393: cautiously optimistic

There have definitely been moments over the last twenty (yeesh!) years when I have questioned many of my life choices, almost always involving the Horde. Coming into the living room and finding that Things 1&2 have rigged up a tightrope using their gloves on elastic and are about to start testing it. While applying yoghurt to Thing 2’s face after she decided (against all advice) to eat a chilli pepper straight off the plant and then rubbed her face. Thing 3’s willingness to eat anything as long as there was a dip with it.

Wednesday and Friday mornings, trying to wrangle all three of them into their school uniforms and out of the door with all the appropriate equipment to catch the unreliable bus. Thing 1’s ability to fall over from a standing start and lose things in a matter of seconds, Thing 2’s stubbornness and the need to pick my battles very carefully, and Thing 3’s obsession with stopping at Every. Single. Lamppost between school and nursery to say ‘That sign means lightning. If there is lightning you must not go in the garden because you will DIE.’

Moments when sentences I never thought I’d say came out of my mouth. Moments when keeping a straight face while issuing a telling off was the hardest thing in the world. Moments of remaining sensible and calm when what I really want to do is lose what’s left of my rag and go all medieval.

They’re 20, 18ish and 15 now and luckily those moments are further and further apart now: Thing 3’s worst habit is missing the bus in the mornings (though a couple of late detentions seem to have helped). Thing 1’s chaotic bedroom seems to have resolved itself and she and Thing 2 are sharing space nicely. I need to pick fewer battles with Thing 2 these days, which is much less stressful. Watching them become friends as well as siblings is a joy.

Just this week, for example, 2 & 3 had an evening making a lemon tart. 2 is helping 3 with his DT Food work. On a side note, should I worry that all three of them are planning on culinary careers? 1 is working in the local pub kitchen, 2 started a commis chef apprenticeship two weeks ago and 3 is planning on the same next year. Is it self-defence after years of my cooking? There was the moment when Thing 3 – as a three year old – sighed at the sound of the smoke alarm and toddled off to tell his dad that dinner was ready. Thing 1 peering over my shoulder at the fish fingers and asking ‘haven’t you burned them yet mummy?’ Thing 2 putting cake kits on her birthday list in case I got it wrong. And don’t get me started on Stroganoffgate, which was the last time I tried getting all of them to eat something new.

1 and 2 have had a sisterly shopping trip this week, and last weekend 2 and I had a movie day with popcorn, snacks and Hocus Pocus1 and 2 on the TV. I introduced her to the Buffy movie too. Thing 3 still comes and hugs me and asks about my day when I get home. They’ve taken their parents’ separation in their stride and are supportive of both of us, which is great. They’re adorable with their nephews and helpful around the house. They’re polite to adults and can be taken out in public (I credit their aunty with this – she followed through when she said ‘stop it or we’re leaving’).

I’m biased but I think they’re awesome….

Things making me happy this week

  • A sunny ramble in the woods last Sunday morning – heading into my favourite season
  • Adding handwarmers to the portable project
  • Impromptu pub evening with Miriam and Jill on Wednesday, and coffee and cake at the market on Saturday
  • Being discharged by the maxillofacial team at my post-op

That’s it from me – next week I’m in Wales at the Swn festival in Cardiff. Festivals with no camping or portaloos are the way to go.

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

The Red Queen – Martha Grimes, who needs to stop now as this was barely readable.

The Deal/The Chase – Elle Kennedy

The Amberglow Candy Store – Hiyoko Kurisu

392: er…who?

I do not understand the appeal of reality TV. Or Gogglebox. Or the endless cycle on YouTube of watching people watch other people do stuff. Or pretty much anything with ‘celebrity’ in the title, often because after the first few series the definition of ‘celebrity’ has been stretched to include those YouTube people who watch other people do stuff. I’d say I’m a TV snob except for my fondness for You’ve Been Framed, especially when small children fall off stuff.

Come Dine With Me has its moments but it’s excruciatingly arch at times and occasionally punches down at participants. I did binge Celebrity MasterChef in Wales and even had a favourite contestant, but again the definition of celebrity was somewhat elastic. I was pleased that my favourite won, and I love Grace Dent in a sort of Gillian-Anderson-with- a-spoon way. I envy her wardrobe and her love of puddings. I liked the disasters on this as much as the spectacles.

