Tag: week-end

Week-end: seagoing paddle steamer

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Chalk cliffs, dwindling into three rocks, one with a lighthouse, seen from on board a steam boat with striking black, white and red funnels.

The good

A family trip around the Isle of Wight on the Waverley. I love to encounter venerable old craft still joyfully doing the job they were built to do, and Waverley is pretty much the epitome of that. It was a gorgeous day, too.

The difficult and perplexing

Several times it seemed that everything was dreadful, and it turned out I needed to have eaten something half an hour ago. You’d think I’d have learned by now, but no.

Also, two rail replacement buses in one journey seems excessive.

What’s working

Staying at whichever Premier Inn is most convenient for the trip. The staff always seem to love babies regardless of how much toast ends up on the floor, and if you tick the box requesting a cot, then lo and behold, a cot appears.

Reading

Consider Phlebas (Iain M. Banks). It is very White Bloke Science Fiction, but I am enjoying it very much. It feels extremely visual; cinematic, you might say. It’s big both in page count and in imagination.

When that all got a bit too exciting for four in the morning I returned to the Chalet School. I have got to The Chalet School Does It Again and slowed right down. Prunella annoys me, and also I find it a little disheartening because we have got to Switzerland, which feels like the beginning of the end, and yet there is still half the series to go. And even though it’s quite a while before the books start getting really bad (or really bonkers) Joey’s already become irritating.

I started The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (Deborah Moggach, original title These Foolish Things) on the train south, but haven’t got very far with it. (I haven’t seen the film.)

Making

Finished: one pair of baby socks. Started: one baby hat (for all the good it will do). This will also be on four double-pointed needles, but at the moment I’m knitting earflaps on two.

Watching

I caught up on all of this season of Only Connect and finished Rob and Rylan’s Grand Tour, several months after I began it.

Looking at

Apart from all the edges of the Isle of Wight, an art exhibition examining the Russian propaganda machine in the Crypt at St Pancras new church. ‘Did you like it?’ the attendant asked me on the way out. I said that ‘like’ wasn’t exactly the word, but it was fascinating and thought-provoking.

Also the inhabitants of the extremely luxurious aviary/rabbit hutch in Victoria Park in Portsmouth. I was particularly taken with one very raffish looking bunny with lopsided ears and a furry face. It looked as if it ought to have a smoking cap and a hookah.

Noticing

Lots of wildlife from the train. Heron. Cormorant. Deer. And sunflowers.

In the garden

Trying to keep the wisteria within bounds.

Appreciating

My grandfather and the rest of the Paddle Steamer Preservation Society. All my family, actually.

Acquisitions

Another badge for the camp blanket. I don’t usually collect duplicates, but this is the third from the Waverley. When I’ve sewn it on (ha!) I intend to tell you about all three.

Line of the week

Consider Phlebas is, I think, effective in a cumulative kind of a way rather than in any one particular moment, but here’s a line from one of the most effective bits.

It was like the biggest wave in the universe, rendered in scrap metal, sculpted in grinding junk; and beyond and about it, over and through, cascades of flashing, glittering ice and snow swept down in great slow veils from the cliff of frozen water beyond.

This coming week

Nothing much. Time to draw breath.

Week-end: South Yorkshire edition

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Looking upwards into a church ceiling where wood and concrete form an eight-pointed star, with the gaps filled with blue, yellow, green and red stained glass

About time I did one of these again…

The good

A trip to Sheffield for the annual Ultreya GB. I missed last year’s, though I hadn’t intended to (in retrospect, my ideas of what would be possible with a small baby were somewhat unrealistic), and it was good to be back. It was quite a different experience: I was very tired (see below) and also I don’t usually spend the event climbing up and down all the available steps in the cathedral. But it all came together for me in the last hymn – a very lively Amazing Grace – with the banners lined up and the baby clapping along in delight.

Some delightful fellow passengers and some railway staff who may in fact have been angels.

The difficult and perplexing

A month’s worth of interrupted sleep has trashed my immune system, the nursery germs have pounced, and I was very wobbly earlier in the week. And I’m not a nice person when I’m ill and tired.

Two hours and forty minutes on a train, each way. The way back was more trying than the way out.

