at. Bugger it all. 

 

 

But actually, I don't mind too much. I'm just so pleased to have a shed! Finally, a place to store tools so I'm no longer carrying them around with me. A place to store a deck chair so I have somewhere to sit, instead of plumping down to the ground and then trying to lever myself back up again. A place to store a little camping stove so I can brew myself some coffee! 

 

By the time the boys left, we'd been there for 3 hours, and I spent some time afterwards just sitting and smiling around myself, strangely reluctant to leave, enjoying the peace and quietly making plans. 

 

 

The first plan is to paint it. Bless my Dad, he was a man of practical thinking and his practical thought had been to paint only the bits of the shed that people could see, not the bits of shed that were inconveniently against the hedge. This is a school of thought I fully subscribe to, but as it's completely exposed on all 4 sides, I need to paint them. I've managed to find a Cuprinol wood paint of the same shade he had already used for the front (a rather subtle Green Orchid), so I spent a happy half hour yesterday painting the left side. I shall be away up there again this afternoon to do more. 

I haven't gone mad with populating the inside just yet. I want to paint the interior and put up a handy potting shelf before I do. I'll also get a sowing guide up in there as I'm quite bad at remembering when things are supposed to be sown. 

 

By the way, if you're looking for allotment inspiration, I can do no better than recommend this episode of Gardener's World. Our allotment Facebook page quite lit up after it's airing and there was a healthy debate about whether we'd like little doors and closed off plots, or whether we'd miss the chatter of other plot holders. I do like the chatter but sometimes, after the 14th person has said "you need a rotavator on there" to me, I can see the appeal of a little hedged off, door closed area. 

 

It's amazing how much happiness this 6x4 wooden structure has brought me. I'd rather have not had it and still had my Dad around, that much is never far from my head, but having it here feels like having him here. Not in a creepy looking-over-my-shoulder way, but in a reassuring way. He's not there but a piece of him is. And that's quite nice.

Expedition of the Springiest Kind

It is hard to resist spring, for all it's wild and woolly weather, waking up to snow flurries, winds to take your ears off and glowering skies, only to have it completely change within the hour. That first glimmering of weak sunshine appears to apologise for it's lateness before getting onto the serious business of warming your bones.

Easter Monday, I and 4 friends set off for a walk in the Malverns, a little known area of it, judging by the few people we saw. I had expected hoardes of them, maddened by incessecant insiding, squabbling and puffing their way along the ridge, but my friends are wiser than me, and in charge of the route, so we made our way downhill from the northern side of the town, through a farmyard where the tractor appreciators among us (me and 2 others - I'm not the only weirdo) were in seventh heaven. Plus there were lambs and gambolling to witness. Is there anything more cheering to the eye than lambs, wobbly on their legs, leaping at each other?

This was, by a long shot, the longest walk I have undertaken for at least 2 years, but determination and cabin fever will carry you a long way. We set off in snow that was whipped into tiny frenzies by a wind that clearly had a grduge against something. The copse was a welcome relief from it, even if it did rattle the tree branches furiously: they sounded like bones outside a witch doctor's, clacking together in a gale.

There were loved-up trees that had twisted together in unbreakable embrace, snakey roots to trip the unwary. No bluebells (too early) but wood anenomes and violets in carpets, and the smell of wild garlic hanging around like an open air deli. We didn't pick any. Instagram feeds are full enough of wild garlic pesto - they don't need me adding my 2 penn'orth.

I liked the tiny mossy bolt hole under this tree and instantly wished I could live in it. Or at least write about the tiny person living in it. She would be called Minnow Brown and have wrens for friends. This is a story that first cropped up when my son was small and I wanted to tell him stories. Given that he's now 22 and I've still not written a word, I think Minnow Brown may have to remain in our imaginations. Which is probably for the best.

By the time we reached the quarry, the skies had completely cleared and the sun was making up for lost time. The wind stayed and when we stopped for shelter and lunch (and to look for fossils), it rattled the bones-branches even more furiously.

Apparently, this quarry has been rigoursly plundered for fossils over the years. The Earth Heritage Trust maintain it now. I loved the layers of the rocks in the quarry walls above the lake (sadly small - there has not been enough rain, even if it feels like there has), each delicately resting above the next, subtly shaded differently. This is, according to geologists, stratification, but I think it looks like the layers of a piece of delicate French patisserie. 

I may have been ready for my sandwiches at this point.

Not so ready that I couldn't join in with turning over rocks to see what there was in them. To be honest, I don't need to be in a fossil quarry to do that, I can lose hours looking over gravel or at the stones I turn up at the allotment. Geology and fossils are fascinating, so this was like being in a candy shop. We found mostly traces of tiny sea creatures, or rhynchonellida brachiopod, if you're feeling fancy. I brought just 2 home and they are now with the rest of my small collection. One day I shall catalogue them and then I shall really have gone over to the dark side.

