Author: Kirsty Sullivan

By day, I'm the Head of Learning and Participation at a small illustration charity, and the happiest commuter on the Central Line with crochet hook and Audible subscription. After hours, mother of three kids, staff to three cats, slave to the smoke alarm. Hoarder of yarn and fabric, maker of stuff, obsessive reader. Walker with ambitions.

188: the art of saying ‘no’

I am not entirely sure what happened to or in this week but I do know that on Friday morning I had to make a choice between attending all the things in my diary and making a show of myself by having a meltdown, or clearing the diary and spending the day at my desk making sense of my lengthy to-do list and looking at exciting spreadsheets. November looms, and with it National Illustration Day, which has mushroomed from a small(ish) schools thing to something that’s going to engage all sorts of people: a celebration of our community projects with various Islington groups with a friends and family event; school sessions; three days of drop-in illustration at Angel Central; an unrelated but well-timed community lights switch-on event the previous weekend at Islington Green – and business as usual happening all around it! I am wondering whether setting up a tent in the pop-up space at Angel Central for the week is a realistic suggestion…

I chose to clear the diary: while I do pride myself on being able to prioritise my workload (you should see my to-do chart) and manage multiple projects, sometimes you need to step back and remember that not everything has to be done all at once. Friday’s diary included an online meeting, an offsite meeting and a workshop in the afternoon. Both the meetings were for timebound projects but not urgent, and the workshop was a ‘nice to do’. Having walked from the station to the office giving myself unsuccessful pep-talks and arriving on the verge of a full-blown panic attack, clearing the diary seemed more sensible.

One topic that comes up over and over again in job interviews is time management: how do you cope with deadlines, with multiple projects; how do you prioritise. I have even set prioritisation tasks for co-ordinator and contact centre roles and asked candidates to explain their reasoning (sorry, people! Although not you, Mr Patronising PhD man applying for a role you’re vastly overqualified for. Not you.). A better question might be about strategies people use when they are overwhelmed, making space for employers to show an understanding of the impact of stress at work.

Last year there was a lot in media – social and later mainstream – about quiet quitting and this year it’s been ‘lazy girl jobs‘. I can’t say I agree with the idea that you should just work to your job description, especially in a small team where everyone needs to pitch in with things to make a project work. Over the last couple of years I have seen this in action: ‘well, my job description says Monday to Friday, my job description says I finish at 5’, and – increasingly – sticking rigidly to ‘minimum’ onsite hours. This creates resentment within the team, particularly with those colleagues who are the ones who recognise that a job goes beyond the description and who are inevitably the ones who pick up the slack and ensure that schools are greeted, that evening events are staffed, that all the things that can’t happen remotely still happen. Over the years I have manned front desks, sat in galleries, shifted furniture, delivered emergency school sessions, ‘meeted and greeted’ groups, told stories, hopped behind the bar, cleared tables, made coffee, lugged boxes, and many other things that aren’t explicitly in my job description but which needed to be done. It’s in my management skillset: don’t ask someone to do something you’re not prepared to do yourself. It comes under ‘and other reasonable duties as requested by your manager’.

Residents at Lady Dinah’s Cat Emporium: advocates of both radical rest and work-life balance

I do, however, believe strongly in the concept of work-life balance, and that sometimes you have to say no. I’ve been very lucky over the last ten years or so to have managers who have understood this (all women – coincidence?) and who have modelled excellent behaviour for me as I’ve moved up the ranks. There is also a movement towards Radical Rest in the arts and culture sector, spearheaded by a group of sector professionals including my predecessor in my current role. Giving ourselves permission to rest (or to say no) is quite tricky, it seems.