This week I was persuaded to watch Celebrity Traitors, however – they had me at Michael Sheen, obviously, and added Richard E. Grant just to make sure. Grant off EastEnders is giving excellent comedy value with his paranoid antics – the TV tough guy who freaked out when tiny Bella Ramsay put a hat on him. Jerry Hall is so far pointless. Claudia’s fringe is, as always, excellent and the whole thing is camp as Christmas.

It’s passed me by until now, but as a single parent I have more control of the remote than in the past. The other parent only spends two evenings a week at home, so the power is with me. The Things are usually binging something, and sometimes we’ll watch a film together (Say Anything and Practical Magic this week) but often they’re doing their own stuff.

I’m not entirely sure I understand what’s going on, of course. Richard E. Grant was apparently not supposed to get overexcited and tell everyone he was a traitor and is now trying to convince everyone it was a cunning double bluff. I think Joe Lycett is onto him, however. It seems like a very elaborate way to do a murder mystery evening, really, but it’s fun doing it as a watchalong.

I’ve also been watching NFL. Yes, really.

If you catch me watching Celebrity Love Island or Married At First Sight though… shoot me.

Things making me happy this week

  • Thing 2 starting an apprenticeship. We commuted together on Saturday!
  • Crocheting a mad scarf
  • Dog sitting on Saturday night watching Shrinking
  • The prospect of a crochet Muppet Christmas Carol book. Yes, I preordered…
  • The latest episode of Ted Lasso which was sad but beautiful
  • Being part of the launch of this year’s Big Draw event…so much joy and colour!

Today I have nothing to do except laundry… and maybe a good nap.

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

A Court of Frost and Starlight – Sarah J. Maas (Audible)

The Red Queen – Martha Grimes

391: you bring out the nerd in me

One of my favourite things about the Centre being open is that we all get to do front of house shifts every so often. As a team lead mine are usually on weekends so I have the chance to see and chat to lots of different visitors: families, older people, students, tourists and more.

Saturday’s shift this week was split between the library on the ground floor of the Engine House and the welcome desk, which are my favourite places. Our Library was envisioned as an extension of your living room, where you can sit and read books, do some drawing and share stories – the day I saw a family come in, take their shoes off and get comfy on the carpet I was pretty sure we’d achieved it. The library is also the first space where you really encounter the industrial heart and heritage of the building, with the staircase going up through the old core, exposed brickwork behind the lift and visible evidence of the struts and anchors that supported the big steam engines. This building makes sense of the tram tracks in the shop and the smaller outbuildings that held the coal, and how the water from the Round Pond (now a block of very expensive flats) got up the hill to the large grassy knoll which hides a beautiful covered reservoir.

By Unknown artist, ILN Staff – The Illustrated London News, 22 November 1856, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=99445595

Often people will come in and as soon as you’ve greeted them they ask why it’s called the Engine House, or occasionally ‘what was this place?’. If you’re outside they ask about the Windmill Base, which is exactly what it sounds like – except not a mill but rather a pump, before steam came to the site. It really does bring out my inner history nerd and I’m not even sorry.

Today’s families included a group from Devon – the mum was an inclusion specialist so I got to talk about our approach to access which might turn into a zoom chat about what we’ve done. Another proud grandad from South Wales was killing time before he went to see his grandson play the guitar at his music school. We’re still so new that people are making their first visits – because they love Quentin Blake, because their friends had told them about it, because they’re illustrators, so many reasons. I love talking to them all, it reminds me exactly why we did it all in the first place.

We had more families joining us for a drop-in ‘Playing with the New River’ session with James and Eva from Play Build Play CIC – expert play co-designers who have already created our playbenches inspired by Quentin Blake’s illustrations, and who are finalising the loose parts play kit which will bring our Studio Garden to life. Inspired by the idea of a human-made river bringing water to London using the contours of the land, it’ll inspire children to build and create. Everythiing becomes playful in their sessions – cardboard boxes, chairs, kitchen furniture, thermal blankets, carpet underlay – and imagination does the rest. Families were also using the new Outdoor Explorer Kits with the trail designed by Toya Walker.

