The Good News Roundup

Well, this was going to be a Good News roundup but then events overtook me and, instead of being able to trawl the internet for happy stories, I've been distracted by setting up an office at home, managing the volunteers I work with, trying to keep the museum I work in feeling alive and relevant to a (now totally) digital audience etc etc etc. So. Not much time for trawling. 

The middle section of the elder by the canal side of the allotment fell down.

On the plus side, this gives us a nice handy bench for those important coffee and progress chats.  

I'm deliberately keeping away from the media - we don't watch a news program and I only read the Guardian once a day, just to try and keep some sanity and a sense of proportion. It's so easy to get carried away, hitting refresh, getting into arguments online, checking your temperature in the manner of a fragile Victorian heroine (back of hand against the brow, a weary sigh etc) and fretting that every little niggle in the throat is the start of IT. I'm keeping my anxiety levels low by keeping my exposure to hysterical media low. 

Mind you, we'd have to check for fungi before sitting. I don't imagine these black frilly types, 

nice as they look, would leave your jeans in a good state. 

I'm also not pushing myself to feel like I have to have written a novel, learned to draw like Michelangelo, inspired a whole new internet trend, become super-yoga bendy, repainted the whole house, sculpted the new centrepiece for the Venice Biennale etc etc etc. It is okay not to have done any of those things. It is okay to have managed just one blog post (here it is!), a couple of hours at the allotment and the occasional bike ride. 

Providing I get through this with an intact relationship, my family and my own sanity, I will be happy. It is nice not to feel so tired after work that I don't want to cook. It is nice to cycle through almost deserted streets (although when this is all done, I'm having a word with the damn saddle manufacturer). It is nice to do a spot of yoga now and then. It is nice to dig and chat on the allotment at the end of the day. It is nice to plant seeds. It is nice to plan our Paris-Bordeaux trip for next year. It is nice to have more time to read in bed in the morning. 

I will take your nice and raise you. 

See, holiday planning for next year. Paris to Bordeaux by train, baby. 

These are posted to the wall in front of my temporary desk and bringing

some sanity. Plus hope. Hope is good. 

Just two links to good news this week, because I'm finding that focusing my mental energy on farming and ecology is more of a help than focusing it on the lack of flour in my local shop.

Ecology is a feminist issue. Why taking a feminine approach to the current world crisis may be the approach that stops our house from burning.

Urban areas can be farms too! I love the idea that once bleak and divided places can be made communal, productive and a force for good. 

Keep yourselves well and sane. Remember to get dressed properly, eat what you feel like, move around a little. Remember to be kind. 

Reading for Healing

Because sometimes you don't need your downtime to be challenging, especially at the start of the year. You need comedy, nourishment, things to make you smile or a chance to catch up with an author you've enjoyed previously.

January, in an attempt to stave off the winter blues (it worked only while reading), I hit the Muriel Spark and Barbara Pym pretty hard. Spark is sharp as a knife and comedic with it, her characters never over-egged but perfectly encapsulated in a few telling phrases or actions. From the alternately fastitious and chaotic batchelors to the careless, slightly ruthless, young women fighting for their place and purpose in the world.

Pym is so often overlooked as a "tea and curates" author, producing the sort of books where nothing much happens, spinsters lose their heads over men of cloth and emotions are kept firmly in check. In truth, she can be as sharp as Spark, unpitying and clear-sighted, her characters in the unyeilding crosshairs of her gaze. A sentence will slip in as cleanly as a blade. There is a reason Philip Larkin rated her so highly.

Yes, I was fit enough to take a walk along the canal, and it was good. 

Cockfosters was disappointing. Not as funny and riotous as Helen Simpson's first collection, Four Bare Legs in a Bed. Now, that's a joyous read.

January Reading: the final chapter of Love of Country by Madeleine Bunting; Cockfosters by Helen Simpson; The Batchelors and Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark; Excellent Women, Jane & Prudence and An Academic Question by Barbara Pym.

More Pym, more comfort, more funny in February as I read my way through the strorms and floods that hit our region. Luckily, we live far enough away from the river to not be affected, and the relentless rain gave a decent excuse to curl up on the sofa and read away. All the way across to America in fact: Armistead Maupin is a big favourite of mine. Funny, irreverent, delighting in shocking the reader but always with heart firmly engaged. 

  Just a pair of feet, standing in front of a major project at work, begging it not to fuck up

Fish Bowl is hilarious: scenes from a city high rise seen by a goldfish falling from a bowl. Touching, thoughtful, well paced and a thorough joy. Thoroughly recommended. 


However, not every book was a joy and I was disappointed in Devil's Day, especially as I had high hopes of it. Hurley's The Loney was utterly brilliant, the tension ratcheted up page by well written page. However, Devil's Day irritated me with the narrator's treatment of his wife. And he was supposed to be the good guy! Finished but was angry for most of it. Doesn't make it a bad book, just makes it an irritating one, like an itchy label inside your top.

February reading: Compton Hodnet by Barbara Pym; Further Tales of the City and Significant Others by Armistead Maupin; The Wild Places by Robert McFarlane; Devil's Day by Andrew Michael Hurley; The Dry by Jane Harper; Fish Bowl by Bradley Somer. 