Other things making me happy this week

  • Thing 2 is 15 today, and currently opening her presents with glee
  • Hot glue guns and Christmas crochet
  • Not having to get on the Central Line for another 10 days
  • Toast

And tomorrow I am off to Wales for half term,

Underground Overground – Andrew Martin

White Butterfly – Walter Mosley

The E. Nesbit Megapack

Victory Disc/Flip Back – Andrew Cartmel (Audible)

187: it’s just a jump to the left…

Yesterday I accompanied my neighbour Sue to the London Festival of Gymnastics at the Brentwood Centre, where one of her daughters was performing with the Epping troupe of gymnasts. As someone who I am pretty sure was given her Brownie agility badge out of sympathy, as watching my continued attempts to catch a beanbag or hop in a straight line was just too painful, the skill, spatial awareness and sheer co-ordination required to take part in these events is frankly awe-inspiring. There were teams from all over the UK and Ireland – even Monmouth, who I didn’t get to see sadly.

There are days when walking in a straight line is beyond me, and a Clubbercise session where I manage to keep up with the routines is an achievement. Sequential movements just don’t stay in my head: the onset of Oops Up Side Your Head or some other chart-topping dance craze sends me off a dancefloor faster even than Ed Sheeran.*

The theme this year was ‘Back to the Past’, compered by a man who was not only dressed as Marty McFly but also was a semi-pro can-can dancer and gymnast in his younger years. The clubs had translated this in their own ways, and while some were fairly straightforward others were more tangential but no less brilliant. My favourites were the Wednesday and The Umbrella Academy themed ones, probably because the music was more my thing (The Cramps, of course, but also the Stranglers and other soundtrack highlights). The Scottish team’s rights of the child routine was ambitious but their fixed grins were a bit incongruous at some points.

Some songs popped up over and over throughout the morning (Destiny’s Child, Survivor, was a repeat offender) and in an overwhelmingly female environment there were a lot of Spice Girls moments but all the routines used them differently. Great towers of children, tiny people being thrown up in the air and caught (phew!), acrobatic flips and walkovers and tumbles – all without crashing into each other. Amazing. And so many sequins! Never have I wanted to don something sparkly quite so much.

Just watching it was so exhausting I had to go and have an afternoon nap when I got home.

*I can do The Time Warp, obviously.

Other things making me happy this week

  • A visit to Young V&A with the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration on Thursday
  • Speaking to the MA Illustration course at UAL Camberwell about co-design and why we do it
  • A trip to Hoxton Street Monster Supplies and going through the secret door to the Ministry of Stories for an imaginative conversation. I tried Jaffa biscuit tea and did not see Wells, the invisible cat
  • An adventure on the high seas of Haringey to the Literacy Pirates where I got to visit their ship, tucked away in the rafters of The Trampery
  • Impromptu prosecco with Miriam
  • Ferrety fun at Copped Hall Apple Day
  • Autumn landing in the garden

Now I’d better go and get ready for a swim! The weather has changed abruptly this week, from 23 degree sunshine at the start of the week to rain and a definite chill by the weekend.

Same time next week!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Written In Dead Wax/The Run-out Groove/Victory Disc – Andrew Cartmel (Audible)

Devil in a Blue Dress/Red Death – Walter Mosley

The E Nesbit Megapack – E. Nesbit

186: unprecedented restraint

Yesterday was our crafty annual pilgrimage to the wilds of North London for the Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace (‘our’ meaning Heather and I, partners in crafty crime). This year we’d decided to book a workshop, and found one on free-motion embroidery led by Molly Brown. This was something neither of us had tried before, and of the available workshops it was also the one we thought we probably couldn’t teach ourselves.

Molly took us quickly through the workings of the Janome Atelier machines we’d be working with, and then explained the process she used for making the tree embroideries. We started by tracing our trees onto pelmet Vlieseline, then delving into piles of organza scraps to create our background. We enclosed these in net and stitched around to hold them all in place (in my case, I managed to stitch the instruction sheet in as well), and then flipped the piece over to embroider the basic tree shapes.