This week we also hosted our first teachers’ evening – A Sip and Sketch with our illustrator Grace Holliday. It led into the Centre’s first Illustrate Late as well, which changed the whole vibe of the cafe space with live music and illustration. Story time was all babies; no crafts in case of them eating the glue but lovely conversations and floor play with the cushions. Owl Babies was the book of the week.

Other things making me happy

  • Nearly finishing the virus shawl
  • Watching Say Anything with Thing 2. I love this film.
  • Roy and Keeley in Ted Lasso. YES!
  • Long phone conversations about not a lot

That’s it from me for the week – it’s been a fun one!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

A Court of Wings and Ruin – Sarah J. Maas (Audible)

On the move – Michael Rosen & Quentin Blake

High Street – J.M Richards & Eric Ravilious

A lot of absolute drivel

390: wandering in Wales

This week has involved quite a lot of mooching about the place and having a thoroughly nice time. I had a couple of days of time off in lieu to take, and was in Wales anyway so why not?

On Wednesday I took myself off to Museum Wales to see the Ffasiwn exhibition – the result of an absolute dream of a co-creation project between Alexander McQueen, Bleak Fabulous and young people from across the South Wales valleys. The young people had access to an amazing range of creative support and pieces from the McQueen archive, and the outcome is a gorgeous set of photographs recording the project alongside zines, magazines and journals. The interview film with the participants really foregrounds their voices and the impact the project has had on them. Honestly though – we talk about building long term relationships with our community groups and work towards it, but projects with this level of commitment from all partners and participants are few and far between. Beautiful.

While I was in Cardiff I visited the arcades as well, all seven of them. I was pleased to see that the taxidermy bear was still at the tobacco shop, but sad that Claire Grove Buttons no longer exists. The website for the ‘City of Arcades’ talks about them being the home of independent businesses and there were some, but also lots of redevelopment and empty shop fronts. They haven’t been taken over by a plague of vape shops and barbers though, so there is still hope.

On Friday we went to St Fagan’s Museum of Welsh History , which I’m pretty sure I last visited sometime in the 1980s or possibly even the 1970s. We took two dogs with us and my friend sat outside with them while I popped in and out of the buildings and read signs and talked to random people. He’d visited quite recently so – having taken me there as a surprise as he knew I’d like it – was quite happy to let me potter around, I even got to see the galleries, and we bought a loaf of bread straight from the oven from the bakery. I liked the sheep, was puzzled by the wicker man although he made more sense when the signs explaining his presence had been put out, and enjoyed the terrace with the houses through time. Fires were burning in the older properties and the visitor assistants were without exception friendly and knowledgeable.

What struck me at both of these Amgueddfa Cymru venues was the lack of visible access support – possibly as this is something I think about a lot in the day job. Signage was confusing and in one case was the worst example of toilet signage I’ve ever seen.

Not helpful.

Saturday was Abergavenny Food Festival, which we hit early to avoid the crowds – the plan was to do a first pass of the vendors and then a second sweep to actually buy things. We were glad we’d gone with a plan as wristband collection was utter chaos – everyone’s tickets had to be scanned individually and only one person had the scanner app on their phone. Thanks to Aber’s location in a bowl of hills the mobile signal is erratic, and the town WiFi wasn’t much better. We waited about 15 mins to be scanned and there were only two groups ahead of us. Children entered free but had to be issued wristbands for parents to put phone numbers on… when the scanning person discovered they’d been left in the office she – rather than sending one of the other volunteers standing around – took the scanning phone and went herself which caused even more delays. There were about 100 people queuing to be scanned when we left at 11. There were two other ticket points but neither were on the main drag next to the key venue.

There was a good variety of stalls, both inside and outside the Market Hall, and our haul included some Two Farmers crisps in Herefordshire Sauce flavour, a leg of lamb for a roast, some proper French garlic sold by some nice onion sellers from Roscoff, gorgeous cider vinegar and some Caws Teifi vintage cheddar which was so strong it gave me a migraine, but so tasty it was almost worth it. I resisted the enormous variety of Welsh cakes but tried a sage and orange fudge.

