Category: reverb

… a slog. I’ve got to a good place, objectively speaking, but getting here has been very tiring. I feel as if I’ve had to put a lot of effort into simply keeping things ticking over.

And does the road wind uphill all the way? Yes, to the very end.

In 2016, I have:

• got a new job
• published a novel (this feels like a little bit of a cheat, because most of the work happened in 2015 and earlier. But still!)
• completed the first draft of another novel (and my goodness, that felt like a slog)
• got my head around my finances

I’m in a better place financially than I was at the start of the year; I suspect I’m improved in terms of confidence and perspective. I know all that, but I don’t feel as if I’m in any sort of state to appreciate it.

I think the major lessons are, firstly, not to jump straight into the next novel, or, if I must, to only write when I feel like it; and, secondly, to book my holiday well in advance of any fainting in coils. When I say ‘holiday’ I mean, ‘annual leave’, but you know, an actual holiday wouldn’t hurt either.

Some pretty appalling stuff has happened this year on the world stage. I’ve dealt better with that than I would have done last year. A couple of bereavements – longstanding family friends – were more difficult.

It’s been a year of getting through things. I seem to have got through them. Here I am. That’s probably worth celebrating, but I don’t quite have the energy to celebrate.

 

The prompt said solstice sunset, but I was at work when the sun went down at four o’clock, and my view west was blocked by the Travelodge. So you get the sunrise instead. And I find that I don’t have very much to say about it, mainly because the limited hours of daylight have left me feeling very, very tired. But I’m glad to note it.

I am not much of a one for stealing my partner’s clothes, but we did swap dressing gowns several years ago. I like this one, because it’s a practical colour and I don’t overheat in it. I can just put it on over the top of whatever I’m wearing and attain, and remain at, a comfortable temperature.

… I’m not a terribly snuggly sort of person. Can you tell?

I love this.

I love the thing itself. My best friend embroidered it for my husband a few years ago. I love the fact that she took him up on a throwaway comment and actually embroidered Maxwell’s equations in blackwork. I love the way that it subverts the cutesy and the pious overtones that one generally finds in samplers.

I love the way that this manages to capture the friendly respect that both religion and science command in this household. After all, one of us grew up attending the church where Russell Stannard is a lay reader. (It wasn’t me. I’m jealous.)

I love the way that religion and science collide in this, and the way that neither of them quite manages to convey the essence of what light is. And once again, it seems, I’m talking about the inadequacy of all sorts of ways of representing things.

I am beginning to suspect that one of the challenges of 2017 is going to be moving beyond metaphor. But how, then, can one possibly talk about anything? Let’s say, then, of recognising metaphors for what they are.

I’d been hoping, of course, for one of those perfect days that we had at the end of November, for a blue sky and a still river, for reflections as in a mirror. No such luck. Low clouds, ruffled water, a blurred picture.

Yesterday I sang at a wedding. Now we see puzzling reflections in a mirror (or, if you prefer the King James version, Now we see in a glass darkly); then we shall see face to face.

Perhaps it’s as well to remember that the image is not, after all, the reality.

This hasn’t been a year for huge decisions. The most obviously significant one was deciding to go for what’s now my current job; and yes, that was a good decision. It must have been at some point this year that it flipped from ‘not my scene’ to ‘obvious next step’. All I know is, by the time the job advertisement appeared, the decision had made itself.

The purple fabric in the background is my interview dress. Rather like the interview itself, I had to talk myself into it, and then was glad I did. (I note that 75% of my new dresses this year have come with pockets. It’s been a good year for dresses.)

The best decision, however, the decision that made the most immediate difference, was going on holiday to Lyme Regis back in April. I was very tired and very stressed, and a couple of days with a stiff sea breeze, a hilly stretch of coast path, and an excuse to read Persuasion, made things very much better very quickly.

And it left me with an obsession with ammonites that shows no sign of letting up, and has been very useful in ways that I can’t quite explain.

