Domesticali

Rainbow Portent

Today marks the entry into the second half-century of my time on the planet. Funny, but somehow having given no thought whatsoever to it before today, I find myself feeling that it is some kind of threshold. More so than any other of the milestone birthdays past. Perhaps it was the apocalyptic rainstorm we walked out of lunch into. Or maybe the double rainbow as we turned the final corner before home.

Or it could be that my hour of floating in the sensory deprivation pod affected me more than I thought. Yes, my birthday treat was an uninterrupted hour in total darkness, bobbing about in water filled with Epsom salts and heated to blood temperature. I didn't have an epiphany lying there. Or a breakdown. But I have emerged feeling very very me-like and strangely energised. Oh and ridiculously thirsty. 

Waving

If you have heard the sound before, the noise that the burners of a hot air balloon make is unmistakeable. And whenever I hear it I run outside to look heavenward and wave. They probably don't see - I'm sure the curve of the river or the patten left by the recently harvested wheat in the fields behind the house are much more captivating.  Sometimes we wave to be seen and sometimes we just wave because the spirit moves us.

Evening meanderings

Scenes from my evening walk to share with you today.

At the moment I feel very grateful to be living in our village - fewer people, plenty of access to open spaces and a solid sense of community. They all help a little bit in the desire that I'm sure we all feel for security. To feel rooted and stable.

 
But today I had to head further out to go to the supermarket. A couple of our neighbours are isolating, so at least I could feel useful by picking up some supplies  for them. But I wasn't too cheerful about going. Which is unusual for me - usually grocery shopping is one of my favourite chores. I love pushing the trolley up and down the aisles. Sometimes I have a list, but often I just go with a vague plan or decide to see what is on special and make it up from there. And in recent years, I have become a very frequent shopper. Daily.

Not these days though -  today, I had a battle plan of a list. With alternatives in case of necessary substitutions. Treading a delicate line between store cupboard and fresh, with a mind to fridge real estate. Meals planned to include softer and leafier soonest, and heartier and rootier for later on. It has been aeons since I tried to do a shop to last us a week. And that trolley was HEAVY, but I made it.

And scuttling home on eerily empty roads, I exhaled as I came back into the village. Home. Safe. The world feels very big out there.

 

Extraordinary times

The thing about extraordinary times is so often, the days within them have an air of ordinariness. And so I find it during this Coronavirus event. As a family, we have been hunkered down for about a week now. Not in full isolation, but lying very low. Having my chicks in the nest is a relief - the last couple of days before the younger one's school shut was a battle of conscience. Sending him felt so wrong, but it's his GCSE year so not sending him also felt reckless. It was a relief when they finally pulled the plug.

And life at home now? It's good - home feels like our safe space and I am weirdly enjoying all the small, everyday tasks that keep it running smoothly. Usually in my head home is the launchpad for the real world outside where all the exciting things happen. I'm always rushing through things at home to move on to the stuff 'out there'. But now that out there isn't where any of us particularly want to be, I am happy with the domestic. Bathrooms have been deep cleaned, gardening is happening, time in the kitchen has provided soothing entertainment. And we are learning new skills - I can hear the boys next door in the kitchen where Mark is proving a dab hand with the hair clippers. 

And I am staying away from too much news and instead, back here at the blog. When I first began blogging, fourteen years ago (fourteen!), it was because I was spending an awful lot of time at home with very small children. Blogging wasn't so much a window on the world, as me running my own, homemade flag up the flagpole, with a slightly desperate call of Helloooooooo, I'm here, do you see me?

So it is perhaps not surprising that now, spending a lot of time at home with adult sized children, that the blog calls to me again. As a place to talk, and not least as a place to bear witness to the small, ordinary days within these extraordinary times.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Plus ça change

Today I was listening to chatter about a reunion which a new acquaintance had attended last week - a group of old friends who had not all been together for 30 years. She described one gentleman; "Well, he used to be rather eccentric," and when I asked if he had mellowed in the intervening years she said, "Not really - I suppose we weren't terribly surprised." And that's the truth of it, isn't it?