We sat in on a talk briefly – but honestly, how is it possible for two people to talk about coffee so earnestly and pretentiously for a whole hour? There was a free cooking school for kids at the Castle, object handling and face painting as well as a cookery book tent with lots of speakers. I don’t think I’d have wanted to go for the whole weekend but a couple of hours was great.

Things making me happy this week

  • Celebrity Masterchef. I love Grace Dent.
  • No Central Line commutes as I’ve been working remotely in between mooching
  • sleeping in the same bed for a week
  • Street clocks in Cardiff
  • McVities Mint Club flavour Chocolate Digestives
  • Mindful crochet

Back to work on Tuesday… ah well.

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading

King Foretold/Light Burned. – Jayci Lee

More – Gillian Anderson

Curious Events Lately Occurring in this Neighbourhood – Tom Cox

389: this week I am mostly…

…struggling quite badly with the brain frog, which has meant that I’ve spent a lot of time in meetings apologising for the fact that I’ve totally forgotten what I was saying, usually mid-sentence. When you’re facilitating the meeting this can get quite embarrassing, but at least I was able to look at the agenda.

When I first embraced menopause and the blessed HRT patches my brain frog went into hibernation for a while, and all was right with the world. Well, I could finish whole sentences and that was nearly as good. But then it came back, along with all sorts of weird aches and pains and other fun symptoms – some of which go with menopause and others which don’t.

What they do go with, it turns out, is something called Sjogren’s Disease, and the investigations into my aches and pains led to my being diagnosed with this in May. For those of you tracking the Year From Hell (TM) May was after the break up but before the fracture, in my personal timeline.

Sjogren’s is the second most common autoimmune rheumatic disease, I’m told, but remains under recognised and under treated. It affects about 0.6% of adults in the UK, average age of 50, and 90% of us are women. I suspect there’s so much crossover in the symptoms list that sufferers assume – like me – that they’re just on the menopause merry go round and just up the HRT.

It took about two years from first seeing my GP to actual diagnosis, and the offer of treatment so far has been a steroid injection and medication which has the unfortunate side effect of irreversible blindness. I’ve declined that one, funnily enough, as some of my symptoms are still quite mild and I’m going to see how I get on and hope that they develop something else. Day to day things are usually OK as long as I’m sleeping ok – wherever that is, these days – but this week has been somewhat sleepless so the fatigue has kicked in, coupled with the steroid injection wearing off. This week I have no commutes as I’m working remotely so hopefully i can get some decent downtime.

It’s been a year, I tell you. And there’s still three months to go…

Things making me happy this week

  • The Seat at the Table festival on Saturday organised by the Community Partnerships Producers and refugees and migrants living in Islington. So much joy!
  • Twin cuddles from A&B on Friday
  • Thing 2 making almond danishes
  • The prospect of no Central Line for the week.
  • Making fluffy owl babies for story time

That’s it from me…same time next week when hopefully I’ll be less grumpy and less tired.

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading

Nine-tailed/King Foretold – Jayci Lee

388: families welcome, whatever size and shape

On Saturday I filled in for one of my team who is off on holiday and supported our monthly LGBTQIA+ monthly family drop in session, this month led by the wonderful Rachael House. Rachael is a multidisciplinary fine artist featured in our Queer as Comics exhibition, who joined us today to lead a drop-in speech bubbles workshop which gzve our visitors the opportunity to find their voices and share what was important to them.

This is the third of these LGBTQIA+ family sessions and our audience is growing – we had almost 30 people today, of all ages, and it was so good to see most of the parents make their own art pieces as well as the children. We had political statements, ethical, joyful, playful and more. People were able to use pens, drawing inks and brushes to create their works and they ended up bold and colourful. My friend Miriam also brought her family – the nuclear unit plus some of the family of choice. Daughter H has just started GCSE art and was able to meet a working illustrator who looked at her work and was interested. One thing I’ve noticed about all the illustrators we work with is that they’re generous people who make time for aspiring artists – Murugiah has been the same.

Since we started the family programming back in June we’ve had more than 600 people engaging with it, and with different materials and media, and it’s so good to see the Creative Studio alive with people being creative and enjoying themselves. Saturday was my third session of the week and they’ve all been completely different.