Once the trunks were stitched we turned our trees up the right way and used the thread to ‘scribble’ in the branches, fill in the trunks and add any details we wanted. I added some smaller plants on the ground, and the ninety minute session finished far too quickly. It’s a technique I’d like to try again and I know I can drop the feed dogs on one of my machines, I just need to remember which…

The rest of the show was busy – I don’t usually go on Saturdays, for this very reason, and the usual crunch spots like Black Sheep Wools were packed with people rummaging through bargain bags. Anywhere there was a wandering Bee was also busy, of course! In a moment of sensibleness we’d taken packed lunches – food is reliably overpriced and disappointing – so we picnicked overlooking the ice rink before tackling the second hall.

One of the highlights of the Autumn Show is the exhibition section: graduate showcases, quilting winners, textile galleries and more. Many of this year’s shows appealed to my inner magpie, with mixed media pieces blooming with shiny things and found objects.

Janine Pound – Leaf Litter
Louise Baldwin – Orbiting
Rosie Jones – Hi Vis Town
Pauline Medinger – Murmuration
Jessica Grady
Jessica Grady
Bethan Ash – Lazerlite

The final exhibition was The Duster Project by Vanessa Marr, which you can read about here. This is a collaborative project, which explores contemporary perspectives on the everyday lives of women.

Heather and I were very restrained, coming home with only a sewing pattern each and a few bits and bobs. This was mainly because neither of us have finished the kits we bought last year, and in my case also because earlier in the week I’d used the Obby voucher that was my leaving gift from Young V&A. I now have a jesmonite casting kit and a felted pebbles kit inspired by Kettle’s Yard.

Other things making me happy this week

  • Early morning coffee with Amanda
  • Ice cream and a wander round Roath Park
  • Getting up to date on the temperature supernova
  • Breakfast and speedview session at New City College
  • The Undertones supported by The Rezillos – so good!
  • Series 5 of Ghosts

Today is Apple Day at Copped Hall, so it’s family outing time again…same time next week?

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

This Is The Night They Come For You – Robert Goddard

The Dictionary of Lost Words – Pip Williams

Written in Dead Wax – Andrew Cartmel (Audible)

An Utterly Impartial History of Britain – John O’Farrell

The E. Nesbit Megapack – E.Nesbit

185: boil them, mash them, put them in a stew

On Tuesday I woke up missing Ribena. Ribena was my go-to hot drink in the evenings and when I’d reached my coffee limit in the office. I know it still exists but in 2018 they changed the original recipe, replacing some of the sugar with artificial sweeteners and adding polydextrose to mimic the texture. Apparently this was to avoid the sugar tax, but they already had Ribena Light to do this and that’s what this new version tasted like so WHAT WAS THE POINT? Yes, I am aware that still being unreasonably cross about this five years later is probably pointless but I am. So there. I have managed to hold one grudge for 35 years (and counting) so five years is NOTHING, Ribena. NOTHING. And don’t even get me started on Lipton replacing sugar with stevia in their iced tea.

What my potatoes might have looked like.
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com.

Other things I have missed this week included more than 20 items from my online supermarket order*, which were either substituted for other random things (paneer is not the same as halloumi, packers) or no substitutes were available. I find it very hard to believe that there was no suitable alternative for a tube of toothpaste, or a bag of potatoes. Perhaps a different brand of toothpaste, or some slightly different potatoes? I mean, I can’t tell the difference between King Edwards and Maris Piper, I just wanted 5kg of potatoes. If you can boil them or mash them or put them in a stew then they will do perfectly well. The delivery driver said they had some new packers in the warehouse and they weren’t the sharpest tools in the box (not all their Moomins were in the Valley, as they apparently say in Finland!) but last month they were unable to find a substitute for chicken breasts. When I place the order I have a whole range of things to choose from but I am beginning to suspect that they may not actually exist and we are merely being given the illusion of choice.

*I was also missing 2/3 of a packet of chocolate Malted Milk biscuits (working-from-home lunchtime biscuit of choice**) but I am pretty sure I can blame my Beloved for that. He will pay. Oh yes. He will. I still haven’t forgotten the Liquorice Allsorts incident.