Everywhere were signs of green and new growth. Tiny leaves on trees, distant hills wearing a gauzy cloak of green over their brown winter pelt, blossom petals drifting down. It is most cheering after this winter. As was the glow of satisfaction at having made it so far without legs buckling. It is good to be active again.

That said, the above was taken when we lost the path, my feet were complaining and I really really needed a wee but don't like wild weeing. It's amazing how grumpy a previously sunny tempered, entirely amenable person can get in that situation. Imagine how bad I was then. 

Heading back to the cars, we passed fancy drains, fancy landscaping and fancy outside art.

I have never stumbled more gratefully into a Waitrose loo than I did that day. 

Of course, across the land, things reopened yesterday but we failed to jump into action at the calls to spend spend spend to save the economy. I did go to a garden centre at the weekend, and that will do me. Despite being half vaccinated - people can talk to my left side only - I'm reluctant to throw myself into crowded situations, but that's me on a normal day, let alone Right Now. My natural reluctance to be jostled in stores has stood me in good stead so far, I see no reason to change it for the moment. 

That said, I miss bookshops and charity shops, so I may only last till my invoice is paid and then I'll be poppin' off to the shops. 

This week is all about preparing as there is a big weekend coming up. Oh yes, this coming weekend is Shed Arrival Weekend and I am already excited. So many plans for what will go in there that my brain can't contain them all and I keep coming across scraps of paper where I've scribbled "wallpaper?", "where potting table?", "make seed store", "canes too big - storage!". 

I will, of course, document the whole installation in tedious detail. You have been warned...

Radical Manoeuvres in the Dark

Yesterday, I did something radical. 

I was tidying up the big spare room which used to be my son’s room, and is now my office and early morning retreat space. In here, as well as laptop, desk, Edwardian walnut wardrobe and dresser that don't really fit but I can’t seem to get rid of, is a pile of books. 

I’m an early morning reader. My favourite start to the day used to be bringing a cup of tea back to the guest bed and reading for an hour or so before having to start the day proper. Mabel would come and join me, purring and kneading like a wind up toy. All would be cosy and calm. 

The to-be-read pile sat on the bedside table and was never less than 4 deep. On the shelf underneath, there would be another 5 or so. I enjoyed that. I liked knowing there was something to read, the visible sign of my love of books and how much they mattered to me. 

On the dressing table would be the pile of books I’d read that month. 

Yesterday, tidying my way around the house, I stopped in front of these piles. The Read pile has remained static since February, the To-Be-Read since January. And all of a sudden, I felt oppressed by both of them. 

Obligated by what I was supposed to be reading at a time when my concentration doesn’t even extend to Twitter, and mocked by the paucity of what I had managed to read. 

I took the Read pile downstairs and carefully put them on the shelves (alphabetical order, naturally; I haven't completely lost my senses) and sat with the To-Be-Read for a little while longer. Did I really think I was going to make it through a history of Orkney, the saucier side of the Victorians or the autobiography of a woman unfortunate enough to marry Philip Roth? How about that novel about the cafe in Japan, or Hamnet, or the one about Death’s assistant?

No. 

Reader, I put them away. 

They haven’t gone away but they are tidied away, back onto the shelves. There is space on the table that I’ve filled with red anemones from the garden. I breathe more easily, no longer feel defined by the that pile.

Still can’t concentrate on a blasted thing, mind. Maybe I'll try poetry. 

This is the time to be slow, 

Lie low to the wall

Until the bitter weather passes. 

 

Try, as best you can, not to let

The wire brush of doubt

Scrape from your heart

All sense of yourself

And your hesitant light. 

 

If you remain generous, 

Time will come good;

And you will find your feet

Again on fresh pastures of promise, 

Where the air will be kind

And blushed with beginning. 

John O'Donohue 

Through It

 Yesterday was my last day at work. To be clear, it was my last day in my current employment. I am now officially Freelance. 

This year has been unlike anything I’ve ever known before. Rollercoaster years are not unknown to me, with my chequered, swift moving, changing past. But I don’t think I’ve ever gone from over the top excited to utter despair so quickly. 

Dad has left this massive blank space behind him and we live from moment to moment, simply moving around the edges of it. It's never going away but we find ways to accommodate it. 

Sudden death robs you of the opportunity for final words, for the last considered hug, for adjustment to the not-there-ness that will follow. We had none of that. One day he was there and I had thought "I must phone Mum and Dad this week." The next morning he was not and I missed that chance. The last time I held his hand, he was already cold.