What’s working

Sloggi long pants. Do they make me feel about a hundred and two? Yes, particularly the beige ones. Is it worth it to make bare legs bearable in hot weather? Absolutely. (Yes, I am aware of the Snag ‘chub rub’ shorts. Quite apart from the hideousness of the name, I can’t see that synthetic material next the skin would help in any way, however much I like their tights.)

Reading

Quite a bit! Having read She Who Became The Sun earlier in the summer, I picked up He Who Drowned The World (Shelley Parker-Chan) when it was on offer a few weeks ago. Equally fun (in its extremely dark way); the magical realism has more of an active influence on the plot this time round. I wasn’t convinced it stuck the landing, but the overall experience was sufficiently enjoyable to render that largely irrelevant.

Also on offer recently was Sea of Tranquility (Emily St John Mandel). This was a bit of a disappointment. I read Station Eleven early in 2020 and was very struck by how vivid and alien the post-apocalyptic world was. Sea of Tranquility, by contrast, all seemed extremely twenty-first century in terms of the way that the characters thought and spoke, with the different settings just so much window-dressing. The time travel plot also didn’t work for me; I think the aim was to subvert the usual clichés, but it just felt like a cop-out.

And Kobo also suggested Consider Phlebas (Iain M. Banks) for 99p, so I decided it was probably time I tried the Culture series.

Yesterday I started One Pair of Feet (Monica Dickens) which is very entertaining so far.

Then today I picked up N or M (Agatha Christie) because it was on the floor. I am less fond of Tommy and Tuppence than I am of most of Christie’s other series detectives, so missed this one on last year’s epic re-read. But I breezed through it and then picked up Postern of Fate to remind myself what happened to the family afterwards.

Writing

Nothing to speak of, though I have been doing a little worldbuilding in my head.

Making

One ridiculously huge baby sock, and now most of one more sensible one. I also converted a little binder into an earring holder (I will try to remember to post pictures of this).

Watching

The Paralympics, on and off. I was pleased to catch Sarah Storey’s umpteenth win, as Channel 4 also showed a decent chunk of the race. (I have found both the BBC and Channel 4 very frustrating in their tendency to show fragments of an event that have a Great British Medal Hope and nothing else. But it’s probably just as well this year, because I’ve had very little telly time.)

Looking at

Ely Photographic Club’s exhibition at Babylon Arts. There were a few pieces there that made me smile, and several that were clearly very technically skilled even if not really my thing. Also, Sheffield cathedral.

Cooking

A very hot vegetable curry: the veg box contained a bag of Padrón peppers, every single one of which was the ‘really quite spicy’ variety, so unsuitable for serving as a main/side dish in the usual way. Not one of my most successful dishes, though I’m pleased with it as a creative response to a problem.

Eating

This year’s fancy Magnum flavours, an impulse buy when they were on offer in Co-op. I’m still not entirely convinced that ice cream and popping candy is a happy combination, but it’s different, I’ll give it that.

Moving

We continue our WalkRuns (being runs that are in fact mostly walks).

Noticing

Loads of dragonflies this year. Or possibly damselflies. They don’t stay still long enough for me to be able to tell the difference.

In the garden

Ripe apples. I’ve pruned all the apple trees bar one. The next job is to take out the dead box (or was it privet?) bushes that got eaten by beetles last year.

Appreciating

Cursillo. It’s totally bonkers, but there is space in there for people to be Christians and also themselves, and that is something I was missing for a long time and something for which I continue to be grateful.

And, needless to say, every night when I get to sleep before midnight and get to wake up after six.

Acquisitions

I found a little makers’ cooperative shop in Sheffield and picked up a fabric patch (to join the several I have still to sew on), a sticker, and a pair of teal stud earrings.

Line of the week

Monica Dickens, weighing up her options:

The Land Army? One saw oneself picking apples in a shady hat, or silhouetted against the skyline with a couple of plough horses, but a second look showed one tugging mangel-wurzels out of the frozen ground at five o’clock on a bitter February morning.

This coming week

The emerging routine is slightly disrupted by a committee meeting, and then at the weekend there’s an exciting sea voyage. And that’s the last excursion for a little while, and that’s probably just as well. I might even update this blog more.

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.

