June Reading

With hindsight, my June reading should have been a huge clue, to me anyway, as to how I was feeling. But that’s the thing about being in the middle of a fog, you can’t see your way out, let alone stop to think about  what might be causing it. 

To cut a long, twisting, evolving and not particularly jolly story short, I’m currently signed off work for a couple of weeks with stress and anxiety, and I should have seen the signs. But as I wasn’t paying attention to myself, the cause of the fog, I didn’t realise how bad it was until I woke one morning and discovered that I could no longer find my way out of it. 

I will be fine. All the support systems have kicked in, boyfriend and friends that know are hugely supportive, the rest is helping and the fog is lifting. As I look back to June, I can now see how quickly it gathered, and the triggers behind it. That’s the thing about hindsight: it’s always 20:20. 

The clue in my reading is that I completely lost the ability to focus. I started David Olusoga’s book and Toni Morrison’s but couldn’t manage more than a couple of pages at a time. Not because they are badly written, the very opposite. No, my brain was completely overwhelmed and in retreat. 

So it retreated to Discworld. I gulped down all the copies I had on my shelves but I couldn’t tell you what the nuances of plot were. All I knew was that they were safe and comforting and set in a world that worked a damn sight better than the real one. I wanted to pound the streets with Captain Vimes, be taught how to Borrow by Granny Weatherwax, learn the lyrics to The Hedgehog Can Never Be Buggered with Nanny Ogg and ride Binky with Death. 

I most emphatically did not want to be in reality. Does anyone right now?

The good news is that the fog is beginning to lift. A few days on the sofa and the arrival of our new addition, Mabel (there will be more about her, have no fear) have helped enormously. It's hard to remain wallowing in self-pity when a small furry head is butting against yours and there are 4 tiny paws to play with.

My Week in...

Tastes. It was my birthday this week, so I’ve been utterly spoiled for flavours that danced and sang on my tongue. 

My breakfast egg with an umami sprinkling of mixed sesame and seaweed garnish picked up at my local Asian supermarket. 

A seafood linguine full of mussels, clams and crayfish in a sauce so delicious, I wanted to bathe in it. 

Pickled onion Monster Munch. Grabbing dinner on the go as we went to visit friends. 

A salad of strawberries, mango and nectarines at the so-ripe-we’re-nearly-done stage. 

Cherry and almond, raspberry and peanut butter brownies for the family gathering today, to celebrate said birthday. The RPJ ones are perfect: chewy, fudgey, rich. 

Roast chicken with thyme, rosemary, parsley, lemon zest and garlic stuffing. 

The intense berried zing of my favourite wine, Fleuris. Only purchased on special occasions. 

Our first beetroot from the allotment: pink on the outside, yellow in. Obviously the best tasting beetroot that has ever been grown. 

My Week in ... Sounds

The bells chiming out the hour from the rather handsome church round the corner from our house. I find myself feeling cheated when the number of chimes is less than 7. 

Our formerly indoor cat making his strange cackling meow at the massive pigeons on the fence, as though he knows he should make a noise but can’t decide what it should be. 

Birdsong at the allotment, with a bass line of bees.  

The chatter and clink of cups at the first coffee shop I’ve visited since February. 

My own voice on a recording made for work. Do I sound like that? I had no idea. I certainly sound posher than I really am. 

Bacon sizzling in the pan with onions and mushrooms. 

My chair at the café. It was you’llery comfortable. 

All the Small Things #5

The boyfriend and I have somewhat different sleeping patterns. I am the proverbial up-with-the-lark, waking between 5 and 6 in the morning, brain whirring, eager to see what the day holds, sleepy and muddled by 10pm, longing for my bed. 

He’s the opposite, one of those fabled night owls who would sleep till 11 in the morning, revelling in bed while the world cracks on outside, still wide awake at 1 in the morning, listening to the city’s night sounds. 

This could have caused problems but since the creation of my retreat (aka the spare room), it doesn’t. I creep out of bed, make myself tea, greet the cat and come back up into the retreat to read and gently ease myself into the day. 

At weekends, I treat myself to breakfast in bed, nothing too fancy or messy. Today there’s sourdough bread, honey and cherries from the farm shop, peanut butter (my food addiction and strictly limited so I don’t end up having to be craned out of the house) and a nectarine because it had hit that sweet ripe spot overnight. A copy of Bloom to browse through because recently I’ve lost concentration for books. 

It’s been a tough week for many reasons, so I’m resetting this weekend. No Twitter, no news, limited online time. And lots of good food. 

My week in ...