I'm not sure when I'll be able to forgive myself for that. 

There is no way through this but through it. One step, one decision, one hour at a time if needs be. I make plans, book tickets for things later in the year, send messages to friends that say "yes, we really do need to meet up!" but I find it hard to believe that I will.

 And in a horrible twist of be-careful-what-you-wish for, I find myself the owner of a shed. Dad was a man of several sheds because he'd been a man of many activities. The main shed stored the lathe he brought a few years ago (I have some things he carved on it before the tremors in his hands got too bad). This little shed was home to random pieces of wood, the purpose of which we'll never know now. 

The little shed is coming to my allotment. 

My son has the first set of shelves he ever made me at his new home in Sunderland. They moved with me into adulthood and my own homes, and I find it comforting that they still have a home in the family. 

I phone Mum every day, aware that as the funeral recedes from memory, people will let themselves think that she is adjusting and fine. She is and she is not. They were married when she was 18, had been together for just 3 days shy of 46 years. She is keeping busy but she feels his absence like a physical pain. How do you adjust to that?

We both find walking into either of the sheds comforting and not. I don't believe in life after death but he is so vividly there, the smell of the oil, wood and metal mingles to bring him back and I hear his voice in my head most clearly when I'm in there. 

He did see my allotment. He liked it. I think he would be happy the shed is going there. 

All of the cliches are spoken. Of course they are. They are cliches because they contains kernels of wisdom or truth that still resonate with us. It's what he would have wanted (it is and we know this because we knew him). He would have been happy with that. Take it one day at a time. Time is a great healer. 

It might be but it has lost almost all meaning for us, moving slowly and speeding up at the same time. How are we 6 weeks since it happened, since that dreadful morning, the ambulance, the flurry of masked men, chest compressions and incomprehensible words? That mad dash from my house to theirs, still too late? How am I able to write, to work, to make plans for the future?

There is no way through it but through it. We take a step at a time and know, deep in our bones, that he would have wanted us to. We laugh when we remember things, cry at others. We stumble and fall on this new path, sometimes literally. 

I have lost track of the things I have tripped over because I've stopped being able to see things.

Some days the grief is a heavy weight, others a feather-light ache. On all of them we try not to look too far ahead. We do a lot of looking back. A lot of rearranging our heads around that big blank space. We try not to look down into it.

What Matters

This grief contains such a fierce energy, I would take over any number of towns, storm any building and raze any state to the ground just for the chance to have him back, to hear him laugh again. 

It leaves me curled in tight balls under duvets, blankets or coats, my throat is raw. 

I tell myself that if I curl up small, it won’t find me. I’ll escape it’s notice. But I can't.

Time is ridiculous. It’s permanently stood still at 9am 19th February 2021, yet it’s also rushing me away from him, the minutes carrying me away from him. It feels like it happened both moments and months ago.

The stupid thing is, I now realise it doesn't matter how comfortable you are with death in the abstract, how many death cafes you've attended, how many articles you've read. All of your knowledge, insouciance, training, it's worthless in the actual face of it and all that's left is a hard fact, colder than any polar region. 

My Dad is dead. 

I want my Dad back. 

And sometimes I'm able to, not forget, but to step aside from myself, from reality for a moment. I will laugh at something, make a plan, type an email. And then the tsunami comes, that hot wave of grief that rolls me over with it, leaving me shaking and small again. 

And angry. I'm angry with the doctors that didn't monitor his condition properly. With the traffic that got in my way as I sped over to their house that morning. With the government whose slow and patchwork response to lockdowns robbed me of time with him. With myself for spending more time on Instagram in the past year than I did with him. He was invincible to me. 

The strongest man I knew, picking up children, dogs and gnerators with equal ease. Rarely succumbed to an illness. Treated everyone with the same easy manner. I cycled foreign streets with him, climbed hills, rode horses and swam in seas. Played frustrating games of scrabble because, while not a wordy man, he was competitive and played to win. 

His laugh was loud, immoderate and ready. 

I dreamt about him 5 days after he died, surrounded by friends he hadn't seen for years, I was finally able to give him the hug social distancing had stopped me from doing for nearly a year. 

And that is the hardest part: I thought I was doing the right thing, keeping them safe by keeping my distance and it didn't matter, it never mattered and I should have been there every single week because I can't remember the last time I hugged him and I can't remember what we spoke about the last time I called. 

I don't have a conclusive ending for this post. A pithy line that sums up how I feel because oceans aren't enough to contain that. There's no neat precis, no wry acknowledgement or dry oneliner. There's just this gap that won't be filled and a feeling of absence that never goes away.