Monday making, mending and growing

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A pram with a rucksack slung from the handles, a cushion in the body, and a trailing plant in a blue carrier back also slung from the handle.
These days I usually find myself going out with the baby in the pram, and coming back with the baby in the sling and the shopping in the pram. This was the day I bought a passion flower, two cakes, a box of cereal, and a cushion…

Not much to report other than in the garden, but I want to establish the Monday format while I remember what it is I think I’m doing. I now have all the components for my big winter skirt. I also have ideas for a couple of quilts. What I don’t have, or not for long enough to get anything done, is free hands. I’m hopeful that a baby bouncer may help there…

In the back garden, chaos continues to reign. I am meaning to get out and pick the blackberries before the devil spits (or worse) on them at Michaelmas, but I have a nasty feeling that’s as far as it’s going to go. In the front garden, I co-opted my youngest brother to plant a passion flower to replace the two that died in the heat. Tony has cleared several bags’ worth of slate chippings and all of the membrane, and the next step is for me to order some more plants to fill in the gap. I have managed to put half a dozen bulbs in with my own hands while someone else holds the baby, or she takes a (very short) nap. It’s slow going, but then gardening often is.

Week-end: small adventures

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Lego model of buildings, trees, narrowboat on a river, and a London Underground train disappearing into a tunnel under a road.

I’m on Bluesky now. Having been mostly avoiding Twitter for a while now, I’ve rather lost the knack of microblogging, but for what it’s worth I’m at https://bsky.app/profile/kathleenjowitt.bsky.social.

The good

We took the baby to visit her great-grandma. This was the first trip involving an overnight stay, and went very well, all things considered.

Things change every day. Usually they get slightly easier than they were the day before.

The difficult and perplexing

The baby does not like long car journeys. I shall leave it there.

What’s working

Whingeing in a closed forum to sympathetic people. At the very least it relieves the perception of being on my own. Quite often, I’ve noticed, the problem in question removes itself quite soon afterwards. Coincidence, no doubt, but I’ll take it.

Putting the baby in a sling (see, in particular, Cooking and Moving, below).

And always, always, remembering that whatever the particular moment of difficult is, it’s temporary.

Reading

Finished Acts and Omissions; read Unseen Things Above; now need to see which of the others I have on my e-reader. I am, as ever, a little frustrated that Fox ducks out of showing us any really awful marriage, because I think that’s an important part of the conversation she’s trying to have in these books.

I got round to the Murderbot Diaries (Martha Wells) several years after everyone else and read All Systems Red late on Saturday night. It was enjoyable enough, though I wasn’t blown away.

And in between times I’ve been working my way through the Tiffany Aching books, and have finished The Wee Free Men and A Hat Full of Sky so far. I’d never read them before, and they’re lovely.

Writing

Some work on Don’t Quit The Day Job. I would like to do rather a lot more, sharpish.

And the Kickstarter for The Bicyclist’s Guide to the Galaxy, in which my story The Ride for the City (portal fantasy, Cambridge, bonding over terrible books) appears, has just over two days left to run. If you want a copy of the book, the Kickstarter is by far the quickest and most convenient way to get it, and also makes me more money.

Making

I have obtained the fabric for the skirt I was talking about last time. (Olive green twill, with some rather lovely green and red shot lining.) I have also thought about the pattern. But I’m not going to be able to start cutting out until I have an afternoon without a small person strapped to my chest.

Watching

Good Omens, season 2. Quite fun but felt rather lightweight compared with the first season.

Looking at

Some extremely impressive Lego models at Ely Brick Show. I think my favourite was the War of the Worlds diorama, but it’s a tough choice between that and the Underground station.

Cooking

One-pot things that are forgiving with regard to timings. I have some chakchouka in the slow cooker at the moment. The other day I managed to turn all the green tomatoes into green tomato chutney.

Eating

At this precise moment, jelly beans. We’ve had a couple of rather uninteresting pub meals.

Moving

We’ve instituted an evening walk. If it’s late, it’s just up and down the road, to keep within the range of the streetlights. But several times we’ve managed what used to be my morning walk, a full fifty minutes.

Noticing

A small deer (muntjac, maybe?) wandering across someone’s front garden.

In the garden

Picked some of the pears, a few of the apples, and most of the tomatoes. Which feels like a huge achievement, actually.

Appreciating

Family. The friends in my computer. A little more sleep than I was getting before.

Acquisitions

Bras. I’ve managed to lose one, which is weird and annoying.

And I’ve just ordered a travel cot. The hope is that it’ll do for naps downstairs as well as for actual travel. We’re going to need a new pram, as the baby is about to grow out of the pram bit of the existing travel system while being too small still for the pushchair bit.

