Author: kathleenjowitt

Week-end: let’s try this again

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Textile artwork representing a map of the London area of Bloomsbury with quotations from notable women associated with the area
Artwork by Margaret Talbot at the Bridging the Gap exhibition at Babylon Arts

The good

Summer! It’s sunny, but it’s not too outrageously hot. I opened up the new Ffern perfume at about seven in the morning on the summer solstice. Gorgeous.

The mixed

OK, it’s a bit muggy.

The difficult and perplexing

A gallstone attack when I was out for a walk. Extremely painful and unpleasant. Had to retreat under a shady tree and be sick into a hedge in relative private. I am on the waiting list to have my gall bladder removed. I continue to wait.

What’s working

I’ve been playing around with bullet journalling, in its original iteration as a glorified to-do list, and not bothering trying to make it pretty. It’s actually working pretty well as a way to keep track of the sixteen different mixed metaphorical plates I have spinning.

Reading

I devoured She Who Became The Sun (Shelley Parker-Chan). It’s great. It’s a historical epic with a little magical realism, and is particularly inspiring to me at the moment in that the author simply decided to have fun (I am paraphrasing what she says in her acknowledgements here) and created an excellent book. I should note that it’s fairly bleak and occasionally very gory, and a few months ago I wouldn’t have been able to cope with it at all.

Elsewhere, I got through the long long nights with the whole of the Chalet School series (Elinor M. Brent-Dyer). I have gone back and begun again at the beginning (just finished Exile last night), but I also took a little side-step and tried out the Crater School series (Chaz Brenchley). Also a load of fun: it’s a pitch-perfect homage and is, you know, a boarding school story on Mars.

Then I picked up Cinderella Ate My Daughter (Peggy Orenstein), which takes a look at the consumer culture surrounding children, particularly girls. It was published in 2011, and I couldn’t help wondering how different it would look post-Frozen, and after Britney-gate. There’s also barely any mention of trans identities, which in 2024 seems an obvious angle to explore. I should probably be grateful.

Writing

Bits and pieces.

Making

A little smocked dress. I finished the front and then decided that the back also needed to be smocked, so I’m back in the tedious gathering stage.

Watching

The Great British Sewing Bee. I am behind on Doctor Who, but having been spoiled for the last couple of episodes I’m not sure that I’ll make the effort to catch up.

Looking at

Bridging the Gap, an exhibition by women textile artists, all members of EAST (East Anglian Stitch Textiles) at Babylon Arts. I was rather taken by a whimsical map of Bloomsbury embellished with quotations from notable women associated with the area, but my favourite pieces were probably Margaret Talbot‘s gorgeous landscapes.

Cooking

Beef pot roast in the Instant Pot. It’s not exactly the weather for it, but at least the pressure cooker minimises the cooking heat.

Eating

We went out to Wildwood for our anniversary; I had bruschetta, seafood linguine, and tiramisu.

Moving

A very, very gentle run-up (ha) to Couch to 5k, beginning with a lot more walking even than that routine recommends. So far, so good.

Noticing

Goldfinches!

In the garden

Complete chaos, but this evening I have managed to take the compost out, water the passion flower on the front fence, and pull up a few weeds.

Appreciating

Suddenly having a little more time to myself.

Acquisitions

Mostly clothes: four dresses from the Joanie sale, a sports bra, and ankle socks. Yesterday I took three books to the book swap cabinet at the top of the hill – and came home with two. Oh well.

Line of the week

From Cinderella Ate My Daughter:

While Zoe is cute, in a radioactive orange kind of way, her release fell short of expectations, the – ka-ching! – hope of creating a female Elmo. Even slapping a tutu on her did not help.

This coming week

What’s become the regular routine – and will be for a few weeks more – and then a very busy weekend.

That’s it for the moment. I’m hoping to keep this going, but no promises. I hope you’re all keeping well.

Why am I not writing?

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A fluffy black and white cat peers around the corner of a laptop

Why am I not writing?

I have about one hour in every day in which I have both hands free, and writing has been coming a long way down the list of things I could do in it. And it’s never the same hour for very long: I don’t seem to be able to adjust to the ever-changing routine quickly enough to get much done. Sometimes I see the moment and grab it, but not often.

Why am I not writing?

So much of my life at the moment is focused on the baby, dependent on the baby. That’s why I’m not writing much here. I don’t want her to embark on life to find that the internet already knows all about her. This time is private.

Why am I not writing?

It just doesn’t seem very important at the moment. There’s nothing in particular that needs to be written by me, now. No idea has yet grabbed me by the throat and insisted I write it.

Why am I not writing?

My creative energy is going on other things. Smocking. Cursillo. What to do with a bus that’s a bookshop when it doesn’t have books in it.

Why am I not writing?

I just don’t feel like it.

Why am I not writing?

#
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Why am I not writing?

(There is a cat on my keyboard.)

Why am I not writing?

I am writing.

I am writing.