We bob along in the waters of life through all manner of different landscapes. And where you are can be terribly jolly, or sometimes rather difficult, but you learn that whichever way it is, it generally passes. And in the ever changing vista before you, the one thing that remains pretty much constant is you.

Did I always know this? Yes, I think so, on some level at least. As I watch my children leave our family vessel and begin to journey under their own steam, my wish for them is that when they look at themselves in the mirror, that they know they are decent people, that they behaved with integrity and for them never to feel shame in who they are.

And all of the rest of it is pretty much icing on the cake.

It's been a while. But it is lovely to be back.

Words

Yesterday, I popped into the boys' school, because Johnny had a piece of art selected for the drawing exhibition. It was a digestive biscuit. Parental support seemed in order. I very much enjoyed seeing the biscuit and many other imaginative and accomplished pieces of art, but my favourite find of the evening came on the way out. There is building work going on at the school and they have chosen to use the protective hoarding in an imaginative and educational way - there are interesting facts about the history of the school, illustrations by students, portholes through which you can glimpse the new building emerging and a couple of panels which act as dry erase boards - one for maths conundrums and another reserved for the word of the week. And it was this, which caught my eye.

Such a joy to discover Tsundoku - which, judging by the response on Instagram, is a concept that many of us recognise but probably never felt the need for a word to articulate. And that is the beauty of words - their power to unite and to evoke an emotional response.

Instagram is supposed to be all about images, but I love the words captured there too. Somehow all the more poignant for their brevity. So I was totally up for it when Megan threw down the gauntlet of an Instagram challenge for this year. A monthly word to be used as a creative stimulus for the month. 

And January's word - wish.

Small word - BIG emotional response from me.

I don't like wish.

Wish smacks to me of weakness, of things outside my control, of waiting, like a small child, for someone to come and fix things and make everything better. Wish smacks of regret for things un-done, for opportunities wasted. Wishing is not my style. The only thing I really wished for last month was for Spring to hurry up and arrive. And even then, I am supposed to be working on enjoying the process and not fixating on the end goal, so wishing away the days didn't seem right either.

Sorry Megan. I wasn't terribly good with wish. I didn't even know I had strong feelings about it as a word until you chose it. Gusset, I already knew I disliked. And moist. Please tell me neither of those are in our future.

This month - different story. The word is delicious. Something I can get behind whole-heartedly. I am a HUGE fan of delicious. 

Blue Monday?

There's nothing more depressing than being told that today is the most miserable day of the year. If you're a cheery, glass half full, Pollyanna type, then you'll probably subscribe to the notion that a chirpy attitude and a big smile goes a long way to making you feel more positive about most things. So it stands to reason that being fed a notion of a particularly miserable day, is likely to have just the opposite effect.

So I take your grim 'Blue Monday' and raise you 'Bloom Monday' instead.

Isn't that better?

The sum of our everyday

Not sure where I read it, but somehow that phrase has stuck in my mind - we are the sum of our everyday. And if that isn't a siren call to doing the small things that bring joy and doing them as often as possible, then I don't know what is. 

Today's small joys and triumphs? A finished pair of woollen mitts (the peerless zip mits) - a patten which pulls of the ultimate trick of being straightforwardly pleasurable to knit and aesthetically pleasing.

And coffee - the antidote to a very late, but good night spent with friends. And so 2017 begins. Page 1 of 365

The end of 2016

And just like that, we find ourselves at the end of another year. Time to look back, to take stock, to figure out what is going to be different and better about the year to come. I've always been a bit of a planner - perhaps it's the map-lover in me, but somehow knowing where you intend to go is a great comfort - even if you do veer off piste for a scenic detour or two. Comfort in knowing that there is, indeed, a plan.

I had a plan for 2016 - and then I caught sight of another road and it looked intriguing and I headed off on a detour, which turned out to be an unexpectedly big hill which I found myself hurtling down. And everything got faster and faster and I couldn't find my brakes for the longest time.

