Tag: Waverly Fitzgerald

December Reflections 23: seasonal

kathleenjowittLeave a comment
Slow Time by Waverly Fitzgerald, The Morville Year by Katherine Swift, and a bar of soap garnished with star anise and a dried bayleaf, all on a brightly coloured quilt with baby toys

I don’t know where this year’s gone. (I mean, I know exactly why it’s gone, but that isn’t quite the same thing.) Which is unusual for me, because I usually make a point of being aware of where I am in time.

These last few days, though, it’s all seemed to settle down, though not on account on anything I’ve done myself. The Morville Year, which I’d bought and immediately lost in the extra safe place in which I’d hidden the present I bought at the same time, turned up (as did the present – too late for the birthday for which it was originally intended, but just in time for Christmas). I loved The Morville Hours and the way it moves gently through the cycle of the year, and have been looking forward to reading this, a collection of related articles.

Slow Time is an old friend, a book that’s encouraged me to explore the calendar and the traditions in which I grew up. And one thing that I have already noticed about organised children’s activities is that they are very keen on seasonal themes, so it ought to get easier from here on in.

One last thing. I was amused to note, firstly that I’d run out of my previous soap bar just in time to start the Christmas Spice one – and secondly, that the one I’ve just finished (and had been using all through Advent) was called Wake Up Call. If you know, you know.

Week-end: flop 2: flop harder

kathleenjowittLeave a comment
An exuberant aloe vera plant in a pot on a windowsill. The grass outside looks parched but there are streaks of water running down the water butt

I bought the parent (now deceased) of this aloe vera plant in the Haymakers, Cambridge, the day that Boris Johnson prorogued Parliament. Well, ta-ra to him. The plant is doing very happily (its little sibling next it, not so much).

Just a short update this week, for reasons that will become clear…

The good

Rain! After a miserably hot week, it was sheer joy to lie in bed last night listening to the rain on the glass roof of the conservatory. And it’s doing it again now.

The mixed

Well, things could all be a lot worse, that’s all I can say.

Oh, yes, Fathers’ Day. When Pa was alive we all ignored it, as he considered it a tacky imported Hallmark holiday and would have been appalled had any of us tried to wish him a happy one of it. Nowadays my feeds are so full of people being sensitive to people for whom it’s a difficult day that it’s… not quite becoming a difficult day, but much more something to trip over. I’m mostly finding it funny, but I do miss him.

Next year I’m actually going to have to remember the date.

The difficult and perplexing

Believe me, I wasn’t planning to spend my last three working days before maternity leave in bed, but here I am. Well, there I was. I’m at the dining table now. Feeling quite a lot better. Still taking things easy.

What’s working

Nap early, nap often. Although a) turning over and b) getting up are both getting more and more uncomfortable. On the hot days, cooking late and eating in the garden.

Reading

If there’s one thing that lying in bed is good for, it’s reading. I have worked my way through:

  • Fashioning James Bond: costume, gender and identity in the world of 007 (Llewella Chapman). This wasn’t quite the book I wanted it to be, though it had some delightful moments. I think I would have preferred less stitch-by-stitch suit description, more of the gender and identity bit of the subtitle, and more gossip. (Eunice Gayson in a dress six sizes too large, cut down and held together with pins, for example. This is the kind of thing I want to know more about.) Also, it was just cruel to describe the costume designs and not provide pictures. I’d love to have seen… all of them, really.
  • The Woman Who Stole My Life (Marian Keyes). I don’t think anything’s ever going to top Rachel’s Holiday for me, and I didn’t entirely buy the central relationship, but this was a fun satire on the publishing world.
  • several short sapphic freebies from a recent Jae-organised giveaway. Blind Date at the Booklover’s Lair (Jae); Bumping Into Her (Lisa Elliot); Off the Rails (Rachel Lacey); The Origins of Heartbreak (Cara Malone). DNF Prelude to Murder (Edale Lane), partly because of the copaganda but mostly because the author seemed incapable of using the word ‘said’. Someone remove that thesaurus, pronto.

At the moment I’m dipping into Slow Time (Waverly Fitzgerald) for a dose of gentle go-with-the-flow.

Writing

Did some on the train on Monday, but it seems like a very long time ago now.

Watching

Cycling (what a sad week it’s been there), a bit of the Trooping of the Colour, and silly quiz shows.

Appreciating

The fact that I can just stop now, and not have to worry about work that I feel that I ought to be doing.

This coming week

Contains our wedding anniversary, the solstice, a whole load of stuff going on at the cathedral that I almost certainly won’t be able to get to, and an appointment with the midwife, but I still have a suspicion that by the end of it I’ll have lost all sense of what a week even is.

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