Tag: December Reflections 22

December Reflections 14: I said hello to…

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A woman and a man hold up a copy of Double Or Nothing

… Bond fandom (here personified by David of Licence To Queer) in person, at the author talk for Double Or Nothing at the British Library. It was an excellent night with many lovely people. I think I’ve mentioned before that Bond fandom is refreshingly straightforward: we all know our fave is problematic, and that means we can skip straight to the fun part, which is talking about it.

I still feel slightly odd being fannish on main: it probably wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t fallen into a Twitter conversation. But it’s been a good eighteen months now and nothing too weird has resulted. Actually, I promised myself last year that I was just going to let myself enjoy stuff and be fannish about things. This being the sort of year it’s been, I haven’t really got into anything with any degree of enthusiasm.

Although, thinking about it, that doesn’t necessarily follow. My last significant illness – early 2017 – I fell headfirst into Yuri!!! on Ice and stayed there for a long time. Maybe there’s hope for me yet, even if all the narrative complexity I can cope with at the moment is ‘can this woman get down this hill faster than the previous woman did?’ and rooting for the Italians on the extremely shallow justification that they have the best national anthem.

Anyway, there’s no sense trying to predict it. Last year I fell for Romeo and Juliet like I was fifteen all over again. I certainly didn’t see that coming. All I can really do is wait for whatever the next thing is. And try not to get hype backlash before that pirate thing gets to the BBC. (I am dreadfully susceptible to hype backlash. It’s one of my least favourite things about myself. But if one friend too many enthuses about their New Thing, or if one friend enthuses once too often about the New Thing, I get fed up with it. Not their fault, nor yet the New Thing’s.) In the meantime, there’s no harm in falling back on an old favourite or (double O) seven.

Photo by Antony Lowbridge-Ellis

December Reflections 13: delicious

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Pale green mashed potato spread across two pieces of toast

I am feeling pretty miserable today. I’ve picked up a cold, including a horrible sore throat, which on top of the ongoing fatigue has more or less wiped me out. So a dish that would slip down easily, and which I can make in my sleep, was called for. This is Leeks Lucullus (known more often in this household as Green Mash) from Katharine Whitehorn’s Cooking In A Bedsitter. As she says, it ‘looks like pale green mashed potato, but tastes delicious’.

I often find that cookery books that assume the cook is operating under some set of restrictions more inspiring and accessible than those that assume they have at their disposal all the kitchen gadgets and delicatessens the heart could desire, even if I’m not in fact bound by those restrictions. If I could theoretically make something delicious on a single gas ring with a hostile landlady prowling (as Whitehorn was) or create a delectable creation entirely out of the contents of tin cans (Jack Monroe) then surely I can manage it with all the advantages of a kitchen of my own and a regular veg box delivery. Actually, the veg box delivery helps a lot, too. It’s much easier to think, ‘oh, leeks: what do I do with those?’ than it is to start from a blank sheet.

I do have How To Eat (Nigella Lawson) and enjoy reading it for the sheer pleasure she gets from food, but I very rarely cook anything out of it. Though she has more in common with the other two than you might think: all three think that food is good and people should be allowed to enjoy it. Which is a sadly and surprisingly rare attitude in cookbooks.

December Reflections 11: best decision of 2022, and Week-end

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A blanket and a cushion in the corner of a sofa

I think it’s a bit early to call the best decision of 2022. I don’t know how a lot of them are going to work out. Although I can say that I’m glad to have made them, rather than vaguely hoping that they’ll sort themselves out without any input from me.

In the meantime, I can report that taking a nap has pretty much always turned out to be a good move.

The good

Lunch with friends today. Hadn’t seen them in ages and it was very good to catch up.

The mixed

Yesterday I took a long walk around Ely delivering Christmas cards. It was absolutely beautiful in the frosty sunlight – at one point I turned a corner and saw the cathedral all lit up in rose gold – but it really brought home how tired I’m getting, because I had to sit on a bench for a long time before I felt up to walking the last twenty minutes home, and then I was falling asleep on the sofa and had to take a nap.

The difficult and perplexing

Things got a bit much for me at work. I’ve been feeling like rather a fraud lately – largely down to the fatigue and the accompanying lack of focus.

What’s working

Thermal leggings. Double socks.

Reading

Bright Smoke, Cold Fire (Rosamund Hodge) – a fantasy take on Romeo and Juliet with zombies and blood magic. Enough has been changed to keep me guessing, and the generally gothic atmosphere fits beautifully.