On Monday I ran a Rainbow Pavement drop-in activity outside – we have a lot of concrete and brick on the site and I decided to bring a bit of colour to the space to end the summer with. Around 40 people came and created artwork – Jimmy, a four year old, came and declared ‘I SPELLED MY NAME RIGHT!’ very proudly. He had, and he and his mum had a great time chalking noughts and crosses games to play too. We used chunky pavement chalks which work for all ages (including grandads with arthritic fingers) and the chalk washes away in a good rainstorm. I had some lovely chats with people – including one man who’d come all the way from Argentina because he loves Quentin Blake.

My absolute favourite session every week, though, is the Little Owls storytellling session which happens every Wednesday afternoon – we have a story and then do a simple craft activity. This week’s story was Quentin Blake’s own Angelica Sprocket’s Pockets. I was expecting it to be a bit quieter as the schools have started back but there was a queue! For me!

I’d popped out of the studio after setting up to go and tout for custom as usual – dressed in the replica coat I’d made a couple of years ago for our schools story session, and there they all were! I also ran into the team from the London Museum while dressed in the coat, but luckily a lot of them are quite used to me by now and didn’t bat an eyelid at the hot pink pocketed costume. We read the story and then created printed pockets on coloured paper, and objects to go in the pockets. This follows We’re Going on a Bear Hunt when we made story maps, The Tiger Who Came To Tea with paper plate tiger faces, Dear Zoo with the ‘wrong’ pets, My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes (blue fans like the cat from Japan), Whatever Next? and the cardboard rockets and this week we’re doing Owl Babies and making little owls.

The coat of many pockets! From the archive….

I also started transcribing the luggage tag evaluation – what did you like about your visit and what could we do better – and the comments about the range of materials, the free flow creative activities and the wonderful welcoming staff made me very happy as well. Next weekend we have a community festival which has been co-produced with refugees and migrants living in the borough and I can’t wait – it’s called A Seat at the Table and it’s going to be amazing.

Things making me happy this week

That’s it for me for the week!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Fingersmith – Sarah Waters

Nine-tailed – Jayci Lee

387: everyday…people

This has been a very peopley week, but in a good way: these days organising what ought to be a simple catch up takes quite some doing.  Managing two in a week is pretty impressive.

I’ve been housesitting in Buckhurst Hill again this week which put me quite close to Debden and my friend Elaine, who I haven’t seen for what seems like forever. We met up after work and wandered over to a Turkish mezze restaurant in the Broadway, where we annoyed the staff by not looking at the menus for ages while we gabbled away merrily about life, books, friends, TV and more. Eventually we ordered and the kebabs were worth the wait, with a lovely fresh salad and lots of flatbread.

Waiting for the bus back was an experience – 9pm and there was a group of four kids zooming around on e-scooters, not being terribly pesky as they go, but quite cheeky. One of them informed me that the buses were done but if I wanted to hop on the back of his scooter he’d give me a lift home….he must have been all of 12. I declined and went for the train instead…I think it was the pelvic thrust he added as punctuation that really put me off.

Wednesday was an Amanda evening and this week we headed for Black Bear Burger in Exmouth Market, where we were disappointed by the lack of frozen margaritas but toughed our way through with normal ones. We’re good like that. The burgers were delicious, medium cooked and juicy with good cheese and pickle relish, and the Cajun fries were just spicy enough.

I also saw J, one of my friend’s daughters who has been having independent London adventures these holidays. She found her way to the Centre and explored the galleries.

Work was also quite busy: a catch up with someone at Kingston Uni about a project, a firing-on-all-cylinders meeting at all The Charterhouse about maps as illustration, and on Wednesday I read ‘Whatever Next?’ by Jill Murphy for the story session and we made cardboard box rockets. Families stayed for over an hour creating joyful chaos in the Studio with tape, stickers, chalk, pens, all sorts of bits I had hanging around. This week we’re reading Angelica Sprocket’s Pockets by Quentin Blake and making pockets.