Finally, there was a lay-by where I found the courage to look around, and admit to myself that I didn't much care for where I was. That was tough. I don't like making mistakes and I'm not very keen on giving up either. But it turns out there was a gap in the hedge and the reality of scrambling back through was much less painful than I had feared it might be. And my original road was there, waiting for me. And it wasn't a rut. I'm not sorry I took my scenic detour this year, but I am pleased to be back in the driving seat on my own route.

When I contemplate the year ahead though, I'll admit to feeling a bit lost - the plans for moving forward seem slow to come. I've lost a bit of self-confidence - somehow I feel smaller, more vulnerable and less sure of my own decisions. I'm wary of the map and its limitless possibilities. perhaps it's good to just be still for a while and look around until the ground feels firmer underfoot. And be here a bit more - yes, that sounds like a plan enough for now.

It's a new dawn, it's a new day

Mornings in most households must follow a similar pattern, I feel. The struggle to force oneself from a warm and comfortable bed and get the day underway. There are children to rouse, breakfasts to eat, bags to prepare - it's pretty much a universal state of affairs. But something made me stop in my tracks this morning and peek out through the curtains. Was it a quality of the light, or a sixth sense that my fellow morning-folk were looking too? Whatever the trigger, it was enough to make me pause, and breathe and marvel.

And when the morning was a little further down the line, and I was browsing my Instagram feed, I couldn't help but smile at how many of my friends there had stopped and paused and maybe even felt the same sensation. Of being a very small part of something under the same great big sky.

Mornings might get a touch busier round here - I begin a new job on Monday. Another unexpected, but extraordinarily welcome surprise from the Universe. You never can quite tell what is going to happen when you take heed of a urge that tells you to peek through the curtains.

Weather obsessions

Stands to reason that I might be a little weather obsessed. Aren't all we Brits? But this year, my mild interest has turned into a full blown weather checking mania.

It's not enough to just look out of the window. Mostly because when I wake up and look out of the window, it's just pitch black this time of year. I peer into the impenetrable, trying to figure out if I am going to have to scrape frost off the car before the school run and whether it is dry enough to play tennis outside.

An hour later, all is clear - but by then I've already made the important choices like jumping in the shower or putting on my kit and abandoning any thoughts of grooming till after I've finished playing.

So I'm harnessing technology, courtesy of the nice folks at Oregon Scientific who make a home weather station, and seeing if it revolutionises my life.

My new toy lets me know what the weather is like while I am still snuggled up in bed - and has a 12 hour forecast, so I can contemplate just pulling the duvet back over my head and waiting any grimness out.

Recently, I also discovered it has a new trick (having not read the manual completely...) that when it is icy out, the unit flashes a little green warning. Which was most useful as it made me get a wriggle on so there was time to de-ice the car  properly before leaving for school. Cunningly avoiding doing that thing when you drive hunched up in the seat, because you've only properly de-iced a portion of the windscreen and you need to angle yourself to see through the clear bit for the first 5 mins of the journey till the blowers in the car have done their job.

If I had a greenhouse, or outdoor animals, I could have sensors in different spots outside and check they weren't too chilly (or hot) without having to head outside at all.

Which makes it sound like I am a wimpy weather avoider. Not true!

See - frost warnings be damned - I'm still playing tennis outside. Though I might have piled on an extra layer or two.

On Autumn

It has only felt like Autumn for about a week and yet I am deep in a seasonal transition funk.

 

For a little while I tried to find the joy in having the gel pedicure chiseled off my toes and returning to woolly socks, but it didn't work. Partly because I would honestly rather go to the dentist than submit to gel pedicure removal torture. It's ouchy and if you have been tempted to maximise your bang for pedicure buck, your nails underneath will look awful. Also, I havent done a wool wash in a long time, so all my favourite socks are languishing at the bottom of the laundry bag instead of looking all joyful and inspiring in my drawer. I know there is a simple solution to this, but indulge me, I'm feeling the urge to whine.

And eat. 

