223: this week I am mostly…

…complaining about the weather. I had planned to start this blog with ‘well, it’s taken a while, but summer seems to be finally here’. And then it rained again, quite emphatically, this morning – before my run (week 1, day 3 – it’s a start) and then again while I was at the library. And then again after my lunch. Ah well. I won’t start with that then.

….saying its too warm. It’s Saturday evening and I have just retreated to the extension away from Things 1 & 2’s new YouTube playlist. It’s way too warm in the front room, and the aircon thingy is out here which is another good reason to escape. I mean, Justin Bieber? One Dimension? Ugh.

…fed up of cooking. I envy friends whose children eat everything they put in front of them, from cockles and olives to proper home cooked meals. Mine are better than they were, but you can guarantee that at least twice a week one of them won’t like whatever I’m planning to cook. These days they are big enough for me to say ‘well, make yourself something else then’. However, after a long day at work and rush hour on the baking-fires-of-hell Central Line, I have very little tolerance for put-upon teenage faces.

.. wondering WHY, if all the food I provide is ‘horrible’ or ‘just ingredients’, where does it all go? And why is it my fault when we run out? Also, if you don’t like mild cheese, don’t bloody eat it. Go and buy your own cheese and leave the mild in the salad drawer where I hid it from you.

….bemused by the sheer quantities of clothes they manage to wear, given that five days a week they’re in school uniform. I know for a fact I cleared the laundry baskets on Monday and Wednesday, so how were there another four full loads today? And my washing machine is a 9kg capacity so four loads is a LOT of laundry. Are there people in my house I don’t know about? Would *they* eat my cooking? And then I get to iron things that belong to me (I refuse to do anyone else’s.)

…not psychic. I cannot see into the fridge/coffee jar/cupboard from 18 miles away in London. Therefore I do not KNOW you have finished the milk/coffee/bread unless you tell me. Perhaps using the mobile device you’re attached to. Try the messaging function.

….not listening to messages. Do not send me a voice note to tell me about the lack of milk/cheese/coffee/biscuits. I will not listen to it. Voice mail is the work of the devil, and calling it a ‘voice note’ is not fooling anyone. Text me. Stop being lazy. Or, better still, go to the Co-op and buy the damn milk/cheese/crisps/chocolate yourself.

…feeling much better for having got that lot off my chest, thank you.

Things making me happy this week

A fun day hanging out at the Little Angel Theatre Street Party last Sunday – giant bubbles, beautiful magpie puppets, free cake. Yay! Our next event is the Cally Festival on 7 July, another big street party.
Coming home after to find Thing 2 making a quiche for dinner so all I had to do was throw salad on plates. She will eat most things – she’d made the quiche earlier in the week for Food Tech and wanted me to try it. I am all for this.
An ‘everybody in’ day at work that we spent at Roots and Shoots in Kennington – the sun was burning me at 9am so I sensibly chose the indoor option of helping put up a display for an event in the evening. Lovely to spend time away from screens and desks with such a great bunch of people. Spent some time watching a newt in the pond and met a cat.
An enormously fun commute home on Friday playing peekaboo with a very giggly toddler. He was wide awake but his Dad definitely looked like he needed a nap.
Lots and lots of sashiko stitching – definitely addicted. The skirt is finished, the bag is well underway, the pouch is all done and a panel that a lovely colleague brought me back from Japan last year is done too. I am using threads that came from a friend’s late mother’s stash, which feels right for a craft that’s all about making things last.

This week it’s my birthday and I have booked a day off – the world is my oyster. Or at least it will be once I’ve taken the cat to the vet.

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Suspect/The Promise/A Dangerous Man – Robert Crais

Neither Here Nor There – Bill Bryson (Audible)

Shadowstitch – Cari Thomas

Slow Horses – Mick Herron (a most excellent recommendation from a colleague)

222 and a half: a bonus post

Anatomy of a run

Monday morning seemed like a good moment to start running again, as I quite enjoyed it and I’d like to do it again. I started Couch to 5k again in lockdown, but while my knees were fine my Achilles tendon decided it didn’t like it. Four years later, it feels like time to try again – I love walking but for a quick morning boost running is the way to go. Sounds pretty straightforward, yes? You’d think….