Things making me happy this week

  • Early morning walk with Jill on Saturday, which we haven’t done for ages
  • Ted Lasso still – onto season 3 and I’m HORRIFIED by Nate’s betrayal.
  • The tributes to Dolly Parton and Tim Curry flooding my social media feeds (though of course I’m sad that they’ve died). Two people who made it OK to be unapologetically themselves, to be a little bit weird and out there, and to give people the courage to be the same.
  • Rain. Not much but it’s a start. Discovered that Miriam’s dog is scared of thunder when he burrowed under my arm at the first roll.
  • Catch up with Rhiannon when I went to retrieve my bags, entertained by R&O on top post-holiday form

This week we’re opening on Bank Holiday Monday for the first time and I’ll be there hoping it doesn’t rain. My plan is to arm the public with lots of chalk and turn all our concrete into a rainbow of colour. If it’s raining we’ll cause chaos inside instead.

Same time next week then, gang! I’ll be the one covered in chalk.

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Tipping the Velvet/Fingersmith – Sarah Waters

386: Doctor Feelgood prescribes…

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been catching up with the excellent Ted Lasso on Apple TV, starring the fabulous Hannah Waddingham and Jason Sudeikis. It’s about a football club and the people in it – an underdog comedy, really, as they’re battling relegation, a string of draws, a diverse team who aren’t playing nicely together.

The title character is a fish out of water, brought from America to make sure the club goes under in an act of revenge by Hannah Waddingham against her ex husband, played delightfully sleazily by the much missed Anthony Stewart Head. Of course it doesn’t work, despite the entire fanbase of the club loathing Lasso, who knows less than nothing about football. He’s a Ned Flanders type who really shouldn’t be as charming as he is. His sidekick is a taciturn man with a fatal attraction to a woman who is quite bonkers. Brett Goldstein growls as Roy Kent, team captain past his glory days but not quite able to give up the beautiful game.

Grrr. Roy Kent, Coach Beard, Ted Lasso (Apple TV)

It’s predictable – yes, they’ll be relegated but that’s OK, there’s always another season. There’s a divorce (Lasso is giving his wife 5000 miles of space). There’s a love story and a kitman with an eye for tactics. There’s a Christmas episode with snow. It’s filmed in Richmond so looks posh and pretty. Nothing unexpected but beautifully written and every single episode leaves you feeling hopeful and happy.

It’s exactly the TV we need right now. Watch it.

Things making me happy this week

  • Family Wednesdays at work. So much fun.
  • Deeney’s specialty toastie – the Macbeth – Haggis, cheese and onions. MMMM.
  • Pizza with the kids on Tuesday.
  • Thing 1 taking up crochet again.
  • Progress on my shawl.
  • An evening with some of my girlfriends on Friday.
  • A Saturday swim with Rachel.
  • The return of bearable temperatures and a few drops of water falling from the sky.

That’s it from me – a quiet week! No big thoughts….

What I’ve been reading:

A Court of Mist and Fury – Sarah J Maas (Audible)

The Secret Keeper – Kate Morton

A lot of absolute rubbish by various Americans. No thinking required.

385: the burning issue

There’s a lot of fires going on at the moment, thanks to a combination of the insanely hot, dry weather and – well – idiots. We were in a delightful pub up Caerphilly mountain on Friday night when the alerts started to roll in on people’s phones, shattering the relative quiet of happy diners with shrill beeps as the various networks rolled them out. Once we’d all worked out what was going on it became a shared moment of ‘oh ho, there we go again’. For the avoidance of doubt, ours arrived in Welsh and English at the same time.

This is what the live wildfire map of the area looks like at my time of writing:

That’s a lot of fires, gang. We’re just outside Caerphilly and the air is thick with a smoky haze generated by the many fires around us. Four teenage boys were arrested on suspicion of arson quite locally yesterday, accused of starting several fires in the area. The landscape is dry, dry, dry and – as the current prime minister (are we still on Andy Burnham? I forget…) would have it – is a tinderbox.

So, naturally, the news today was dominated by people complaining about the alerts – were they necessary? Why were they in Welsh first when not everyone speaks Welsh? Why didn’t they go as far as telling people about the danger of broken glass? (admittedly this one was an outlier on the outrage scale).

Why was this important enough to use the national alert system, despite the fact that it had been requested by the severely overworked emergency services, who are already being supplemented by the military in some areas because they are swamped. Houses have been burned. Swathes of the countryside have been razed. People have been made homeless. We are low on water, which is pretty damned important for putting the fires out.