New series (possibly) of posts where I remind myself  of things experienced during the week via my senses. This week, smell. 

Smell is a rather unpleasant word, isn't it? But somehow fragrance, perfume, odour don't seem to fit, and I just don't like the word 'scent'. 

Never mind, I'll think on, in the meantime, here's my week in assorted smells (really going to think on that word): 

Sheets, freshly washed and in from drying outside, on the bed. 

Rain hitting hot pavements. 

Just-turned soil. 

Wild oregano on the allotment, full of flowers and bees. 

My cat's fur, warm from a day's sunbathing. 

A sandwich of fresh bread stuffed with rocket and halloumi. 

Beeswax polish on my favourite piece of furniture. 

gate image above from a recent neighbourhood explore. I love this so much; it speaks of safety and home and humour. Also, that green. 

All The Small Things #4

When my sister and I were little, we spent a lot of time with my maternal grandparents in their village house. Mornings were a time for second breakfasts, feeding the birds, making spice potions, exploring the gardens and farm over the road.  

Afternoons were for a trip to the little church where our parents were married, to the cemetery and then back where we were allowed to bother my grandad as he pottered around, seemingly bad tempered and impatient but never scarily so. 

By late afternoon, we'd retreat to their living room and watch cartoons or whatever Western he'd recorded to watch. At some point, the sweet tin would be opened. 

Ah, the sweet tin. I can see it now and recall exactly where it was kept in the 1950s sideboard. Once a week it was topped up with a giant bag of pick and mix from Woolworths. Every time, I looked for the chewy toffee sweets. Inside, it smelled of sherbet, chocolate and sugar. It was the tin of dreams and I wanted one when I was old enough. 

I don't have a sweet tin now I'm a grown up. I may be in my 40s but my self control around sweets is practically zero. For that reason, I hardly ever buy them either. But every now and then I succumb, this week to the incomparable mint chocolates from Hotel Chocolat. Promising myself, as always, that I'd have one a day and savour them. 

Reader, I ate them all. And they were good.

 

June at the 'Lottie

Thank goodness for the rain, has been the recent cry around my house as it means we can neither go anywhere and face the crowds of ridiculous people, nor were our watering skills needed at the allotment for so long, my allotment neighbour sent me a message to check I was okay.

Another reason for being thankful is that the ground has finally softened enough for me to begin digging over the space where the fruit cage will go. The earth is full of roots - bindweed, bramble, thick tussocky grass - as well as bits of plastic, pottery and interesting stones, which bring a pause in proceedings as I check them out for fossils. No luck so far.

The great runner bean project is now well underway with the beans making their winding way to the top of the poles. Planted between each one is a beetroot. Truly, the boyfriend has an autumn of pickling ahead of him.

The squash and courgette I planted in early May has recovered from the frosts and there are now tiny yellow courgettes on the one below. I won't leave it too long before harvesting them as I prefer my courgettes small and tender, rather than large and tough.

The remaining potato plants are resolutely refusing to put out any flowers, so I'm not sure if they're ready to harvest yet or not. I figure they're not getting into any harm in the ground, so there they stay for the time being.

And the wildflower patch is buzzing with life. Last time I counted 10 bumbles going nuts amongst the purple blooms, wriggling and buzzing like children round a chocolate trifle. This makes me smile. The bottom of the plot does not. There are 2 downed elder trees that I can't chop up and burn as we still have a ban on it at the site, plus they are currently the only thing holding the Japanese knotweed at bay. This is spreading along the canal bank and I know, from my Dad's days as a landscape gardener, it's harder to get rid of than a boring (and toxic) guest at a dinner party. As we don't know when the council will be out to deal with it, I'm not in any rush to clear the area.

At home I have sprout, purple sprouting broccoli and standard broccoli seedlings on the windowsill. They'll be going in the potato plots once that's been cleared and fed. I'm hoping to grow a few parsnips over the winter too, as well as swede. The raspberries will go in the cleared fruit cage area and then I can turn my attention to the potential asparagus bed and orchard area (right where that troublesome knotweed is).

My birthday looms in mid-July like a big looming excuse to treat myself, take some time off and generally have a reason for eating all the things I like. I've asked for, and been promised by the boyfriend, a small shed for the allotment, so I no longer have to carry every tool up there. A shed! Can't believe I'm so excited by 4 wooden walls, but there we are. I have grown up, it seems, although I also got excited over a new boardgame at the weekend, so not that grown up.

I shall paint it blue with a yellow door, a cupboard inside with a camping stove and a kettle, and a curse on anyone who breaks in and nicks anything.