The cat’s current preferred location

Various points in the sitting room; she spent most of the week on the table at my left elbow while Iwas feeding the baby. You can tell from the fluff deposit.

Line of the week

Some painfully well-observed prayer in Acts and Omissions:

And not being a Charismatic Evangelical either, he hesitates to give the Almighty matey advice in the subjunctive mood.

Monday (oh dear) snippet

A new bit from Day Job:

Why should the world that’s captured between the covers of books be one that only a tiny privileged minority inhabit? As we’ll see in the next section, even the pale, stale and male Western canon develops some significant holes if we remove those who wrote around the edges of their paid employment.

This coming week

Rather a packed schedule, actually, and a party on Saturday!

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

Summer-end: big milk thing

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Whoosh. Suddenly it’s six weeks later and we’re rounding off August with a blue moon. It seemed like a good moment to pick things up again over here.

The good

The baby is delightful, and gets more interesting by the day. It’s lovely, too, seeing others’ reactions. So many people are genuinely pleased to see her, friends and strangers and the guy I know by sight but whose name is a mystery.

We have succeeded in getting out of the house. Several times. There was my birthday; there was Pride; there was the Cursillo study day (labyrinths); there was a barbecue at my aunt’s; there were at least three church services.

The difficult and perplexing

This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. And I would say the same thing at times that are not three in the morning. It’s the being on duty all the time.

It’s the first time in years I haven’t been in Ventnor for Fringe week. (I did have a weird feeling last year that It Was All Going To Be Different, though I hadn’t guessed how or why.) I lived it vicariously on the Instagram hashtag.

Hormones. I spent the first month crying about pretty much everything. (Child is not feeding. Child will not stop feeding. Child is small and utterly dependent on me. I wish Pa could have seen her…) Plus, of course, the lack of sleep.

What’s working

Having my mother to stay. Coke (the fizzy sort). Keeping in touch with other adults over the internet. A sausage-shaped cushion thing that ties on behind my back. Remembering that this is my only job at the moment.

Also, let me stop a moment to extol the Really Useful Boxes. Because they are. Quite apart from storing baby clothes and nappies and toys, I’ve been using them as footstools, for handwashing, and for catching and evicting a huge spider. And the cat likes sitting on them.

A fluffy black and white cat sits on a clear plastic box

Reading

A couple of ‘how on earth do I do this motherhood thing’ books: What Mothers Do (especially when it looks like nothing) (Naomi Stadlen); The Gentle Sleep Book (Sarah Ockwell-Smith). Both useful in confirming that I wasn’t missing something obvious, it really is this intense, and there’s only so much you can do before you just decide that this is the way things are and you’re going to go with it; both, I think, pushing back against the Gina Ford school of babyraising (which seems to have fallen out of favour among the professionals, at least in our neck of the woods). Of the two, the Stadlen is the keeper.

The Balloonists: the history of the first aeronauts by L. T. C. Rolt. Rolt was most famously the author of Red for Danger, the absolute classic of disaster analysis. There’s a certain amount of disaster in this (as you’d expect given the quantity of hydrogen used in the early days of ballooning) but it’s by no means the whole story. The whole story is very interesting and engagingly told.

Feeling in need of something trashy I reread Glittering Images (Susan Howatch) and began Glamorous Powers before deciding that really I wanted to read about scandalous bishops more than psychic manpain. So I have abandoned Starbridge and moved on to Lindford (Acts and Omissions, Catherine Fox).

Writing

Nothing to speak of in terms of new words on new pages, but I should have some news on an older project soon.

Making

I’m planning a full skirt in olive green with lilypad patches. Need to do some maths and obtain the olive green…

Watching

A lot of daytime TV. I’m particularly enjoying The Repair Shop at the moment; I’ve been thinking a lot over the past couple of years about physical objects and sentimental value, about what things mean and how good it is when something can keep on doing the job it was made to do.

I’ve also returned to Ghosts, and this time managed to get past the second-hand embarrassment of the early episodes and into the kinder, more constructive stories of season 2.

Before that there was the world athletics championships; before that there was the super combined world cycling championships; before that there was the Tour de France.

Looking at

Pretty cars gathered outside the cathedral. Some gorgeous work by Ely Guild of Woodturners (who, if any of them are reading this, ought all to be charging twice as much for their pieces as they currently do).