So, running kit on and feeling if not motivated, at least vertical, I…

tape kneecaps firmly into place
found my daps, which on inspection were looking like they needed replacing
located new daps in cupboard. Checked to see if the laces would glow in the dark because, you know, they looked like they might.
put on daps and laced up with my sister’s voice in my head…. they aren’t done up enough! Use the lock things! Thanks Tan
located running earphones
found phone. Battery on 16%. Same, phone. Same.
add watch and inform Strava that I intend to go for a run
Find favourite running playlist
opened C25k app. Phone informs me that the app is so old it might not work on my phone. Ignore warning and continue. Phone says app requires money for new license. Delete app.
Find official NHS Couch to 5k app on principle that this is healthy. Choose a coach, it says. Select Steve Cram on the principle that he probably knows what he’s doing.
Start walking accompanied by the northern tones of Mr Cram
Three minutes later. Steve Cram STILL talking. Then says we’re about to start. I have already started.
Steve Cram still talking while we are doing walking.
Yep, still talking. Beginning to regret choice of coach.
Open app and discover that while I can change coaches, there is no option to do this thing without a coach.
Delete app. Delete Steve Cram.
Remember that I liked running because it’s half an hour when no one talks to me, and that’s why I do it solo. Sorry Jill. Sorry Steve Cram.
Find new app, which has annoying electronic American woman (for some reason I picture her as Korean. Go figure) but at least she doesn’t try to motivate me other than to tell me when to start and stop running. It is the app that goes ping.
Remember I haven’t started Strava. We all know if we didn’t Strava it, it didn’t happen. Start Strava.
Do run accompanied by pings, bongs, electronic American, and excellent choice of music. Knees and ankle still attached. That wasn’t so bad.

Next run is Wednesday. Note to self….charge phone!

222: a nettle-strewn hellscape, you say?

Last Sunday afternoon London sister Tan and I went for our first long walk for aaaaages – well, since the ludicrously long one we did last July. She’s been running a lot (marathons and half marathons) while I have been doing weekend wanders and hoping that at some point the rain will stop long enough for the footpaths to dry out.

Despite her belief that Essex is a fly-blown wasteland, Tan trekked over to my ‘ends’ and we did the Moreton and the Matchings circular walk that I’d tried a couple of times last year. It takes in a few pretty churches and villages, and – as it turned out – a LOT of nettles that haven’t been cut back. These were head height in places, with added brambles, and some farmers haven’t cut the crossfield paths so many detours were taken. I spent some time on Monday morning reporting all this to the council, who may or may not get round to looking at it in an estimated nine weeks or so. Add the detours to my legendary (lack of) sense of direction, and the 17k walk came in at just under 20k.

You can just see the top of my head – this was a waymarked footpath!

We stopped for a snack break (Mini Cheddars, Snickers and coffee) on the green at Matching, next to the very pretty medieval marriage feast house and the church, facing an oak tree that was planted for Queen Victoria’s jubilee in 1887. The friendly vicar came along and very helpfully told us that they had a toilet, which made us happy. We saw kestrels, heard a lot of pheasants, snuck up on a few bunnies and a muntjac, and apart from the extremely hardcore nettles it was a good ramble. We finished with a look inside the 13th century St Mary the Virgin church in Moreton, where we’d parked the car, and then she refused to take my directions on the way home and insisted on using the satnav. Honestly!

Still, Tan’s opinion of Essex has changed – it’s now a nettle-strewn hellscape. Which is nice.

So how’s that skirt coming along?

Very well, thank you for asking! Having definitely said last week that I wasn’t going to do any boro patching as it would be too cottagecore for words, I remembered that not only did I have some Japanese prints in the stash, I had a boro inspiration pack from Japan Crafts that some lovely Secret Santa gave me a couple of years ago when the Young V&A theme was ‘blue’ so clearly DESTINY was saying DO A PATCH.