Many people are already looking at the landscape and thinking how dry it is, and how barbecues might be a bit unwise. Others might think, as a result of the alert, that maybe they won’t have that teeny firework display tonight even if it is little Chardonnay’s first birthday because, you know, fire.

Others – like the absolute bloody idiot we were driving behind today – are still flicking their fag ends out of the truck window. Given their business phone number painted on the side was a mobile, I assume they received the alert last night like everyone else.

And that, my friends, is why we needed the warning.

Things making me happy this week:

  • Watching the eclipse with Miriam and the kids as mine weren’t interested. We are not very good with colanders.
  • 97 people of various sizes attending our family activities on Wednesday despite the heat – this week we read Rod Campbell’s Dear Zoo and made up their own prospective pets to send back. The snail who was too slimy, the penguin who was too slippery and the hedgehog who was too spiky were my favourites. Wednesdays are my favourite days
  • Ricky Gervais’s After Life which I watched in full this week. I’m not a fan of the man but this is amazing.
  • Starting the shawl I decided I needed to make last week

We’re also looking forward to a couple of slightly cooler days, if not to the rain we so desperately need. Now if you’ll excuse me I’m off to shake my fist at the clouds and do a rain dance.

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

The Modern Fairies – Clare Pollard

The Witch’s Stone – Kirsty Ferry

Curious Physiologies – Jay Neill

Made in Scotland – Billy Connolly

A Court of Wings and Ruin – Sarah J. Maas (Audible)

384: nomad

Regular readers (hellooo!) will recall that earlier this year I made the decision to end my relationship with the father of the Things. 22 years together meant that there’s a lot to untangle and that this would happen slowly – affordable accommodation is in short supply these days, and even more so outside London. We’re amicable, at least, and still working on the new world order with the kids as my priority. It’s not easy though.

I’m too old to consider a room in a shared house, and wherever I go there needs to be space for my small (ha!) people. I’m filling in time at the moment with a lot of housesitting while people are away on their holidays or staying up a mountain in Wales for a few days every month.

This does mean that some nights when I’m home I sleep on a blow up bed in the front room, or if A is away at his girlfriend’s I get the bed. For the last week I’ve been over at Miriam’s dog-sitting which is close enough to come home for dinner which has been good. A brought his girlfriend home for dinner a couple of evenings this week and while I was welcome to join them that just felt a bit…weird.

Since Covid I’ve been hot-desking at work as nowhere these days has enough space for people to have their ‘own’ desk like in the the old days, and I find this stressful enough – I like to be able to arrange my things in my own way, to leave my tasks for the next day ready to pick up when I get in, to have photos and things that make a space feel homey as – after all – we still spend a lot of time in our offices. There have been studies that show hot desking creates added stress at work – not knowing where you’ll be able to sit, loss of familiarity in the workplace, sensory overload if you’re near the window/door/radiator, lack of control of your environment. I usually get in very early to work so can choose where to sit, but right now my whole life feels like I’m hot-desking, with all that goes with it. Of course hotdesking can also help you get to know new people in your organisation – but we’re a tiny organisation and the people I don’t know well don’t use the offsite office.

In an ideal world I’d have a set working pattern of three consecutive office days and could work around that in terms of lodging somewhere more affordable but the sector I’m in doesn’t really lend itself to that – I do work the odd weekend and love interacting with the public on those days. So, the solution isn’t immediate but I’m working on it…until then I’ll just make like the Littlest Hobo….

Things making me happy this week:

  • Reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar and making wiggly caterpillars in the Little Owls session this week
  • Dinner with Amanda at Flat Iron on Wednesday, followed by a walk round Granary Square as we ate our ice creams
  • Random sunflower in the borage field
  • Catch-up with Miriam and Roy on their return from Scotland, including reducing their smaller daughter to hysteria with our rendition of Garth doing his Foxy Lady dance
  • Stacking up all the mini guinea pigs. It’s the little things…I think I want to make a shawl now though
  • International Cat Day – insta filled with cats

What I’ve been reading:

The Rainshadow Orphans – Naomi Ishiguro

The Woman in the Seal Skin â€“ Lauren Keegan

A Court of Mist and Fury/A Court of Wings and Ruin â€“ Sarah J. Maas (Audible)