**In the absence of chocolate Rich Tea. I miss those too.

Other things making me happy this week

  • Still watching Sex Education
  • The new trailer for the Doctor Who 60th anniversary episodes
  • An evening out in Cardiff with assorted cousins
  • Still making crocheted Christmas trees
  • Progress on the Hydrangea blanket
  • A quick swing by Young V&A for coffee and a catch-up – how to feel loved!
  • Haagen Daz x Pierre Herme macaron ice cream
  • A visit to my lovely hairdresser so I can stop resembling a dandelion clock
  • A sunny dog walk and chat with neighbour Sue and the Bella-dog

And that’s it for this week! Next weekend it’s the Autumn Knitting and Stitching Show and I am very excited for the workshop we have booked.

See you then,

Kirsty x

What I’ve Been Reading:

Death in Fine Condition – Andrew Cartmel. I love the Vinyl Detective but I am not sure he can write women.

This Is The Night They Come For You – Robert Goddard

Soul Music – Terry Pratchett (Audible)

Written in Dead Wax – Andrew Cartmel (Audible)

An Utterly Impartial History of Britain – John O’Farrell

184: the countdown begins

Apparently it is only 29 days until Thing 2’s birthday. She is the most organised child when present-giving occasions are looming, providing all about her with wishlists ranked out of ten. These are regularly updated via Google Docs, when she remembers that she really, really wanted some black flared leggings or some obscure Japanese snackfood. One year she put a cake mix on her list to make sure she got the right cake. I think she feels slightly cheated that she has an autumn birthday so all her present opportunities are squashed up at the end of the year, bless her. Welcome to my October, everyone: a daily countdown to B-Day. At least it keeps her mind off Christmas.

Speaking of October…

Autumn is definitely peeking its head over the horizon, with some spectacular thunderstorms rumbling around the place and cooler mornings. I took myself out for a walk this morning and while the trees are still green the rosehips are glowing and the blackberries are almost over. Seedpods are replacing flowers and the fields are being ploughed in, resulting in clay platforms on your trainers where the footpaths have disappeared. I was an inch taller by the time I got to the flood meadow.

I also took the opportunity for a sneaky peek into one of our local pillboxes, which sits aloof in the middle of a field near the airfield. It’s in pretty good nick and the local farmer seems to be furnishing it with a carpet of old tyres for some reason. Thanks to the airfield, which began as a Royal Flying Corps base in 1917 and then played a crucial part of the Battle of Britain, we have a good collection of military bits and bobs around the village but this is the only pillbox not badly overgrown. There was a mushroom pillbox on my walk too and at the top of the hill behind the house the old Victorian Redoubt boasts a couple of Allen-Williams turrets, also from WW2, which protected the radio station there.

Other things making me happy this week:

  • Launching the schools campaign for National Illustration Day
  • Banana and Malteser cake – my signature dish, according to the kids
  • The weather being cool enough for crocheting the Hydrangea blanket I’ve been working on for two years
  • Crocodile stitch trees on the tube

Same time next week?

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Racing the Light – Robert Crais

Soul Music – Terry Pratchett (Audible)

The Lost Apothecary – Sarah Penner

An Utterly Impartial History of Britain – John O’Farrell

The Fine Art of Invisible Detection – Robert Goddard

183: oh no, mum’s doing history again

Yesterday I got to spend the day doing one of my very favourite things: talking to random people about history, and London’s history in particular. Even more particularly, New River Head which will be transformed into Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration over the next couple of years.

The occasion was Open House Festival 2023 – a two week celebration organised by Open City when buildings, homes and spaces usually kept behind closed doors are open to the public.

New River Head has been out of use for 70 years, after the New River’s terminus became the reservoirs at Stoke Newington instead of the Islington site and the engines were removed. There’s a lot of interest in our half acre of patchy concrete, cobbles and industrial buildings tucked away behind bits of Thames Water infrastructure, from local residents, illustrators, architects and engineers, historians both amateur and professional, and ex-Thames Water employees. It’s a derelict site in the middle of a conservation area, mostly built by the New River Company itself, and several attempts to redevelop the space have been resisted.