Honestly. Monstrous amounts of the stodgiest food. I'm like some animal preparing to hibernate. Hubby caught me the other day muttering 'must have cake' like a mad woman, with only my backside visible as my head was thrust deep into the dark recesses of the kitchen cupboard in the effort to find some. And I've scoffed an awful lot of cheese. Which is bad because eating cheese gives me god-awful acne. I am currently sporting the face of a hormonal teenager (with added wrinkles, naturally).

And the real issue? I think winter is coming. And with it, being confined to barracks. And I'm not happy about it. There just aren't enough mini pumpkins in the world to make me feel cheerier. Cute though they are.

A day of enforced domesticity

This is the first day I am planning on spending entirely home alone since July.  No wonder the house is shambolic. And I have to admit, I am only doing it because we are expecting a delivery. But instead of pining for the fact that I could be playing tennis, I have decided to make a virtue of my house lockdown. Today is the day I am going to get things sorted. Oh yes.

It is before 9am. I have taken children to school, whizzed round the supermarket, done a load of laundry and pegged it out, put the second load in, changed two beds and am about to empty the dishwasher. Seriously doubt my ability to keep up this pace all day.

The delivery is Hubby's birthday present. It's a rowing machine. Anyone else smelling a mid-life crisis? It has probably been precipitated by the fact that I weigh less than him for the first time ever. That and the five minutes of me crowing with laughter when I realized. He tells me that we will all use the rowing machine. I'm thinking it will make a very useful hook for shirts when I'm doing the ironing.

Not sure when the last time I really did the ironing was. Possibly before we went on holiday. The pile has taken over the spare bed. Not a pretty sight. Ironing is the pinch point in my finely tuned laundry process. Because bits of laundry, I like. The washing machine whirring away means I am "being productive", even if I am sitting drinking coffee with a book. And I positively enjoy pegging out the wet washing on the line.

Though perhaps I am investing more energy in that simple task than I might. You see,  I am beginning to recognize that I have a stict mental peg heirarchy. In my peg bag (homemade, but badly - yet another domestic shortcoming to add to my list) there are an assortment of peg styles. In fact, delving in there is like exposing the geological strata of my line drying history.

The most elderly are the classic wooden pegs. Everyone has them - they do the job, but tend to migrate to the very bottom of the bag and are thus not in heavy rotation. There are a few plastic pegs from our time in Japan - they are shorter than your average peg (probably some fiendish oriental space saving plan) and I can clearly remember buying them in Yokohama Tokyu Hands and nearly crying at the eye watering expense. Still, twenty years on and they are still in rotation, so cost per use is looking pretty negligable. There are a few primary coloured pincer style pegs - useless at holding washing. I got them as a plaything for Mark when he was a tot (he never liked proper toys) because some Montessori style article said pegging was good for developing fine motor skills. I really should turf them. Along with the other elderly plastic ones which have gone brittle from being outside in cold weather and have a habit of snapping as you squeeze them.

Then come the birthday pressie pegs. Would you be offended to get pegs as a gift? Not these ones - they look like blackbirds  perched on your line. I squealed with delight - but they are not good for bulky things - best for tea towels and pillowcases.

 

I like to arrange the line so they sit next to some of the leaf and twig pegs that Monica found me. Like a naturalistic pegscape. Perhaps I should be concerned that not one, but TWO of my friends know my peg obsession is worthy of buying interesting pegs they come across, knowing how delighted I will be with them....

Gift pegs also have the benefit of someone else making the decision for you - because the agony of selecting my own when I got a longer line and realized I needed more, knew no bounds. In the end I hedged my bets with two different versions of the soft grip, non marking kind, which completes my asssortment. 

It goes wothout saying, that pegs must be matched to the item being hung, though not colour co-ordinated. Because that would just be taking matters too far, don't you think? There are limits to my madness.

Hark, I think I hear the beeping of a reversing delivery truck. Thank goodness! Because I think I've shared quite enough domestic luncacy for one morning. Possibly this is the reason why I try not to spend too much time home alone...

Eavesdropping in a coffee shop

Hiding from the rain, writing a list and marshalling my thoughts, I overheard a conversation at the next table which made me feel sad. 