Cooking

Is pretty much impossible with a baby. I did manage to pickle some plums (and regret leaving the jars in the conservatory in the hottest month of the year) and, several weeks after that, make the topping of a crumble.

Eating

A lot of ready meals. The charming snackpot that Tony assembles and brings me before he goes to bed and leaves me to the night shift (this evening’s contained two sorts of pretzels, dried apricots, crystallised ginger, a chocolate digestive biscuit, and three Mikado sticks.) And a reuben sandwich at the last (and, for me, only) Foodie Friday market of the year.

Moving

A little bit of walking.

Playing

Whatever will keep me from falling asleep with a baby on my lap. Minesweeper, mostly.

Noticing

Dragonflies. Or are they damselflies? I’m not sure what the difference is. Butterflies. Sunflowers. Hollyhocks.

In the garden

Chaos in the back (it is, infuriatingly, a really good year for fruit, and I’m not managing to get out to pick it, and if I were I wouldn’t get round to doing anything with it). Progress at the front, where we have much less in the way of slate chippings and much more in the way of lavender and thyme.

Appreciating

All the people who have come to see us, sent messages, cards and presents, and generally provided solidarity in a massive life change. The Rosie Birth Centre and the community midwifery team.

Acquisitions

Leaving aside all the baby gifts, or we’d be here all night: a lovely turned elm bowl from the woodturners’ exhibition; a couple more Joanie dresses; a whole load of plants (Norfolk Herbs: very reasonable); more fabric patches than I actually needed; some Pride tat.

Hankering

I haven’t been to the seaside this year other than incidentally, and I’d really like to. I don’t think it’s going to happen, though.

Line of the week

L. T. C. Rolt on the develoment of the dirigible:

Unholy marriages were consummated – most of them only on paper, fortunately – between the balloon, the kite, the ornithopter and the helicopter.

The cat’s current preferred location

In the conservatory, either on top of a large cardboard box, or on the windowsill for optimum garden surveillance.

How has your summer been? Have you also given up on Twitter, or were you never on it in the first place? What’s your social medium of choice these days?

Week-end: and beginning

kathleenjowitt6 Comments

I said last Sunday:

Really I just want this baby to show up.

And didn’t she just. It took her four hours to get from making her intentions clear to emerging into the world with a few minutes to spare before midnight.

Had we named her after the day’s Tour stage winner, as I think I mentioned some friends suggested, she’d be Michael. Had we named her after the day’s Giro Donne stage winner, she’d be Chiara – which would be rather appropriate; that was the name of one of her midwives (all of her midwives were fantastic).

I shan’t be talking about her very much around here, because I feel strongly that it’s an individual’s prerogative to make their own mistakes on the internet in their own time, without their parents doing it for them. But you can take it as read that I’m extremely happy she’s here.

This series is on hiatus until I regain my sense of which end of a week is which. Look after yourselves in the meantime.

Week-end: little to tell (which doesn’t really help)

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Elaborate appliqué panel depicting the Garden of Eden

The good

Out and about. It is very good to not have Covid any more. It is also fun to have the use of a car.

The mixed

People are thinking of me! Which is lovely. But they all want to know how I am doing. Which is difficult, because there is very little to tell, and I tend to find that a problem shared is a problem doubled because I then feel that I have to deal with their feeling bad for me on top of the feeling bad myself. For this reason I am mostly hiding, at least from people I know.

The difficult and perplexing

Heat + waiting + hearing about other people’s relevant and irrelevant experiences and opinions = getting stressed and scared

Also, heat = dehydration = a horrible headache that had me worrying all night about pre-eclampsia. And eventually being very sick.

Also, something has been eating my legs and I don’t know whether it’s mosquitoes getting in at night or whether there are still fleas in the sofa.

What’s working

Airplane mode. Except I do need to know when the midwife wants to see me, so that’s not an option today…

And having a good cry or three. And yawning.

Reading

Continuing with Clorinda’s circle, because they are good friends and, while many distressing things happen, they mostly do so off-screen and also I already know about them all.

This morning I started Beryl: in search of Britain’s greatest athlete (Jeremy Wilson): very good so far.

Writing

I did a bit of work on Don’t Quit The Day Job but have mostly Not Been In The Mood (must try taking laptop into the garden; half the trouble is that my study is too hot).

Making

I finished the two-flannels-and-a-popper thing and can now use the very very ends of bars of soap.