My job today was mostly floating about the place, delivering the odd tour and ad-hoc potted histories of the site which changed depending where I was standing. Having fallen down the Google rabbit hole when reading about the site, and from reading Nick Higham’s excellent The Mercenary River, there’s a lot of trivia bouncing about in this head of mine. There’s an IPA called Five-Inch Drop, made by the New River Brewery and named after the gentle gradient bringing the New River from Hertfordshire to London along the 100-foot contour. The river still provides 10% of London’s drinking water via the Ring Main. Water from the New River was used to fill the tank at Sadlers Wells for the re-enactment of sea battles (and the punters would jump in at the end). A cheeky fox likes to lie in the sun under the buddleia.

The area around the site has its moments too: Myddelton Passage, named after founder of the New River Company Hugh Myddelton, is known for a whole range of anti-social behaviour across time. These days it’s a quiet corner for local youths to conduct some illicit activities, to the horror of the residents, but even way-back-when muggers would lurk in this quiet alley. This meant Victorian policemen on the beat also had to lurk in the area, and a number of them indulged in some ASB of their own in the form of graffiti. A section of the wall is carved with the initials of policemen of Finsbury’s G Division: you can read more about this here. Talk about setting a bad example!

Other things making me happy this week:

  • Thing 1 starting her new college course
  • Rewatching the brilliant Sex Education in preparation for the new series
  • Hiding out from the pouring rain under a gazebo with lots of interesting people
  • Still crocheting mandalas
  • Cinnamon buns made by Thing 2
  • Discovering that our daft pigeons have built a Nerf bullet into their nest
  • Looking down instead of up when walking in London

This week will be focused on National Illustration Day – watch this space!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

The Story Collector – Evie Gaughan

The Keeper of Stories – Sally Page

The Lost Notebook – Louise Douglas

French Braid/Celestial Navigation – Anne Tyler

The Wanted – Robert Crais

An Utterly Impartial History of Britain– John O’Farrell

Monstrous Regiment – Terry Pratchett (Audible)

182: hot in the City

After a summer of reasonable temperatures, it’s typical that as soon as the new school starts we have a heatwave with the thermometers hitting high twenties by the end of the week. Central London has felt like a sauna, especially when stepping out of the airconditioned offices and training room* where I have been lurking.

Over the last couple of years I’ve seen a few news articles talking about the impact of green spaces on city temperatures, most recently this one based on research published by Friends of the Earth. Apparently green spaces like the parks, with all their trees and grass and things, have a cooling effect of up to four degrees on their local areas with the posh bits (around Hyde Park, Hampstead Heath etc) benefitting most while areas like Islington (with the lowest amount of green space per head of population), Tower Hamlets and the City of London are the hottest. This year is the first time I have worked in the City itself and the difference is noticeable – there was very little difference this week between surface temperature and the Central Line, for example, which is usually my reference point as in heat waves the Central Line is its own little circle of hell. Even in Bethnal Green – where the museum was close to Victoria Park, Museum Gardens, and Barmy Park (officially Bethnal Green Gardens, but the memory of the old asylum lives on) – the air was noticeably cooler. Leaving London by road, even in the cooler months, shows a two degree drop as you hit Woodford and the real start of Epping Forest.

From Arup: The results show temperatures of London’s survey area were 4.5°C hotter than rural surroundings. https://www.arup.com/news-and-events/london-most-extreme-urban-heat-island-hot-spot-compared-to-five-other-global-cities-in-new-survey

18% of London is green space – more than the area of the roads and railways combined – and London was officially declared the world’s first National Park City in 2019. The ambition is to make more than 50% of Greater London green through green roofs, more trees, greening buildings and so on. However – with my cynical head on – I wonder how many of these projects will result in genuine greenery at ground level where people can go and sit under trees in green spaces, especially given the premium placed on land in London. (For what our contribution to Islington’s greenery will be, see here.)