At what age do we stop describing one another in perjorative terms as 'immature'. As if maturity is a quality to strive for rather than a state of mind thrust upon us by jobs, responsibilities, children and so forth.

I would love to be immature this morning, but I can't even picture what it would look like. I briefly dallied with the idea of a daytime cinema trip, but even that struck me as the most middle aged of rebellions.

All things new

Seeing the newness of nature bursting out all over always feels like a call to action. Time to fling open the doors and emerge from winter hibernation. There has been much junk purging from the house, with a dozen or so bags heading off to the charity shop and the textile recycling place. Feels like we have space to breathe a little easier.

Mental clutter is somewhat harder to shed. I've been desperate to just achieve some clear headspace and so I did a very brave thing and booked my first ever facial. What a revelation that was - how have I wasted all these years being intimidated at the thought of going? It was bliss on a heated water mattress. I'm going back again. As frequently as possible. 

But although relaxation and pampering is wonderful, it is an interlude in the stuff of daily life. It can't become life (well, not on planet me, anyway). There needed to be something absorbing to focus on to take my mind off the other stuff. Making things is usually the trick, but I was in a bit of a creative lull. Knitting didn't appeal - leaves too much time for thought. Nothing needed to be made. 

And then I came across the line drawing with Lisa Congdon course on Creativebug. It was only $10 to subscribe for a month and you can take as many classes as you like during your subscription period. Drawing has proven to be the perfect thing for achieving flow. Relaxing, yet absorbing enough to stop the intrusion of unwanted thoughts. And while I've been browsing the other courses on there, I've learned how to make a rope bowl and done some packing tape transfers as well as practicing my drawing. I'd say that was $10 pretty well spent.

And I am feeling a little more tranquil and optimistic. In honour of the temperature reaching 15 degrees, I ordered sandals - silver saltwaters. The mere thought of wearing them makes me happy.

The silver loo downstairs is full of pussy willow from last weekend's tree pruning. I read that if you put in in a vase without any water, it enters a form of suspended animation and will last indefinitely. We shall see.

I'm hoping my lighter mood is also here to stay. A bit of sushine and some making are always good medicine.

Officially Spring

March - yaaay! You are most welcome - especially when you begin with a sunny St David's day.

Is there an unwrutten rule that the first day which feels like Spring must be devoted to gardening? Our neighbourhood got the memo. Much activity in progress.

And the washing line got its first workout of the season.

Making the most of it yesterday looks to have been a very wise move though. Today, the climatically appropriate pastime was finishing off a pair of mitts for a friend's birthday.

 

Spring - you are so fickle. But I'm still pleased you're here.

Investment

Do you ever watch 'Dragon's Den'? It's a tv show where inventors pitch their ideas to try and secure investment from a panel of wealthy business people. I love it on a number of levels, the wacky ideas, the human drama, the sweaty palmed lurch of fear writ large on the people giving the pitch, their struggle to retain dignity in the face of being told the idea will never make a return, the resolute certainty of the dragons as they bestow a wad of their cash.

Back in the day, I did the job of one of those pitchers, standing, knees trembling behind the desk, struggling to keep my voice steady as I outlined business plans to people in my company who had their iron grip on the seed funding our project desperately needed. It was terrifying and I loved every second of it. And it also made me wonder what it would be like to be on the other side of the desk - to be the person responsible for spotting the ideas which were going to fly and probing for the holes in the ones less well-concieved.

Which is possibly what drew me to the idea of Kickstarter - a crownfunding platform for creative ideas. I've been stalking the site trawling through for ideas which appealed to me. My criteria were simple - the product had to be something meaningful to me, the entrepreneurs needed to be credible and the business plan had fall into the realms of achieveable rather than pipe dream.

And I've found one.

 The Vu Slidestrap project is 75% pledged, and if they raise the rest of the money in the next 17 days, I will become an investor and we will see if I really might have been able to cut it as a Dragon! Oh and I'll have a camera strap which doesn't hurt my neck - hooray.

