I bought the parent (now deceased) of this aloe vera plant in the Haymakers, Cambridge, the day that Boris Johnson prorogued Parliament. Well, ta-ra to him. The plant is doing very happily (its little sibling next it, not so much).
Just a short update this week, for reasons that will become clear…
The good
Rain! After a miserably hot week, it was sheer joy to lie in bed last night listening to the rain on the glass roof of the conservatory. And it’s doing it again now.
The mixed
Well, things could all be a lot worse, that’s all I can say.
Oh, yes, Fathers’ Day. When Pa was alive we all ignored it, as he considered it a tacky imported Hallmark holiday and would have been appalled had any of us tried to wish him a happy one of it. Nowadays my feeds are so full of people being sensitive to people for whom it’s a difficult day that it’s… not quite becoming a difficult day, but much more something to trip over. I’m mostly finding it funny, but I do miss him.
Next year I’m actually going to have to remember the date.
The difficult and perplexing
Believe me, I wasn’t planning to spend my last three working days before maternity leave in bed, but here I am. Well, there I was. I’m at the dining table now. Feeling quite a lot better. Still taking things easy.
What’s working
Nap early, nap often. Although a) turning over and b) getting up are both getting more and more uncomfortable. On the hot days, cooking late and eating in the garden.
Reading
If there’s one thing that lying in bed is good for, it’s reading. I have worked my way through:
- Fashioning James Bond: costume, gender and identity in the world of 007 (Llewella Chapman). This wasn’t quite the book I wanted it to be, though it had some delightful moments. I think I would have preferred less stitch-by-stitch suit description, more of the gender and identity bit of the subtitle, and more gossip. (Eunice Gayson in a dress six sizes too large, cut down and held together with pins, for example. This is the kind of thing I want to know more about.) Also, it was just cruel to describe the costume designs and not provide pictures. I’d love to have seen… all of them, really.
- The Woman Who Stole My Life (Marian Keyes). I don’t think anything’s ever going to top Rachel’s Holiday for me, and I didn’t entirely buy the central relationship, but this was a fun satire on the publishing world.
- several short sapphic freebies from a recent Jae-organised giveaway. Blind Date at the Booklover’s Lair (Jae); Bumping Into Her (Lisa Elliot); Off the Rails (Rachel Lacey); The Origins of Heartbreak (Cara Malone). DNF Prelude to Murder (Edale Lane), partly because of the copaganda but mostly because the author seemed incapable of using the word ‘said’. Someone remove that thesaurus, pronto.
At the moment I’m dipping into Slow Time (Waverly Fitzgerald) for a dose of gentle go-with-the-flow.
Writing
Did some on the train on Monday, but it seems like a very long time ago now.
Watching
Cycling (what a sad week it’s been there), a bit of the Trooping of the Colour, and silly quiz shows.
Appreciating
The fact that I can just stop now, and not have to worry about work that I feel that I ought to be doing.
This coming week
Contains our wedding anniversary, the solstice, a whole load of stuff going on at the cathedral that I almost certainly won’t be able to get to, and an appointment with the midwife, but I still have a suspicion that by the end of it I’ll have lost all sense of what a week even is.
Anything you’d like to share from this week? Any hopes for next week? Share them here!
Kathleen Jowitt 