Watching

Some Wimbledon. Some Tour de France. Some Giro Donne. But my concentration is not great at the moment and I am finding it difficult to get engaged, so not very much of any of them these last few days.

Looking at

Threads Through Creation (twelve panels of silk appliqué representing the Genesis creation stories) at Ely Cathedral. Medieval art and Mediterranean embroidery at the Fitzwilliam in Cambridge. Local history at Ely Museum.

Also, Ben’s Yard, which is a new shopping village between Ely and Soham. Rather underwhelming so far, although the climbing frame (in the shape of Ely Cathedral) is magnificent.

Cooking

Baked gnocchi from the Roasting Tin book (I have concluded that our oven runs ten degrees cooler than advertisted).

Eating

A Fitzbillies Chelsea bun. A dismal chickpea curry at the pub (I suspect the efficacy of curry is a myth, but it’s a good excuse, if the curry is good – which this wasn’t).

Playing

I got PomoFarm on the grounds that it’s four quid and worth a shot. I haven’t yet decided whether it’s working for me. (I’m not sure whether the pomodoro method itself works for me.)

Noticing

A tiny door (there are a few around Cambridge) made to look like that of No. 10 Downing Street, with purple tentacles emerging from around the edge. (Well, it would explain a lot…)

In the garden

I have started work on the front garden. Two passion flowers to grow up the railings, one rosemary plant, and six lavender plants (Lidl were doing boxes of three for four quid). That row will be finished by bringing one of the bay trees round to the front, but it’s going to take more, stronger people (I can barely manage a watering can at the moment), possibly with a trolley of some sort. The good thing about the horrible slate chippings is that they’re on top of plastic sheeting which can be pulled up a bit at a time.

In the back garden, the runner beans are just beginning to flower; so are the tomatoes; and one of the chilli plants has produced a flower. I have forgotten which chilli was which, which may have been a mistake.

Appreciating

The cat’s been very sociable these last couple of days. It’s been nice.

Acquisitions

Plants, as detailed above. Also a new lampshade for the sitting room, in what turned out to be a perfect match for the barszcz coloured wall. This means that we can replace the hideous ribbon-and-plastic-crystal one in my study/the nursery with the boring but inoffensive lilac one we previous haddown there.

In the Emmaus charity shop: a large reel of black yarn which I intend to use for darning; a cafetière (sometimes one needs to provide more than one person at a time with decent coffee); and a paperback copy of Madam, Will You Talk?

And, in hankerings fulfilled (well, almost), a garden table (currentlyh in bits) and a filleting knife. I must go and buy another fish somewhere.

Hankering

Really I just want this baby to show up.

Line of the week

I remember loving this line (from ‘Had we never loved sae kindly, we had ne’er been broken-hearted’ in A Man of Independent Mind) the first time round, too.

O my dear, says Clorinda with a tearful laugh, sure ’tis no matter upon which one may make mathematical calculations of degrees of infelicity.

Sunday snippet

Mostly I’ve been moving things around, but this bit’s new:

And sure, the Tour de France is never going to be an option for me, for any number of reasons. But I could quite easily get to a standard where the London to Brighton ride was a realistic proposition. I’d just need to put the miles in. It’s exactly the same principle with writing, and with a much smaller chance of road rash.

This coming week

I intend to hide, mostly. How many how are you? questions can I avoid?

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

Week-end: alarums and excursions

kathleenjowittLeave a comment
Four houses, all with many small birds perched along the ridges of the roofs

The good

My friend Maggie was ordained priest yesterday. I’d said a while ago not to bother saving me a ticket, because I might well be otherwise engaged, but in the event I wasn’t, so I watched the service on Youtube and then walked up to the cathedral to give her a hug afterwards. (I timed it pretty much perfectly: left the house during the distribution of communion; got there just as the bishop and new priests were coming out to have their photos taken.)

It was really lovely to get out and see people (there were others I knew milling around, because the Church of England is a very small world). It was lovely to get out at all, really.

The mixed

Slow progress is still progress. Midnight alarums and excursions (don’t worry, everything’s fine).

The difficult and perplexing

Really, aside from a mild case of cabin fever, I have nothing to worry about. I’m not dealing terribly well with waiting, but then I never do.

What’s working

Picking one thing to do, doing that, and then having a lie-down.

