Author: kathleenjowitt

December Reflections 16: memorable meal in 2024

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A faded painted sign advertising Kimberley Ales, half hidden behind a gazebo, some wheelie bins and some plastic crates

Well, you can ask for Kimberley Ales, but you won’t get them. However, our “bus crew: the next generation, and the generation after that” meal at the Cliff Inn, Crich, was enjoyable in every way. I am not sure that “those people who turned up every August bank holiday in the 1970s and drank the pub dry” are even a folk memory at the Cliff any more, but the current management made us extremely welcome and organised a meal for a dozen.

There is a song dating from those days, with the chorus, “Isn’t it grand, boys, to be drinking at Cliff”. Each verse begins “Look at [person]”, or, in my father’s case, “Regardez le Patron”. It’s a bit depressing to sing these days, as a lot of the subjects are now drinking in the bar up yonder. (To absent friends!) We did not, could not possibly, have done them justice, but it was at least something of a memorial, and I enjoyed it.

(This photo actually taken at the Tramway Museum, a little way up the hill. I didn’t end up taking any at the Cliff.)

December Reflections 15: glitter

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A red glittery battery operated tea light

I don’t think I have anything very intelligent to say about glitter. I am feeling slightly under the weather and have, this afternoon, discharged my final responsibility of the year in my biggest voluntary commitment. So I will just post this picture of a little red glittery battery operated tea light, and note that I am giving myself the evening off any sort of Christmas preparations – and drinking a whisky mac.

December Reflections 13: biggest lesson of 2024

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A full cup of coffee. A toddler's plastic beaker is visible in the background.

Capacity. There are only so many hours in a day, even when it’s not a scarce-seven-hours St Lucy’s day.

There is only so much work that I can fit into three days, only so much voluntary admin that I can fit into a toddler’s nap. And then I have to switch off, put the laptop away. No more pressing on until the task is finished. I can’t get away with that any more. I can’t afford the egotistical luxury of being the go-to person any more: I have to direct inquiries elsewhere, ask for help, leave things undone.

I still have a lot to learn about this.

December Reflections 12: brings me joy

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Bare trees against a grey sky. A few yellow leaves are still clinging to the branches.

Recently I’ve been noticing how very satisfying rich colours are. The deep red on our dining room wall. Cobalt blue watercolour, before you start diluting it. In a box of 40 reels of thread, the magenta one. I like them opaque but not muddy. These leaves aren’t quite as good as my mug from the Women’s Tour, but they’re pretty good.

And getting outside, even just for ten minutes around the block. This little patch of trees and grass and path is just there to baffle the noise from the main road, but it’s a habitat for small joys like squirrels, deer, people on bicycles, people not on bicycles, huge and tiny dogs, sparrows, goldfinches, rosehips, hazelnuts, blackberries, bouncy balls, and exuberantly yellow leaves.

December Reflections 11: 2024 in one photo

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Windpump, main structure of dark wood planks, white sails, against a blue sky

Windpump at Wicken Fen. I am not just trying to indicate that 2024 was the year we got National Trust membership, though this is true.

At one point I got very interested in windmills (this is not one) and fell down several Wikipedia rabbit-holes learning about Dutch windmill code and so on (this appears to be broadcasting something between ‘good news’ and ‘not open for business’).

But the real reason for choosing this photo is the sense of space I encountered at Wicken Fen, which feels emblematic of this year’s emotional shift. Big skies and quietness. This year I’ve begun to make more sense of the world in which I live, I’ve been deliberate in spending more time outside, and (most of the time) there’s been more space and it’s easier to breathe.

December Reflections 10: I said hello to…

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Close crop of a night time photo of a cargo bike

… this pantechnicon.

While we acquired the cargo bike last year, I was very pregnant at the time, and I only began to be comfortable trying to ride it this May. It’s actually surprisingly easy to get used to, once you’ve got the hang of the steering. For town errands, it’s quite a bit handier than a car: just as well, since I can’t, and (for health reasons) shouldn’t, drive one.

December Reflections 8: I said goodbye to…

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Vinyl sticker, still on its backing paper, with a bright green globe artichoke on a dark blue background with text 'Artichaut de Bretagne ' in red

… so much stuff belonging to my father. And yet there is still so much left.

I should start by saying that most of the hard work of getting rid of things has been done by my brothers, and I have mostly been saying goodbye at the point of seeing a familiar item in the auction catalogue and going, “oh, yes, that…”

That’s accounted for a lot of the bulky items. Some stuff has gone to the tip. The rest of it…

If you ever met my father, you probably saw one of these stickers. He stuck them on everything – suitcase, diary, camera bag – and had been doing so since the mid 1970s, when his bus was part of the artichoke sponsored Tour de France publicity caravan. There is still a huge stash left.

There is a lot of stuff like that: cool story, no monetary value to speak of, about twenty times as much as anyone ever needed to keep. Or, in some cases, quite possibly some monetary value, if only one could find the person who wants it and work out how to get it to them. Or, of no interest whatsoever except to the family.

My next door neighbour died a couple of months ago. Her son rented a skip. Everything went in the skip. The house is now up for sale.

Could we learn from him? Probably. Except… I myself rescued a chair and two icons from the skip, the icons because it felt sacrilegious to leave them there (they can go to a charity shop) and the chair because it was far too beautiful to be thrown away. So no, I’m probably constitutionally incapable of chucking everything in a skip. Particularly when today I went through the 78rpm records and claimed one of Amelita Galli-Curci singing Julius Benedict’s La Capinera. Or, a rare recording of one of the greatest singers of all time singing an all but forgotten piece by my great-great-great-grandfather. No, it’s not going in a skip.

So we’ll still be saying goodbye to stuff into 2025. But please, please, not much longer.

December Reflections 7: here I am

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Wooden railway track and cars noodle around a map of the pre-Beeching Isle of Wight railway network

This is where I am, although not when I am.  Only a fraction of this railway network remains; today I joined some family members in riding the part that’s preserved as a steam heritage line.

I am not from the Isle of Wight. We moved there when I was fourteen; before that I knew it as a tourist; I’ve never lived there as an adult for more than a couple of months while I worked out what else I was meant to be doing. Many things would have to change to make it make sense for me to move back. And yet, I realised this year, Ventnor is the closest thing I have to a hometown. There’s a part of me that would love to hang out permanently in the Exchange, writing novels. Or walking along whichever bits of the coast haven’t fallen into the sea yet. Or both.

Every time I go back, something’s changed, something in the natural landscape or the human one, or both. And every time I go back it still manages to feel like home.