Also, the skirt doesn’t have pockets, and I NEED pockets, so I made a boro patch as a pocket. I used some of the indigo fabrics, some scraps from the V&A sample sale, and a square of cotton as a base, and lined it to make a patch pocket. That was my portable project on the tube this week, and it was clearly performance crafting as people kept watching me. As well as the running sashiko stitch, I also used some of the fabric features to embellish with lazy daisy stitch and outlining hexagons. I enjoyed it so much that I looked for other things to boro – starting with some of the zillion cotton tote bags I have collected over the years, probably! This will also encourage me to use some of the embroidery threads people keep giving me…

I gave up on all my marking tools and just used washable poster paint to mark out the final bits of stitching I wanted to do on the skirt, which was lovely and messy and a good way to spend a Saturday afternoon after a morning of ironing. While waiting for the front of the skirt to dry, I marked up a fabric pouch that I bought in a Hobbycraft sale with the Seigaiha (wave) stencil, and then used Bondaweb and more fabric scraps to create a boro panel on a tote bag. The yellow marking pencil worked on this, so I used the Sakura (cherry blossom) and Fondou (weight) stencils for a panel as well. That should keep me busy! Also, guess what everyone is getting for Christmas?

Things making me happy this week

Cat insurance. Lulu isn’t well and the vet quoted me £600. Once I’d stopped freaking out they helped me put the claim in so that they would be paid directly. Now we just need to get the meds down her.
Inter-library loans, and new colleagues who recommend books to me. The two may be connected.
Lots of strawberries and raspberries from the garden
Coffee with Brian on Thursday morning and a colleague who is leaving asking if they can join my early morning coffee roster. This is clearly now A Thing.
Cinnamon Bun flavoured Pretzel Flipz.

Today I am off to hang out with illustrator Skye Baker at the Little Angel Theatre community street party in Islington, where we’ll be illustrating houses.

Next week I may even have finished the skirt – the problem is always knowing when to stop with these things….

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Demolition Angel/The Forgotten Man/The Watchman/The Promise – Robert Crais

Shadowstitch – Cari Thomas

Neither Here Nor There – Bill Bryson (Audible)

221: you know they sell those, don’t you?

A few weeks ago, as you may remember (it’s fine if you don’t. Really.) A & I visited a cemetery in South London and took in a charity shop while we were there. I bought a couple of linen skirts, one in navy and one in black. This week I have been bombarded by adverts from a clothing company who sell Japanese-inspired printed dresses and skirts and sashiko-style prints featured heavily. I did a sashiko mending course last year at the V&A, so – as all crafty types have a bad habit of doing – I decided to make my own version using the navy skirt.

I have the templates, I have the threads and needles, and in theory I have a whole variety of marking tools for use on fabric. Chalk pencils, marking pencils, air-erasable chako pens, heat-erasable markers, dressmakers’ carbon paper, fabric pens…I have them all and none of them did the job, The chalk pencil snapped. The marking pencil only made tiny marks with the stencil but was good with a ruler. The chako pen disappeared within seconds. The heat-erasable marker didn’t work on the fabric. The fabric pens don’t show up. The carbon paper tears. Something that should be straightforward has turned out to be rather frustrating. The only thing I’ve found that does work with the stencils is a Derwent white blender, which washes off me and the stencil so I really hope it washes out of the fabric too….I probably should have checked…

Anyway, I have done a row of sakura blossoms and the next row will be waves, I think, though I might use some of the patterns from this book if I can find a way of marking them! I may also try some boro patches, but don’t want to lean too far over into folksy/cottage core. At least I don’t think so – my mind just recalled some Japanese cotton prints I have in the stash. Oh dear.

You’re supposed to use a running stitch but in some of the curves I found it easier to take individual stitches. You can definitely see where I started, and in which direction I travelled. Once you’re actually sewing its quite a fast craft, but the marking may defeat me!