The blahs

This year, I thought I had escaped them - the January blahs. I was feeling positively perky at the beginning of the month , but it seems you can run, but you cannot hide. And the dead giveaway for me? Dressing like a bag lady.

You know you are in trouble when you are relieved on days when you can roll out of bed straight into your gym kit, because at least that means you do not have to decide what to wear from the wardrobe of doom. Mine is stuffed full of items, but it seems that all of them are either climatically or sartorially undesireable right now. Or perhaps it is just that my thighs are proving hard to wedge into them. It seems the gym kit might be good in more than one way....

I thought about taking myself shopping. But in all honesty, it is not that my wardrobe is empty, it is just that the will to make the most of what is in it has evaporated. And then I chanced across something that made me think. A blog post by Natalie, with the handle #dressinhappinessdaily.

Because that is what it is all about really - not about what you own, or what size it comes in, but the way it makes you feel. And we all deserve to feel happy - even if it is January and our thighs are monstrous.

So I am paying attention to what I climb into as I climb out of my gym kit. And re-entering The Changing Room (- any of you guys still about?). 

Moleskine identification

We've talked diaries before, when I confessed about the botched attempt to enter the modern era and use an electronic planner. It failed dismally and I hared back to my trusted XL Moleskine on the kitchen counter-top. It works for us, and I relish the time capsule element of storing away last year's diary on the bookshelves. Don't ask me why I feel the need to hang onto them, but I do.

There is something that feels very grown up about having settled on the perfect diary and continuing to purchase the same one year after year. A sort of solidity, having left behind the flibbertigibbet pleasures of a diary which provides a different picture each week or being seduced by something novel. It is the closest I am ever likely to come to being a woman with a capsule wardrobe.

But there is always that awkward moment towards the end of the year, when a household spans two diaries. I have learned that if one is not to forget important things in the first few weeks of January, that you need to procure the diary for the subsequent year before the current one ends. And when all one's diaries are identical and black, it is also useful to have a way of differentiating the two.

Which is an extremely long winded preamble to explain the reason behind this:

Courtesy of a tutorial here.

My execution is not without flaws. Story of my diary life, really - full of good intentions, the execution of which may or may not live up to expectations.

If you do it properly, the embroidery looks as if the heart has been knitted. Which might come in handy - you know, with the day of lurve looming. See, I know that, because I've got a diary. And I can even tell which one is from this year!

Squelching out

A brief day of sunshine between the storms yesterday and I was keen to get out and make the most of it. My familiar 'caged beast' January feelings have been exacerbated by our village being increasingly marooned as the floodwaters of the Thames have risen and risen.  Two of the three roads out were closed to traffic this week, necessitating wild detours and lots of extra car time.

So it was a welcome relief to set out from the house on two feet and with no queues. And to feel the warmth of the sunshine on my back.

But I have a feeling it's going to be a while before things get back to normal along the river.

Short days

The light leaches so fast at this time of year. At four o'clock, what was a promising, blue-sky day is suddenly swallowed by evening. My washing, still on the line, turns from stiff to damp and cold again and I curse my forgetfulness as I pile it reluctantly into the drier.

This morning, there seemed to be all the time in the world. And suddenly, it is the tail end of everything and still so much left undone.

Even the smell of the banana bread in the oven is failing to raise my spirits. It's the indoors I am not quite ready to succumb to. To closed windows and doors that cannot be flung open. I try to appreciate the cosy, the domestic. But in reality, I feel like a caged beast and home seems stifling. I try to nest, but instead find myself frustrated by the futility of keeping order against the tide of muddy footwear and wet clothes and socks and coats abandoned willy-nilly.

Irritable and restless. The emotions of the tail end of Autumn. I know why bears hibernate.

Friday Findings

Playing tennis too agressively gives you a sore elbow and little satisfaction. I wasn't in the right frame of mind today.

I will never be able to do all my grocery shopping online. Pushing my trolley up and down the aisles in an early morning haze is my equivalent of meditation.