Little by little. More and more, week by week. Even when I wasn’t writing at all, I was writing. I’ve kept my diary up to date all this past year, and never had to catch up more than a week at a time. Even when I had to write in very large letters to fill a day, or just stick in a picture instead. I’ve written reports. I’ve written letters – fewer than I’d have liked, but some. I’ve even opened up some of my pre-baby projects and added a line here and a line there. There hasn’t been one big bam! I’m writing again! moment – or, rather, there have been several, but they haven’t released an exciting new flood of words. More an occasional dribble.

But I’m writing.

And even if I wasn’t…

… that would be fine. There’s more to me than writing, more than I know about yet. And, while writing is one of the most important ways in which I find out about myself, it isn’t the only way. This last year – these last four years – has been a time of huge transition for me, in many different dimensions. I’m still emerging.

Who knows, I might write about that.

The enemy of the passable

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Detail of a child's frock in red fabric with a smocked front. The stitching is somewhat irregular.

This is not the finest garment I’ve ever sewn. It won’t be even when it’s finished. The pleats are too deep, the tension is irregular, the smocking goes closer to the left armhole than to the right, the bias binding is very slightly brighter than the main fabric, and the less said about my feather stitch, the better.

However, this was my first attempt at smocking, and once I got down to the Vandyke stitch and surface honeycomb on the bottom rows I was enjoying myself hugely. It’s also the first garment I’ve made for my daughter, and a trial run for a second little smocked dress. It doesn’t need to be perfect.

And it will be finished.

Back on the metaphorical bike

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A sock in the process of being darned in a weave of white, green and terracotta, held up in front of a TV screen showing a cycle race on a white road

As you might have guessed, I haven’t been writing much recently. At first I didn’t have the brain. I’ll write more about that, some time, maybe. Then I didn’t have the time. Still don’t, often. I get about ten minutes at the computer at a time before people start howling. If this post turns out very short, you’ll know why.

Instead, I’ve been exercising my creativity in more three-dimensional forms. I’ve been going for projects that I can pick up and put down again without their unravelling completely, and at the moment I’m tackling my mending pile and posting about it on Instagram under the #MendMarch hashtag. The picture on this post shows a mend on top of a mend; the new one features a long white stripe in between cypress green and terracotta, in honour of the Strade Bianche which you might just be able to make out on the TV in the background.

But I did manage to put together a list of the five best cycling novels for Shepherd. I think I’ve remarked before that there aren’t very many to choose from, and I suspect everybody puts The Rider at the top. No shame in that. It’s a brilliant book.

As for the literal bike, I’ve been out once on my faithful red town bike to go to an ultrasound appointment that didn’t happen (long story) and had a few goes on the cargo bike, which may or may not be being recalled (boring story). It’s all a bit of a waiting game, really, but we’ll get there in the end.

You know it’s been windy when…

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A litter bin with the handle end of a black umbrella poking out of it

… the umbrellas in the litter bins are the big ones that only close up in one direction. Everyone expects those little folding ones to fail in the face of a stiff breeze (of course they’re going to, with that added weak point half way up the spoke) but the big ones need the wind to put in more effort.

I do own a little folding umbrella. The canopy is printed with Alphonse Mucha ladies and I bought it during a sudden downpour in Prague. I don’t use it much. The Fen winds would have it inside out in seconds. My preferred brolly is a 1960s vinyl number with black polka dots: it has nice strong spokes, but a comparatively small diameter, which is handy. I find umbrellas a bit awkward to manage, and wouldn’t trust myself with a golf one. The plastic is beginning to decay at the edges, though, and it’s not going to go on forever.

On Thursday I managed to forget completely that umbrellas exist and that it would be a good idea to take one with me, so I got very damp. Oh well. Possibly you shouldn’t take advice on umbrellas from me.

on a personal level

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A freight train crosses the back of the picture on a grey day; in front of it, a narrowboat is moored on a river.

Drink red wine from a tumbler.

Add three spoonfuls of sugar to black coffee.

Write a sentence longer than most people’s paragraphs.

Talk to a railway man.

Quote some dreadful Victorian slush.

Try to persuade the nearest soprano to sing some dreadful Victorian slush.

Photograph some buses.

Tell everyone you prefer trains.

Look at three different maps of the same place, none current.

Take the baby to look at trains.

Take a beermat home with you. Take six beermats home with you. (Or: be pleased that the beermat collection has gone to someone who appreciates it.)

Join the Friends of King Alfred Buses. (I have been meaning to do this for ages and have at least/at last managed to print off the application form.)

Yell ‘Trolloper!’ at the cat. (I didn’t, because it was five in the morning and the rest of the household was more or less asleep, despite the noise of the cat/waste paper battle.)

Read the lesson at Mattins. (I get one opportunity per year. I am on the rota.)

Remember the date. Tell people why it’s meaningful on a personal level. Although probably not in those terms.

(Two years without Pa, six months, nearly, with the little one.)

(Thanks to Havi for the concept of SMOPL.)

December Reflections 27 (2023 taught me) and 28 (an intention for 2024)

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A dangly bee toy

2023 taught me that the thing that worked up until yesterday may not work today – and that the thing that didn’t work a month ago may be exactly right for now.

And my intention for 2024 is therefore to pay attention and keep an open mind, trying things so long as they seem to have potential and to be compassionate.