Other things making me happy this week:

Visiting RIBA to talk about potential for working together, and getting a tour of the building – I have serious architecture and learning room envy.
And as I was in the area, I messaged my lovely ex-director and for once she was working at home. We had a walk in the sunshine round Regent’s Park and I found one of Quentin Blake’s Enormous Crocodiles in the wild.
Early morning coffee this week with Amanda at EL&N in St Pancras. St Pancras always makes me want to hop on the Eurostar and head off into the wilds. Sadly neither of us had our passports and we both had morning meetings. Ah well.
Finishing the crocheted Christmas cactus. This one was a lot of trial and error and the flowers need a bit of work.
Running into another friend at the station – you know that friend who gives the best hugs? That one!
A great kick-off meeting for a community project with The Parent House in Islington.

And now I am off to investigate the shed to see if I can lay hands on that quilting fabric…

Kirsty

What I’ve been reading:

L.A. Requiem/Chasing Darkness/The Last Detective/The First Rule/Demolition Angel – Robert Crais

Shadowstitch – Cari Thomas

The Lost Continent– Bill Bryson (Audible)

220: a commuter story

On Friday morning I discovered to my utter horror that I’d forgotten to charge my phone overnight and faced the prospect of a tube journey actually having to listen to other people at 6.45am. After only one cup of coffee this is an alarming prospect. There is always one person who feels the need to have a loud conversation on their mobile with someone they have presumably left mere moments earlier. There is also, inevitably, someone with an extremely irritating sniff or cough – sometimes both – who is not in possession of a tissue or, indeed, any manners. There are people who feel entitled to play their music on their phones without earphones, as if we would all benefit from their hideous musical choices. It’s never anything I would ever choose to listen to. I can only assume this is the planet-friendly 2024 version of driving around in a knackered Ford Fiesta with a dodgy exhaust and a massive speaker in the boot, as was de rigueur when I was a teenager. Tube etiquette frowns, for some reason, on throwing oneself across the aisle* and strangling people, and a deep loathing of horrible music is not considered a mitigating circumstance in the eyes of the law**. Being able to immerse myself in the sounds of my choice is really a public service.

As it turned out, Friday’s journey was worth the lack of earphones. There was a small person and his dad. Small person was full of questions and poor Dad was clearly regretting his life choices, probably because he hadn’t had enough coffee either. Peppa Pig Hide ‘n’ Seek on the ipad was not cutting it, and this was even before they got to the Natural History Museum on a rainy day in half term. Small boy was hopelessly excited at the prospect of REAL DINOSAURS and Dad was trying to check emails against a constant bombardment of ‘Is this our stop? Is this our stop? DAD, I found Pedro Pony! Is THIS our stop?? Suzy Sheep, Dad! How many more stops? Are we underground yet? When will we be underground?’ Poor Dad. After a while I took pity on Dad and helped count stations, and answered questions – What’s that on your finger? What are you making? Where are you going? My Things, these days, bring their own earphones on the tube and don’t ask me questions any more – in fact they prefer to pretend I am not with them until we get off the tube and they need the Oyster card.

My absolute favourite moment, however, was when he threw his arms round his dad, gave him a huge squeeze and shouted ‘DADDY! DADDY’ (plaintive ‘whaaaaattttt’ from Daddy)…. ‘I’VE NEVER HUGGED YOU ON A TRAIN BEFORE, DADDY!’ The gentle ping of stony little commuter hearts melting was practically audible.

*also, you’d lose your seat. It’s fierce on the Central in rush hour.

**Law, schmaw. The rest of the carriage would probably help me.

Other things making me happy this week

Finally visiting the Barbican Conservatory, for a celebration of their project with Headway East London, a brilliant charity for people with acquired brain injuries. It was like those pictures of concrete cities that have been taken over by the jungle. I liked it a lot
A really useful strategy meeting. Adding 70s & 80s rock stars, Prince and Harry Styles to my powerpoint entertained me, at least, and people got extra points for recognising Journey.
A partnership event with the Museum of the Order of St John and our lovely illustrator Grace Holliday exploring ‘Fabulous Ferns’.
Coffee with Amanda and her Thing 3 on Thursday morning
The new series of The Outlaws and a ludicrous new episode of Midsomer Murders

Today I am off to Copped Hall with all those crochet toadstools and cacti!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

The Sentry/Indigo Slam/L.A. Requiem – Robert Crais

Bridgerton 1-7 – Julia Quinn

The Lost Continent – Bill Bryson (Audible)