Even when I try to plan out menus, I still fall victim to the sudden craving brought on by the sight of an ingredient we haven't eaten in a while. Today's impulses put spinach, curly kale and some peppered mackerel in the mix. I'm thinking that I might be lacking some essential trace something-or-others my body is subliminally trying to coax me towards.

My cat eats kale chips. Who knew? Maybe he wants to be a vegetarian.

Jacket spuds are in the oven, feels like the end of the week. Time to open the wine, I think. Enjoy your weekends.

A parallel universe

Life has always seemed to me to be a series of compartments. Probably as a result of having a very itinerant childhood, when every three or so years our family would move countries and begin again - different house, different friends, different routine. Each phase has a box of its own in my mind. 

But for the past couple of weeks, it's as if someone opened a couple of the boxes of my life onto the floor and gave them a good jumble.

Twenty five years of life later - so many changes and yet much that is fundamental and constant.

It is taking a while to process, but I have reached some conclusions.

• Having your school room mate back in the UK for a visit is exhausting. 

• Growing up with someone gives them total carte blanche to wade in and mother your children, in spite of never having met them before (and their reaction is extremely funny to watch).

• My thirteen year old son, who allowed himself to be cuddled in front of his entire school rugby team and bore it with a smile and good grace, is an exceptional human being.

• Parenthood undeniably makes  you more cautious and responsible.

• Friends from your formative years will know you in a way that is totally different to friends made later in life.

• I am a quieter and more introverted person than I once was and I need some time alone each day in a way that I never used to. 

I am trying to pack up this crazy week or two and pop it back into an appropriate box on the shelf in my mind, but it is proving to be harder than I thought.  Are you still the same person you were 25 years ago?

Unexpected pleasures

When Sue suggested we visit Charlecote Park, certain things were a given. There would be good chat. There would be drinking of coffee. There would be a convivial lunch. There would be the beeswax scent of the National Trust.

But today was full of unexpected pleasures too.

The kitchen had  a fire in the grate, a stocked larder and apple and blackberry something-or-other simmering in a copper pan. I like this new habit of the NT to show the kitchens at work.

There was sculpture in the trees.

And a 180 year old Mulberry tree in fruit (would have been rude not to sample).

But best of all was the most wonderful farm shop. So many pumpkins and squash.

Too many, in fact. I was paralysed by the choice and didn't end up buying any. Silly me.

I did bring home some dahlias - though not in as elegant a basket as Sue's.

Happy Day of pleasures - both anticipated and unexpected.

A fine line

The divide between a groove and a rut is a fine one, don't you think? Summer has been good. Great even. We've throttled back, enjoyed each other's company. Shifted the pace to slow and abandoned many notions of obligation and responsibility. But what was our groove, six weeks on, begins to look suspiciously like a rut.

Sitting outside the other evening, with a hint of chill in the air and a lengthening of the shadows foretelling the approach of Autumn, I felt a secret thrill. Time for a new season, for putting aside indolence and planning a few projects.

And what better way to kick start some creativity than a visit with Monica to the Festival of Quilts. She took lots of photos. I mainly soaked it in and brought away with me a sense of wonder in what we can achieve when we have a plan and work towards it, however insignificant the individual steps might seem.

And as a reminder to myself, I stitched up a little brooch from one of Janet Clare's line drawings with thread.  I like to think of him as my bird of good intentions.

See him striding forward purposefully? It's good to have a reminder of that feeling.

Miscellany of this week

Been hot, hasn't it? We've been moving slow, staying cool, drinking lots and spending plenty of time down by the stream in the village.

Our ginger cat appears to have sunburned ears. I never thought to account for the fact that he is a redhead. Though even if I had, I am not sure what preventative measures I might have taken. Sun hat, maybe.

Anyway, he appears slightly mollified by being able to drink from the play canal. 

Also on the pet news front, we have also acquired a yellow bellied slider for the duration of the holidays. He comes from the physics lab at school. Not biology, which strikes me as strange. His name is George. I liked him far more before I realised he would be eating live mealworms.