For more excellently nerdy maps, visit Mapping London – here’s one from a 2018 heatwave to start you off, and a Cool Spaces map too.

*What was I doing in a training room? Qualifying as a Mental Health First Aider (I hope – there was an exam and everything!). I did this St John Ambulance course which was quite intense, but really interesting and gave the cohort a chance to discuss lived experience. I still hate role plays though.

Things making me happy this week:

And now I am off for a swim! See you next week.

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

The Keeper of Stories – Sally Page

Red and Dead/The High Gate/Lark Rising – Violet Fenn

An Utterly Impartial History of Britain – John O’Farrell

Pyramids/Monstrous Regiment – Terry Pratchett (Audible)

181: alpacas and donkeys and goats, oh my

You find me at the end of a week off, in which I have achieved many things, not least some excellent siestas and a lot of reading. I even managed to leave the house a few times, accompanied by various permutations of children.

On Sunday we insisted that all three of them accompany us to the Copped Hall Open Day – I confess to bribing them with the promise of ice cream. Copped Hall, a Georgian mansion on the site of an Elizabethan mansion on the site of a 12th century hunting lodge etc etc (history and lots of it – not too far from the Iron Age hill fort at Ambresbury Banks, so there’s even prehistory), is being restored by the Copped Hall Trust so the open days are fundraising events as well as an opportunity to recruit volunteers for the garden and so on. My Beloved loves the walled garden and we always come away with many plants. I come away with hollyhock envy as they have loads and I do not. There was indeed ice cream, luckily, and a jester with an impressive codpiece which horrified the teenagers – always a plus.

Monday saw us at Ashlyn’s Farm just outside the village with Things 2 & 3, both Timeshare Teenagers and their little boys, TT2’s partner and a friend, and my Beloved’s brother and his two boys. The Things are now – blessedly – too old for soft play so we joined them for the farm park bit. Grandthing 2, at four months, is a bit too little for the animals but Grandthing 1 (five next month and starting school) was extremely impressed. He was also very taken with the giant air cushion trampoline things. We were pleased to see the animals in situ, as the farm has a history of escapees, leading to some very odd posts on local social media – the porcupine on the A414, the capybara on the golf course which made the Daily Mail, raccoons coming in through catflaps and most recently a civet cat in a back garden.

Tuesday took us to Harlow in search of school shoes: not to Clarks as I still have childhood trauma to work through, but Sports Direct where we had to buy size 10 shoes for Thing 3. Size 10. He’s 12. I had to have a siesta to get over it.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

It’s been a while since I’ve made any of the Big 4 pattern company’s pieces but my Beloved came home with some fabric samples that were about to be discarded and sent off to landfill. One of them was a 2m length of cotton twill in navy, and being a short-legged person this was enough to make a pair of trousers. I’d had McCalls 7907 in the pile for a while as I keep meaning to make a pair of cargo pants, so I chose the slightly cropped balloon leg option as it needed less fabric. I still had to shorten the legs by 3″!

There may come a day when the prospect of constructing a fly front fills me with joy, but this was not that day. There are SO many steps to it, and so much potential for disaster – I’m still not sure I got it completely right but they’re my trousers and I don’t care. They fit really well, they’ll be great for work and I’ll have a crack at the cargo pocket version next.

Other things on the table this week have included a kimono and a Thai blouse, both from Folkwear patterns. I haven’t posed in those yet!