 Daffys. Just because they pretty. 

And March has started strongly with Wilding by Isabella Tree and the new Ann Cleeves. Currently reading The Five by Hallie Rubenhold. Finding a nice balance between fact and fiction. If only I could find as good a balance on my feet.

Recovering

It is fair to say that, for many people, the first 2 months of 2020 have sucked an enormous amount of donkey butt. Floods, family illnesses, relationship issues forced to the fore by the Christmas break (this is not unusual), worries about pandemics and the general awfulness of the news. It has seemed, like the grey skies, unrelenting and unremitting. 

There was blossom in February. That was worth stopping the car for. That sounds sarcastic when it wasn't meant to. It REALLY was worth stopping for. 

I haven't been immune to this: an injury to one foot in November led to tendon damage in the other as it tried to compensate. Days when I didn't know which foot to limp on and my knees registered complaints. My gait rendered shuffling and slow. Average standing time of 20 minutes only. Pain so bad I'd get home, sit on the stairs to remove my shoes and then cry. No yoga, no allotmenting, no winter walks to chase the blues away. We've been lucky enough to avoid the flooding but work and the world have flooded us with issues that seemed too big to do anything about. 

Loki and his soft belly fur. And incredibly sharp claws. Fuss at your own risk. 

Luckily, 3 months, 2 doctors, a podiatrist and a physiotherapist later, I've finally received a treatment that worked well enough for me to be able to walk down the stairs this morning without wincing. The sun is warm and benevolent. There is the smell of homemade museli, fresh from a mild baking, scenting the air with delicate cinnamon wafts. I've just spent a couple of minutes finely chopping basil for a goats cheese and basil pasta dish, the punchy green smell of the herb making my mouth water. 

Thor. Even softer belly fur, less intimidating claws. One eye open in case I start crocheting and some wool teasing is to be had.

What else, what else, for the past 2 months? Unpicked my Attic 24 blanket and then started again with a smaller hook and better results. Read books. Found Percy Pigs in unexpected places. Stroked the cats soft angel-hair bellies. Met up with friends. Became a mother-in-law in waiting (the Kid newly engaged). Soft-launched my heritage consultancy. Swam in the calm warm blue waters of my nearest swimming pool 3 mornings a week. Made a dress. Watched the 2 projects I'd launched at work take flight and grow. 

March is good. March feels like plans can be made. March feels hopeful. 

 Percy Pigs, my most favourite sweet, hidden by a very considerate person, in unexpected places. Little smiles after arguments over the dishes.

 
Goats Cheese and Basil Pasta
Take one packet of soft goats cheese (at room temperature) and mush with a fork. 
Add a tablespoon of olive oil - the good stuff - and a few grindings of black pepper to the cheese. 
Finely (or roughly, it's up to you) chop some fresh basil. 
Pause for a moment to fill your nostrils with the smell of it. 
Add to the goats cheese mix. 
Cook your pasta. Drain and keep a little back to add to the mix. 
Put pasta back in the pan and add the goats cheese mush. 
Stir through, adding the pasta water a little at a time, until the appropriate amount of sauciness has been achieved. 
Serve in bowl with chopped cherry tomatoes and a slice of crusty bread to get up the last of the sauce. 
Eat with a good view, a good book or a good companion. 

Optional Extras: 
pine nuts for crunch
garlic for vampire protection
gran padano or parmesan for added cheesiness
 

Whimsy, or Whumsy

If your fingers are anything like mine and instead of hitting the right keys at the right time and in the right order, they are missing them, hitting the wrong ones or splodging 3 down at the same time, so that what should read "green" actually reads "fgrweemn". I feel like Homer in the Simpsons episode where he eats to be fat enough to work from home and then can't work the telephone keypad. "If your fingers are too fat to dial, smash the numbers with the palm of your hand, you terrible, terrible person." Or something. 

Anyway, today is Valentines or Galentines or Palentines or Petentines or just another Friday. However you wish to consider this day (I haven't done Valentines for years and frankly this one freaked me out: what was I supposed to do? What was I supposed to buy? Why is he not like normal people and happy to mainline salted caramel? Why did I not fall in love with a woman and thereby have a multitude of sad, cheap shit to chose from in the shops?), I think we all need some whimsy to carry us through the storms predicted this weekend. 

 

And that's just from those who brought Val. Day stuff but didn't get anything in return. 

I'll keep you posted on that one. 

These gorgeous creations are automaton (which I have a soft spot for anyway, much like I do stop-animation films) created by Rowland Emmett, the genius behind the designs for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, an illustrator for Punch and one of those people that I really wish I known and met when he was alive. 

Whimsy, beautiful design, attention to detail and a blatant call on your curiosity, I love these so much, I'd knock down some of my house to get it in. But I'm not allowed to. However, there is a touring exhibition of A Quiet Afternoon in Cloud Cuckoo Valley (see images above). If you go along and have to elbow a middle-aged woman with unruly hair out of the way, that'll be me. Say hi while you're elbowing.