There are two terrapins in the physics lab. Mark assured me that we are hosting 'the fun one'. I cannot shake the mental image of returning home to find he has orgaized some secret rave in our absence. 

The long hot days seem to be good for promoting reading too - the latest has been the new Lionel Shriver - 'Big Brother', which I enjoyed enormously. It also contained a line which stopped me in my tracks:

"I had found that 'feeling special' was a private experience, and no one else's projected fascination could substitute for quiet absorption in your own life."

I had to pause and read it several times, and then make a note of the page, so I could return to it. It seemed important. 

Summer sprang upon us so suddenly, that there wasn't really time to consider what our goals were for this long holiday, but perhaps a quiet absorption in our own lives is a good one. What are you hoping to achieve before the autumn?

The linen cupboard

For a long time, my upstairs landing has been home to a large wicker basket. It holds all the out-of-season duvets and extra pillows for when we have a houseful of visitors. From time to time it has also housed small children, needing a spot to play hide and seek. One of the cats liked the texture of the wicker for a spot of claw manicuring. It was indeed useful, but no longer particularly beautiful.

The position on the landing has long been ready for something more. 

And on Friday, I found the perfect thing at Home Barn. I'd been following them on Instagram for quite a while and having found myself with a free afternoon and no school run to do on Friday, I nabbed the chance to pop down there with the hubs.

It was a real gem - am extremely well curated antiques/vintage shop. In fact, I think I could safely say that almost everything I saw there would be welcome in our home. And the staging was superb.

Sadly, I didn't come home with armloads of new stuff, because all our pennies went on the one item. This gorgeous glazed cupboard, which could have been made to measure for our landing.

I have spent much happy time this weekend, lining shelves and folding up my linens to arrange them in an aesthetically pleasing way. I'm also feeling the urge to go update some of our less than gorgeous sheets, towels and pillowcases. We will have been married twenty years in April and a significant proportion of our linen cupboard dates from the early 1990s. I think they have served their time.

Of course, in order to preserve the illusion of domestic perfection, there will remain hidden in another place, all the items that would fail to live up to glazed cupboard scrutiny. Johnny's slightly loud Tyrrell Katz duvet cover, the pair of green towels that I took to boarding school aged 9 (which have proven to be entirely indestructible and are still used by my boys as their swimming towels) and all the fitted sheets, which try though I might, I can never fold neatly. Guilty linen cupboard secrets. We all have them. Don't we?

Worth recording

Over lunch today - leftover rice with kale and shredded chicken - particularly tasty, even if I do say so myself, I was catching up with reading a few blogs. Suse used the phrase 'it's just the usual around here, nothing particularly worth recording'. Which sums up neatly exactly my excuse to my Mother, who chided me for my lack of updates recently.

But I've been trying to step away from the online world a little and immerse myself more fully in the real life rhythms of my day to day.

Investing my time a touch more mindfully in the things I know will bring me pleasure later.

Serene? Well, looks can be deceiving. I've just had the usual nervous breakdown inducing session of transferring the seasons sports fixtures into the family diary. Quite why I am bothering with the garden when there are probably 6.3 seconds when we will have free time to sit in it and enjoy it, I haven't quite figured out yet.

On a completely different note - duck racing anyone?

Highlight of the village social calender. We managed two ducks in the final, but failed to secure victory. There were ice creams though, which more than made up for any disappointment.

 

 

The Seaside

Don't want you to think we spend all our time gadding about making merry. But we've been off to the seaside visiting my folks. When we got here it was frrreeezing, with a howling wind and sleet falling. Hiding inside weather, for sure. But today, we awoke to the sun shining and positively balmy weather compared to that of late. Time to grab the camera and head out to capture some of it, in case it is a short lived interlude.

Hope you caught a few rays and made the most of them.

The bunny is coming

When I looked out at the snow this morning, it seemed impossible to think that in a week it will be Easter. But even if the weather hasn't got the message, the days are marching on.

I'm having a week off from technology and I'm hoping that when I return, Spring will have sprung. Consider yourself on notice, big bad Winter.

And Happy Easter!