And today, Licence To Queer’s Queer Re-view of Skyfall – long and fascinating. (Also it quotes me, which is gratifying, particularly since I’m about to delete the ‘Writing’ heading in this post, on account of I haven’t done any.)

Watching

Gloriana (Benjamin Britten) – English National Opera. This was billed as a ‘concert performance’, which in practice meant that the chorus was on a stepped platform and the principals moved and acted and sang in front of them. This worked reasonably well, although I think the big set pieces suffered from a lack of movement – particularly the dance at Whitehall, where the so-called volta wouldn’t have raised so much as a ladylike glow.

I found it sad and moving and, as I said on Thursday, very listenable. I can see why it was a flop in 1953, though, and I wonder what on earth Britten was thinking. It’s not a coronation piece. You really need an audience who’s watched Glenda Jackson demythologise Good Queen Bess.

Anyway, it’s probably the only time I’ll ever get to see it, and for that reason alone I’m glad I did. (And Willard White was in it, singing two bit parts. Easily the biggest opera name I’ve seen live.)

Otherwise, winter sports. Having tracked biathlon down to Eurovision Sports Live (it’s all but disappeared from Eurosport) I’ve had that on in the background while I’ve been doing various tasks, and it’s been the Grand Prix Final this weekend.

Looking at

Forgot to mention last week: I looked into St Mary’s, Ely, to see what it looks like post-refurbishment. I was impressed – it feels much lighter and airier, there’s more that can be done with the space, and the more interesting features are showcased rather than hidden away.

Cooking

A thing out of Jack Monroe’s tin can book involving chickpeas and spinach, except I used cannellini beans and leftover cabbage. Worked fine.

Eating

Delicious turkey lunch cooked by the friends we were visiting, and most excellent mince pies made by the friend who gave us a lift there. We have good friends.

Moving

Long Christmas-card-delivering walk, as mentioned above.

Appreciating

An extremely productive Friday. And an instant freezer meal for when I hit the wall at seven o’clock.

Acquisitions

I did very well in Oxfam and picked up an omnibus of Joan Aiken’s Armitage stories and a couple of the Bagthorpes series.

In internet shopping: one pair of teal corduroy trousers, one pair of burgundy corduroy dungarees, one box of perfume samples.

Line of the week

From Queer Re-View: Skyfall:

And even when the story is over, many of us perpetuate the fantasy in a multitude of ways: playing the film soundtracks allows us to enact our lives as spies, even when we’re just commuting to work; we can pretend we’re experiencing the luxurious existence of an agent on a generous expense account by making cocktails at the weekends in our kitchens; we can literally walk in Bond’s shoes (or a pair that look like them if we can’t afford Crockett & Jones).

This coming week

Is going to be very cold (by UK standards) and I’m glad to be mostly working from home.

Anything you’d like to share from this week? Any hopes for next week? Share them here!

December Reflections 9: this was unexpected

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detail of a wooden cross sculpture formed of overlapping narrow triangles

I didn’t expect to be elected lay director of Ely Cursillo. Certainly not this year. I’d thought, well, maybe in a year or two, when J. steps down, when I’ve got my head around things a bit better…

J. stepped down this year, not long before the AGM, and suddenly it became very clear that I should step up. Two years of irritatedly demanding of God what on earth I was meant to be doing if it wasn’t ordained ministry (wrong question, as it turned out, but that’s another story), ten years of trade union administration, all came into very sharp focus in this moment when it was obvious that somebody needed to keep this thing going, and that I was, in this moment, the only person with the skills and the confidence and the willingness to do it.

Cursillo is a funny old movement. (Well, actually it’s quite a young movement – 70 years or so.) Most Christians have never heard of it and a lot of those who have heard of it have heard genuinely offputting stories. (Yes, I know. We don’t do that any more.) But my experience – I was one of those who’d never heard of it, and initially wondered if the person who mentioned it to me meant the calculator brand – was positive and transformative. I went on my Cursillo four years ago and found that it was exactly what I needed; it was part of a period of spiritual exploration in which I discovered over and over again that God didn’t want me to be the person I thought I was meant to be; God wants me to be the person I am.