Other things making me happy this week

  • Apple cakes and blackberry cake – the garden is fruitful!
  • Tea and catching up with crafty friend yesterday
  • Finishing the top half of the Visit Tokorozawa cross stitch
  • Other people’s cats

Back to work on Monday, kids back to school on Wednesday – this week I am doing my level 3 Mental Health First Aid training, which will be interesting. See you on the other side!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

The Curse of the Boyfriend Sweater: Essays on Crafting – Alanna Okun (I wish I’d written this)

Miss Percy’s Travel Guide (to Welsh Moors and Feral Dragons) – Quenby Olson

Where the Crawdads Sing – Delia Owens

The Lost Girls – Sarah Painter

The Lost Bookshop – Evie Woods

An Utterly Impartial History of Britain, or 2000 Years of Idiots in Charge – John O’Farrell

180: planes, (lack of) trains and automobiles

I have had much more of a grip on reality this week – whole sentences have tripped off my tongue, tasks have been completed, and the world is a less fuzzy place entirely.

This is just as well, as there have definitely been days this week when I’ve had to use all (both?) my brain cells to thwart the machinations of Transport for London.

On Wednesday I had an appointment to meet Enfield Museum Services team. Enfield is one of the boroughs on the New River between our site at New River Head and the source springs at Great Amwell in Hertfordshire. In 2013 they held an exhibition celebrating the 400th anniversary of the river and they’d kindly offered to show me some of their objects relating to the river.

The closest station to their object store is Brimsdown on the Hertford East line – geographically a 25 minute drive from here, but as a public transport user it appears to located somewhere north of Alpha Centauri on the astral equivalent of an unclassified road. Options provided by the TfL journey planner included two buses and a 60 minute walk from the next town; a bus, a tube, two overground trains and a National Rail train; three buses and a twenty minute walk; two buses, a short unicycle ride and an extra-dimensional portal; but not – whatever tweaks I made to the planner options – the very simple route I eventually took which was the bus to Epping, the tube and a single change for Brimsdown. I got buses back – all three of them – which was simple but still took the best part of two hours to go 12 miles.

There is currently no joined-up public transport equivalent of the M25, or even the North and South Circulars. There are plans for a series of ‘Superloop’ buses which basically follow the circular roads, but these won’t solve the problem of the lack of connection in places like Essex, where to cross the borough by public transport inevitably involves either travelling into Central London and out again, a multitude of expensive buses with limited timetables (Chelmsford only exists once a week on Tuesdays, apparently) – or driving, as although the ULEZ extends out almost this far, the London transport network with its cheaper fares doesn’t.

Thursday morning also demonstrated how disconnected the public transport system is at this end of the world. Epping, my closest tube station, is the end of the Central Line and is essentially a dormitory town for London. The station car park holds the dubious honour of being the largest on the TfL network, and so many people drive in from all over north Essex to access the tube as it’s cheaper to park and ride than it is to pay ÂŁ25 a day peak-time return from Harlow, our closest national rail station. The car park’s 538 spaces are full by 7am Monday – Friday. It doesn’t help that since the line beyond Epping was closed in the early ’90s there has been extensive residential development in both North Weald and Ongar, which used to be served, and a steady erosion of an already erratic bus service.

‘Peak time’ service between Epping and Loughton has been steadily reduced: pre-covid we were told there would be ‘temporarily’ reduced service while they replaced tracks. We regularly have 20 minute waits for trains to Epping at peak times – stealth obsolescence, according to a friend, who is TfL-adjacent. If enough people are driven back to the roads by poor train service, they’ll have an excuse to close the line due to lack of use. At one point we were given hope by one of the proposals for Crossrail 2, which would have seen this branch picked up by that service and linked to Harlow and Stansted, but our optimism was misplaced. Crossrail 2 was paused in 2020 and the route will eventually link up already existing stations over the border in Hertfordshire, leaving us still disconnected.