Taking Steps

I think, right now, it is okay to feel overwhelmed. To feel like the skies are always dark, the work always repetitive and the hugs not always forthcoming. To feel like there are so many problems you don't know where to start (and that's before you even get to the big world stuff). To feel like there are so many things to learn about that there is not enough time in the world. To feel like you are shouldering so many burdens you may break. To feel that you are always the one dishing out the support, love and affection, whilst always being at the end of everyone else's queue for the same.

It is quite alright to think, to know, that you cannot face going out, staying out, partying out because all that really appeals is solitude and time to think. It is alright to, when faced with this time to think, decide not to but merely watch re-runs or read whilst in your pyjamas. It is alright to eat the same thing on repeat, to not feel like cooking, to allow the craving to take over.

It is perfectly fine to hibernate, hunker down, bunker up, shut down. The world will still turn even if you don't make that dinner engagement. Oxygen will still be generated even if you don't see that must-see film. Humanity will continue to bimble and bicker outside your door even if you don't go to that pub.

It is okay to feel all this because you're human. And because it's still only fecking February, how are we not in March yet, dear god will this winter never end and if I have to close the door behind someone ONE MORE TIME, I may take it off the hinges and batter them with it while screaming "close the door!" over and over again.

And breeeeeathe.

So, what to do? Lie back and allow it to overwhelm, weeping into a giant bag of left-over Christmas crisps and a plateful of the Christmas cake that no one can really bring themselves to eat but needs must when the mood is this dire? Rage rage against the dying of the light, the leaving open of the doors or the endless rain? Grit your teeth and soldier silently on, mounting fury at the continued ignoring of your own needs making your eyes go flinty and mean, causing yet more crows feet? Add crows feet to the list of things to worry about?

No. 

Take the bath. Read the escapist book (I've been inhaling Barbara Pym and Muriel Spark like crack...do people inhale crack?). Buy the good bread, cheese and chocolate. Ask for, nay demand, the hug from those you love. Book the massage. Park the car in a country road and stand in a field for 5 minutes. Smell the baby's head. Light the candle. Buy the daffodils. Get out of the car and look at the snowdrops. Give a quid to the homeless guy. Give all your quids and a cup of coffee. Hold a perfectly smooth egg for 30 seconds and then make yourself the butteriest scrambled egg for breakfast. Make time for breakfast. Swim. Stare at the stars. Tick off the days. Know that it gets better. 

Buy an automatic closer for the goddam door. 

My Week in Pictures

I had an early morning visitor - the Velveteen Splodge (Thor-cat's new nickname because he is as soft and strokable as the purest velvet, and also because when he splodges out on the carpet, he looks almost boneless) wanting to know, in the nicest possible way, where his damn breakfast was.

A quick visit to the allotment last Sunday and a final bout of digging the long bed in time for the frosts (ha!) to break the earth down. It yielded quite the biggest ant's nest I've ever seen, plus a leftover from the previous tenant. I have no idea what a "Pupleurium Houndifalum" is. If , indeed, that is it's real name *squints*

Tulips in the dark dark morning. 

The Withnail Wall is finally up, a mere 7 months after moving in, and it is splendid. It's been our habit for the past 3 years to go to the annual screening of Withnail and I at the Electric Cinema in Birmingham. There we eat themed cake, watch the film amongst like-minded (and often costumed) people and take part in the charity auction. Hence quite so many Richard E Grant signatures. The day they get Paul McGann in to talk about it and sign stuff is the day I genuinely lose my tiny mind with excitement. And have to remortgage the house.

Treated myself to some new t-shirts from Cakes with Faces. Love their designs. Cute but not mutton-as-lamb cute. 

Not shown, my Mum's new knee, my first ever attempt at making a teriyaki sauce (that turned out rather well) and the crochet blanket I started thinking to follow along with Attic 24's C-A-L. I ripped it apart after 4 lines, vaguely unhappy with it but not able to articulate why. Just couldn't face 293 rows of sodding treble stitch. 

Also not shown, my newly-painted bathroom. It is a vivid pink and no mistake. Like being on the inside of a raspberry. If you're going to go pink, go hard, say I. Insert your own double entendre, you filthy minded so-and-sos. 

Riding out the waves of a very wet week (not quite literally) and coasting to a Saturday night full stop. 

Down among the mosses

We're on the dog days of the Christmas holiday here - the return to work is due on Monday and Tuesday - and it's showing. There's a lethargy about the house and my jeans are begging me to return to normal eating patterns. So, in a bid to dispell the one and ease the other, I've been spending more time at the allotment. 

Only for half an hour at a time as ongoing foot problems means I find it very painful to be stood up for more than 30 minutes at a time. This is both boring and annoying, and I'm missing planned winter walks. 

Instead, I go and clear brambles, dig over some more of the covered bed and plant out some broad bean plants, taking a coffee and chocolate break (the mystery over my jeans feeling tight deepens...) before limping back home along the canal path, doing my best Igor impression. 

The earth is still waterlogged but the mosses and lichens I find are beautiful. And today I had a cheeky visitor watching me turn over the earth. He was especially pleased with the ants nest I uncovered. 

What is it about the sideways head-bob that is so adorable?