Reading

I finished the main run of The Comfortable Courtesan stories, got a bit weepy at the end, and decided that I wasn’t quite feeling up to tackling the extended universe.

I also read Along the Way: the journey of a father and son (Martin Sheen, Emilio Estevez, and Hope Edelman). My favourable impression of this began with the fact that the ghostwriter is credited in large letters on the cover, and continued more or less all the way through. It’s mostly a memoir of family life, but it goes into a lot of detail on the making of The Way. (Which is what drew me to pick it up in the library discard sale.) I was very surprised to discover that they were shooting The Way in September 2009, which was only a couple of years after I walked the Camino Frances. But then it takes a long time for a film to happen, and I didn’t see it on its first release.

I’ve written before, briefly, about where The Way fails to convey the sheer grinding physicality of the Camino. And it is the physicality that sticks with me: the texture of boots that have been left too close to the fire overnight; walking through period pain so intense that I was sick (never before or since…) I think it’s basically impossible to get across such a three-dimensional (four-dimensional, maybe: time is an important component) experience in a two-dimensional medium. What the film does capture is the power of encounter and relationship; what it skips over is the fleeting nature of most of those encounters.

But Along the Way wasn’t just a book about the film; it was about parenthood, and masculinity (toxic and otherwise), and acting, and the film industry, and faith, and what all of that looks like in practice. And it seemed honest, and it was a very engaging read.

I am not sure that I would walk the Camino again – certainly not in summer, probably not the Camino Frances – and a lot of that is feeling that I’ve had my turn and I need to make space for other people. And, of course, the less generous flipside, which is that there are now too many people on the Camino, and it would no longer be what it was. (Of course it wouldn’t: I’m not twenty-one any more. Or thirty-one. And I seem to do it at major transitions in my life, and the current major transition is one that makes long-distance walking a lot less practical than it was. And the pilgrimage-shaped hole in my life is currently filled with Cursillo. Although I shouldn’t be entirely surprised if I end up doing it again at forty-one, never mind everything that I’ve just said.) And I’m sure The Way had something, though not everything, to do with the increase in traffic. Even so, I came away from this book feeling in greater charity towards the film and towards the Sheen/Estevez clan in general. They seem like a good bunch.

Making

I’ve been sewing two flannels together (very slowly) and will shortly add a popper as a fastening, so that I end up with a pouch that I can fill with ends of soap that have got too small and annoying to be in the soap dish.

Watching

Still almost entirely sports. Eastbourne, last week, and now the Tour and the Giro Donne. (A friend has suggested that we name the impending sprog after whoever wins the day’s stage. I am not sure that we will go with this.)

Looking at

Pictures of London Pride on Instagram. I’m wryly amused that I ignored or turned down four separate offers of wristbands (the bisexuals, the Bond fans, the Christians, and work – not sure this really counts as intersectionality) on the grounds that I might be busy, and then was only very slightly busy. But actually I’ve never particularly wanted to go to London Pride, and the idea of going to London at all is mightily unappealing at present.

Cooking

Roast carrots and parsnips with quinoa, from the Roasting Pan Cookbook. Either the timings in the book are off, or the fan function of our oven is not trustworthy, but an extra ten minutes on the standard oven function and with the foil removed did the trick, and the result was very nice.

Also a new potato, broad bean and feta salad. (Mint, thyme and bayleaves in the cooking water; chopped chervil, parsley and capers in the dressing. Really very good.)

And I think I’ve finally got the knack of yoghurt in the Instant Pot (use full fat milk, boil for an extra five minutes beyond what the pot thinks, incubate for five hours).

The peach shrub is done in theory but in practice needs to mellow more. Still, it has got me to learn how to use the Soda Stream at long last (it’s not at all difficult; I am just not that interested in fizz).

Eating

As above.

Noticing

Hollyhocks! They seem to be a thing around here; they grow very tall and they are bright and cheerful. Maybe I should grow some.

And, as per picture at the top of this post, rooftops and rooftops of starlings. They are usually around, but not usually in such numbers. We’d had eight or so demolishing a suet cake on the bird feeder earlier in the day, but I wasn’t expecting to see this. This isn’t even all the relevant roofs. I don’t know if you can call it a murmuration if it’s mostly static, but either way, it was quite a sight.

In the garden

Fruit is swelling. (I’m going to have to pull up some of the jungle under the plum trees in order to be able to harvest without being scratched or stung.) Lots of things could do with a trim. There are just a couple of love-in-a-mist flowers that have self-seeded from plants I grew… maybe our first year here?