I didn’t know what to photograph for this prompt. Everything has a texture, I thought: how to choose one particular object, or one particular object’s texture?

Then I noticed what I was wearing.

This is my favourite scarf. It came from a charity shop, and is possibly the best quid I ever spent. I like it because it is so uncompromisingly bright. It has a bit of a Ballets Russes vibe, with that orange butted up against the purple and black; indeed, today I was wearing it with a short, full black dress, opaque magenta tights, and black suede ballet flats. (Appear to have been possessed by a Babysitters’ Club narrator for a moment there. Sorry about that.)

But the textures are almost as much fun as the colours. The velvet; the silk; the gentle prickle of the sequins.

This prompt was the one I was looking forward to the least. My mind flitted between ‘twee’, ‘Gollum’, and ‘that African detective series I haven’t read’, which would probably have circled back round to ‘twee’. All of which suggests that I am far too cynical to be allowed on Instagram, but there we go.

So I proceeded down the Tolkien track, got to ‘dragons’, and concluded that dragons would do. The first dragon I found had banded with a rhinoceros, a Wild Thing (just visible behind the rhinoceros), and a teddy to guard an empty Martini bottle, souvenir of my university days, and hoard nail varnish.

Let us assume that the nail varnish is precious, and see what it tells us. Some are just clear, and some don’t have names. And not all of them made it into the photo. But the rest, oh my.

• Double Decker Red
  • Well, this is clearly about buses, which are a huge part of my life. I am not, as it happens, hugely interested in red double deckers, though that doesn’t stop them queueing up outside my officer window. I suspect there’s also a message about twice as much red being twice as good.
• See Through Ivory
  • Ivory is precious, yes, but its preciousness is something that needs to be seen through.
• Neptune
  • A cold blue planet, made of gas. Or the god of the sea.
• Nebline
  • Exists as a) a newsletter in Nebraska; and b) this nail varnish. Nothing else. I put it into an anagram solver, which couldn’t suggest much either. Ben Line (a steamer company), and his friend Ben Lien (a Minnesota politician). Blennie – a family dog, several generations back, I believe. Perhaps it’s the Neb Line. You take the Neb Line to Neptune.
• Zeitgeist
  • I am wearing this at the moment; it’s fantastic. It’s purple in some lights and greeny gold in others. Zeitgeist: the spirit of the time. The spirit of the time can be looked at from different directions, and it will look very different depending on your perspective. And of course it’s Advent (purple) looking towards Christmas (gold).
• Plum Seduction
  • Mmm, plums. There’s some plum jam in the fridge. One of the things I’ve been working at on and off over the past year or so has been really enjoying food.
• Copper
  • Not a precious metal, but a very useful one. A good conductor. Tarnishes to a rather nice green. And have you read Pigeon Post? ‘Gold dissolves in aqua regia…’ It may turn out that one is actually looking for copper, not gold. This colour is actually quite a bit darker than real copper.
• Queen of Hearts
  • Well, we know all about her. This one is a really deep crimson which comes out beautifully glossy.
• Deeply Dusk
  • An annoying one; it’s not deep at all and you have to apply several coats to make it remotely dusky. Meanwhile, dusk falls fast and is gone to darkness just as quickly.
• Raspberry
  • Raspberries are definitely treasure. The best fruit in the world, if you ask me. When I was little we had a whole fruit cage full of raspberries. Those were good days. Come to think about it, there’s raspberry jam in the fridge, too.
• Ferris Wheel
  • I call it a Big Wheel, myself. I’ve been thinking about different terms for fairground rides in the context of You’ll Never Walk Alone. I would call the ride with horses and brass poles ‘gallopers’, ’roundabout’, and ‘merry-go-round’ before I’d call it a ‘carousel’; but they’re all talking about the same thing. This feels significant. Meanwhile, there’s a Wheel at Parker’s Piece; and Cambridge is so flat that you can see it from a long way away.