A casualty on the tracks shortly after 7am on Thursday meant the line was suspended from Liverpool Street to all eastbound destinations, and unlike further into London there are no alternative lines. If you’re in London and heading east at the end of the day your heart sinks if the line goes down anywhere east of Stratford: the Elizabeth Line has made it marginally easier but there’s still an hour’s bus ride to reconnect with the Central Line (which you hope has been restored by then) and two more buses home if not. This was the route I used on Thursday morning: bus from Epping to Loughton, another to Ilford and then the Lizzie Line – 2 hours and 45 minutes in total. This was only because the 167 arrived first – otherwise I’d have gone via Chingford or Walthamstow. Equally long times for a 25 mile journey into the City. If the government at various levels want us to use public transport and get cars off the roads, there needs to be a joined up piece of thinking that genuinely works for underserved areas which connects up the different services – and we aren’t even particularly rural.

Luckily my day improved immensely: my first meeting was about the new heritage/STEM session that I’ve asked the wonderful Chris Bailey to develop. I first met Chris when he stepped in to cover a Victorian sailor session at Museum of London Docklands and we hit it off over a wide-ranging conversation covering ladies of negotiable affection, Doctor Who, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, how to demonstrate gravity and the dome of St Paul’s with a trampoline, and the wonders of STEM in museums. This week’s conversation covered gravity with the help of a tumble-dryer hose, Samuel Johnson and the variety of beards required for historic interpretation.

In the afternoon I joined Isabel Benavides at Finsbury Library for a family illustration session as part of the Summer Reading Challenge. Issy has just launched her first picture book, Yogi Duck and the Little Chick, inspired by RSPB Newport Wetlands and utterly charming. It’s the end of the summer holidays and parents are in survival mode, plus the weather was very changeable, so the session was quiet. The people who did attend stayed for almost the whole two hours, and we had some wonderfully fantastical conversations about our crafty creatures in yoga poses.

Either a duck in half-moon pose or me hurling myself into the lake.

Other things making me happy this week:

This week I am off work and intend to do some serious pottering, with a side of mooching and and some siestas. Tomorrow is the Copped Hall August Open Day and we’re dragging all the Things this year. There are also school shoes on the horizon but I am trying hard to remain in denial about that.

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading

Asterix omnibuses volumes 3&4 – Goscinny & Uderzo

Open Sesame – Tom Holt

Miss Benson’s Beetle – Rachel Joyce

Unseen Academicals/Pyramids – Terry Pratchett (Audible)

Rivers of London graphic novels – Ben Aaronovitch etc

Miss Percy’s Guide to the Care and Feeding of British Dragons/Miss Percy’s Travel Guide to Welsh Moors and Feral Dragons – Quenby Olson

179: did I miss something?

This week has passed by in a haze of nothing very much at all: so much so, in fact, that I have no idea what, if anything, I have achieved. It’s been a bit of a brain-fog week, where sentences have wandered off after getting lost in the middle of a conversation and things have been left half done, like making cups of tea or sorting the laundry. My butterfly brain is in full flight – the joys of menopause, eh?

I do know I went to a lovely workshop with Toya Walker at the Museum of the Order of St John where lots of families came and explored their garden of medicinal plants before learning about botanical illustration. I also had a great chat with Andrew from the Museum of Walking about one of their new projects. There’s been a lot of crocheting of tiny mice on the tube and the odd cactus, and yesterday was a jewellery making day.

This weekend I have been pet-sitting for a neighbour, and basking in the reflected glory of Bella who bears more than a passing resemblance to a TV character called Waffledog. We’ve been for some long walks around the Common and chilled out binging Chuck on Amazon Prime in between. I love Bella, as she’s always pleased to see me. Her one fault is raging jealousy of the car she lives with, so when Ziggy decided to come home at 3am after hanging out in my garden with the wildlife last night I was rudely awoken which I could have done without.

At some point I’m going to have to bring my brain around to the idea of school uniform and (oh god) shoes for Things 2 and 3, but that can wait till the week after next when I’m off.

Let’s see if next week is more memorable!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

October Man – Ben Aaronovitch (Audible)

Unseen Academicals – Terry Pratchett (Audible)

Open Sesame – Tom Holt

The Mercenary River – Nick Higham

Ellen Buxton’s Journal 1860-1864 – Ellen Buxton