There’s a lot of lay influence (the spiritual director and I work as joint leaders). For me, as someone who’s comparatively well-informed for someone who hasn’t done a theology degree, but who keeps getting directed away from ordained ministry (and feeling very relieved about that), this is hugely important. Being part of a movement that values the laity and demonstrates that by putting us in decision-making positions, that encourages and helps us to develop our prayer life and our learning and to put them into action, has given me a way to be a Christian in a way that I can feel that I can give more of what I have, and not just within Cursillo itself. And that’s a privilege.

Quite apart from the administration side. (This too is a spiritual gift, I am given to understand.) Today I’ve been up and down the hill like a yo-yo, buying stamps, collecting cards, getting bank mandates signed. At home, I’ve been wrestling with LibreOffice Writer’s take on mailmerge and humouring the printer’s request to slide green tabs back and forwards. This is by no means a typical day – in fact it’s a lot of jobs I’d saved up until I had a day to do them in – but it’s one that brought it home to me why I’m doing this stuff. Because I’m good at it.

So no, I didn’t expect to be lay director only four years after hearing about Cursillo. But it makes a surprising amount of sense. Just goes to show: I’m not really the one in charge.

December Reflections 8: gold

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Gilt-heavy mosaic wall decoration featuring classical figures playing musical instruments

I’ve been to the opera this evening (this photo shows the ceiling of the lobby at the London Coliseum). It was the fourth time this year, which might be a record. I’d only just begin to cotton on to the fact that English National Opera exists, and is very cheap, and I was already in London on many days of the week, when coronavirus hit. I got to Carmen in February 2020, and then there was no more opera.

Until this May, when we went to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream in a converted tram depot in Frankfurt. It wouldn’t be entirely true to say that we planned our entire Rhine trip around this, but it certainly made a handy peg to hang it off. I wanted to see my cousins in the children’s chorus and my aunt in the orchestra. Tony does not really go in for opera but was sold on the promise of a countertenor.

We both had a fantastic time. I’d always thought of Britten as being difficult, and while it’s true that his music is often a real pig to sing, it’s actually very listenable. (And it was a great production, and very funny.) When I saw that the ENO was doing Gloriana (one night only!) I booked a ticket very fast indeed. More on that this weekend. And then I thought it really was time I saw Tosca. And then I took one of my brothers to see The Yeomen of the Guard for his birthday.

I already have one ticket booked for next year. I am not sure that I am going to match this year, but you never know. It all depends on how efficient I am. And, I fear, the whims of the Arts Council.

December Reflections 7: 5 things about me

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A woman in a cocktail dress sits in an elaborate gilt chair

1. I have blue eyes, but one of them is slightly greener than the other.

2. I write books, although not at the moment because I’m very tired.

3. I can’t drive and get along fine without it 99% of the time.

4. I’ve lived in three cathedral cities. Four if you count Guildford which isn’t technically a city.

5. I often think that my job as a trade union officer is the most visible and meaningful outworking of my faith.

December Reflections 6: brings me comfort

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I don’t talk much about Tony on here, mostly because he’s been on the internet longer than I have and is quite capable of speaking (or singing, as is more usually the case) for himself. But I have really been appreciating him this year, when I’ve been particularly conscious of my own limitations. He helps me recalibrate my unrealistic expectations of myself.

I take myself far too seriously. He doesn’t take himself seriously at all.

He brings me dark chocolate. And Lancashire cheese. And comfort.

December Reflections 5: biggest challenge of 2022

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An almost full moon straggling through light cloud.

It’s had plenty of them. The year began with my father’s death; then I caught Covid in March and was out of things for a good six weeks. Intense heat in the summer. And now, once again, the fatigue and lack of go that always affects me in the winter.

One constant, and perhaps the biggest challenge of them all, has been the absence of energy and motivation. Life goes on around me and it’s hard to keep up with it. My brain isn’t working as fast as it used to, but there’s just as much to be done. My memory isn’t as reliable as once it was, and I get maybe a couple of hours in the day when I can knock out tasks and cross things off lists. The rest of the time? Napping on the sofa, or staring into space.

In some ways, the problem is wanting to do it, whatever it is. I still have the ability, but I have to summon an awful lot of motivation to make it happen. The autopilot’s on the fritz, and doing it on manual doesn’t half take it out of you.

I know this isn’t a complete truth. Even quite recently I’ve managed to climb into the saddle and get some things sorted, when they wanted to be sorted. And things will shift, as 2022 moves into 2023, as the days get longer, as I regain physical energy. In the meantime… well, the things that want to get done will get done, and the things that need to get done will have to get done, and everything else can hang on another few weeks. And the challenge of 2022 is being OK with that.