Category: life and such

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 18: I said goodbye to…

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A blue fountain pen with the lid on, a closed notebook, and part of a magazine showing Judith Kerr with the original Mog

… my identity as a writer, for the moment at least.

My other best decision of 2023 was turning down my first ever book contract. I meant to write about that – first about getting it, then about turning it down – but I never managed it. Not longhand (can’t get to a flat surface), not touch typing (very rarely have both hands free), not dictating (distracts and confuses the baby). Any solution I find works for a week or so and then fails. All I’m managing is these tiny little blogs, typed with one hand on my phone

More to the point, I just don’t want to. The urge to write (fiction, long form non-fiction, poetry) has been patchy over the last couple of years, and non-existent over the last few months. I could force it, but why? Only recently have I found myself thinking myself back into a character’s head (what would Julian make of war memorials, anyway?), and I’m not in any position to do anything about it. There’s time. It’ll come back when it wants to come back.

In the meantime I’m refusing to beat myself up for not being Superwoman. A friend told me about seeing a documentary about Judith Kerr in which the great author said, very matter-of-factly, ‘Of course I couldn’t do any writing while the children were small.’ So there we go. If stepping back is good enough for her then it’s most definitely good enough for me.

I’m hoping it’s au revoir rather than goodbye. But, the way things stand at the moment, I’m honestly much less bothered than I’d have predicted two years ago.

December Reflections 15: cherished

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A toy pig made from beige corduroy. It has one blue eye.

Pa gave me this venerable pig on semi-permanent loan some time in the late 1990s, probably, and told me, “You must cherish him,” so I did, and then gave him back when I went to university, I should think, and then I reclaimed him last year.

I have a few of Pa’s old toys (for a war baby, he did extremely well). I’m still missing one of the Dutch dolls. I think Pa removed her from the dolls’ house to crew a steam engine, but where has she gone? I hope she’ll turn up as we continue to empty the house.

December Reflections 3: fave photo of 2023

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A blue evening looking out over the sea. A silhouetted figure puts out a hand as if to support a brightly lit ship out at sea.

Not sure if this is the favourite, but it’s certainly a favourite. That’s my youngest brother putting out a hand to hold the ship on which my oldest brother and family are off on honeymoon, and my mother waving. A gorgeous evening in May, a view that’s always restorative, and the honeysuckle running riot. I think there was a cat twirling around my feet, too.

Angel shadow

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A portrait in an oval gilt frame of a young woman in nineteenth century evening dress. Sunlight is falling across the picture, casting a shadow of a winged circle with a long tail

Beauty is fleeting. If I’d been looking five minutes earlier, or later, I’d have missed this strange little golden shadow falling across my great-great-great-aunt’s picture. (There are two stained-glass suncatchers hanging in the window, one representing a bee and the other an oblong rainbow: together they make an angel.) That said, she’s been looking beautiful in this portrait for a hundred and sixty years. Either way, I suppose it’s a case of looking, and appreciating when you see it.

Lighten our darkness

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Lit candles illuminate carved wooden stalls

I have not just been falling asleep reading books. I have been falling asleep trying to say evening prayer, whether doing it by myself on the app or watching some cathedral’s livestream on YouTube. In the Marlows books, Patrick says that his nurse told him that if you fall asleep during a prayer your guardian angel finishes it for you. If that’s the case then I’ve been keeping mine busy. I do not fall asleep, however, if I walk twenty minutes through a dark chilly blowy evening to go to Evensong. So I did that today. The journey there was rendered particularly dramatic by a power cut: half the hill was in darkness.

I’m glad I went. Gloomy readings from Daniel and Revelation matching my mood; light and music reaching through and transforming it. And the thought that this prayer goes on and on, through the centuries, whether I’m there or not.

Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord, and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night, for the love of thy only Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.