I have drawn up a plan for the front but am not going to act on it until bending over becomes more comfortable.

Appreciating

People! (Particularly Tony.)

Hankering

I’m missing the old days of LiveJournal, the way it used to be in 2006 or so. Most of the social media sites seem to be becoming unusable in one way or another. I just want to see what the people I like are up to! In such a way that I can find the posts again if I want to look back at them! And without having to look at the same one over and over and over again!

The cat’s current preferred location

On top of the paper trimmer in the conservatory. I am glad she has moved on from the fridge; I can’t feel that having little clumps of black fluff float down into the kitchen was entirely sanitary.

Line of the week

Havi on screens and screening:

Nature abhors a vacuum, and goes wild for a door.

This coming week

Your guess is as good as mine, honestly.

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

Week-end: hurry up and wait

kathleenjowittLeave a comment
A fluffy black and white cat looks down at the camera from the top of a fridge

The good

I tested negative for Covid on Wednesday, after not having bothered (it wasn’t as if I was going anywhere) since last Friday. This is a great relief. It seems to have knocked me out less than the last bout did, though I’m still falling asleep all the time (mind you, I’ve been doing that for the last nine months…)

The difficult and perplexing

(I said I’d be whingeing about this for months to come:) it’s too hot.

What’s working

The sofa bed. Ice lollies.

Reading

Other than finishing off The Chronicles of Count Antonio, I’ve been rereading The Comfortable Courtesan series. I’ve got up to Domestick Disruptions. I’d forgotten how fast everything happens in the beginning: the epistolick mathematickal flirtation, the appearance of Mr F-, the elopement… I think that probably reflects the way that it started out being written a few sentences at a time; but anyway, the contrast with the current story (which I am also keeping up with) is quite interesting.

Mending

I was feeling vaguely energetic yesterday, so I did a couple of darns on a couple of Tony’s T-shirts.

Watching

Queen’s, mostly, though I have also been falling asleep in front if it.

Cooking

I was looking forward to veg box peaches, but the texture was really not pleasant. So I’m experimenting making peach shrub.

Eating

A tiramisu gelato. Very nice it was too. And wild strawberries, straight off the plants.

Noticing

A great spotted woodpecker! It came up from the other side of the fence, so I saw the head first, then the spotted bit, and finally the red flash and tail. That’s two woodpeckers I’ve seen in the garden now (there was a green one a couple of years ago).

I’ve been spending quite a lot of time sitting under the pergola, and have seen various birds from there. Sparrows. A robin. There’s also a very bold thrush which doesn’t seem to be at all bothered by my wandering right past.

In the garden

Besides birds – the nasturtiums are on the point of flowering; the pink roses are going great guns, as are the Peruvian lilies. I bought some French sorrel from a plant stand outside someone’s house and put that in.

We’re thinking of what we can do with the front garden, which at present is a dismal rectangle of slate chippings. It’s more or less eastward facing and gets a lot of sun; what it won’t reliably get is water, because the water butts and outside tap are all round the back, and I’ve been having enough trouble getting around the back garden with a watering can the last couple of years. I understand that this part of the country is technically a desert; it certainly feels like one today. Also we don’t want anything that grows higher than about four feet, or it’ll block the light to the front window. Thus far my mind is defaulting to tulips, but we also need something for the months of the year that aren’t April. I don’t think I’ve ever had a blank slate (pun not intended) garden before; it’s a little daunting.

Appreciating

Sleep.

Acquisitions

French sorrel. A baby changing mat and some anti-scratch mitts. A bird feeder with an anti-squirrel cage.

Hankering

Looked at some filleting knives but didn’t buy any. And we can’t get the garden table we had our eye on without also getting the chairs, which we don’t want. (The little one we got last month is excellent for the two of us, but won’t be much help when it comes to company, or when company comes to us.)

The cat’s current preferred location

On top of the fridge.

Line of the week

From The Menologium, quoted and translated by Eleanor Parker in Winters in the World:

… It likes then/ to gaze longer upon the earth and to move more slowly/ across the fields of the world, the fairest of lights/ and of all created things.

This coming week

More waiting, I expect.

Anything you’d like to share from this week? Any hopes for next week? Ideas for what to do with a small eastward-facing plot? Share them here!