Actually, it would be more accurate to say the little piggy will be going to market in a few weeks – I have two stalls lined up in October so I am getting myself organised with tiny things for my stall. These pumpkins and Christmas cactuses – both designed by me – will be there. The cacti are in vintage espresso mugs I found in a charity shop – they’re Whittard Christmas ones.
You have no idea how disturbing it is that espresso mugs from 2004 are considered vintage, by the way. I am also vintage, it turns out, being more than 20 but less than 100. (I checked to see if I was mid-century modern but it turns out I am too young for that.)
On 12 October I’ll be at the Copped Hall Family Apple Day, and on 18 October at the London Welsh Centre for their Welsh Autumn Market which is part of the Bloomsbury Festival. This is an excellent place if you haven’t been, and if you have a well-behaved dog (or family) you can bring them too. It doesn’t say whether the family needs to be well-behaved. The free tickets can be booked through the link above. Come along and say hello!
In the spirit of spookiness I have also been capturing ghosts ready for Halloween. My learning from this has been not to use white yarn on the tube as it just goes grey. This pickled ghost is called Clarence, after the would-be angel in It’s a Wonderful Life. I love the way they look as if they’re floating.
At least until Friday when the Tube strike was over, when I finally got to visit our new office. Big windows! Natural light! Level access! In the last few months our amazing office manager has co-ordinated approximately a million job interviews, found a new office nearer our site, packed up and moved our old office (we did help!), overhauled our IT systems and has done all of it with her usual calm and aplomb – and without us ever running out of milk and coffee. I don’t know how she does it. I also don’t know what we’d do without her.
I got a lift in with Jill as far as Walthamstow and bumped into an ex-colleague on Wood St station so had a lovely catch-up on the train followed by some crochet and audio book on the 38 bus from Hackney.
Strikes don’t seem to have as much impact* since we all learned to work at home and since the rise (or curse) of the Lime bikes and so on. I almost got run over by a teenager on a Lime bike yesterday – he was on the pavement and hadn’t paid for it so it was making the loud clicky noise that’s a dead giveaway. A colleague has ranked all rentable e-bike riders from worst to best by brand, and while Lime aren’t the worst they’re certainly the ones you see bearing down on you more often. They’re incredibly heavy so are dangerous to fall off, and they also charge by the minute so riders often run red lights or ignore crossings to avoid paying extra. I’d be willing to bet most of them couldn’t produce their Cycling Proficiency badge, too.
Anyway, the RMT were responsible for this week’s four day strike and it’s not about pay but about working hours and wellbeing. I approve, I think, especially as I’d already decided to hold my first round of interviews on Teams rather than in person which worked out nicely.
*At least once you get into Central London.
Things making me happy this week (not roast beef)
I am very relieved to see our local Co-op’s glow-up has been completed and we have the village shop back, albeit without the fresh bakery section which is disappointing. It does have a self-service till now which is a plus as it should reduce the queues which tend to build up in there.
Popping out for a drink with Miriam and Jill on Thursday evening to put the world to rights.
Being taken out for lunch by Thing 1 – also to the pub, but it was a very nice pizza.
Catching up with this year’s Sewing Bee and finding two new series of Brassic on Netflix. It’s sweary but it’s one of those wonderfully gentle British comedies. Joseph Gilgun is great in it.
The new Slough House thriller appearing on my Kindle – Clown Town, by Mick Herron. Such a good series.
Today I am off for a long walk – only three weeks to go till Cardiff Half. Next week I’ll be back adjacent to the Shire, in the Forest of Dean, with the horde of cousins celebrating another big birthday.
Kirsty x
What I’ve been reading:
False Value/Amongst Our Weapons – Ben Aaronovitch (Audible)
I’m putting my hands up here and confessing to struggling a bit right now, so this week’s post might be a lot shorter than usual. Essex – well, the small bit of it I live in and travel through several times a week – is still being used as a excuse for a barrage of racist rhetoric and as a showcase for a vast collection of flags on lamp-posts and random bits of street furniture.
I wrote a lengthy post last Sunday on my Instagram feed, showing some of the flags – that have since been taken down but replaced within hours by people driving slogan-ridden Land Rovers and sporting balaclavas. They presumably claim to be proud Englishmen but aren’t proud enough to show their faces as they clamber up the CCTV poles, belisha beacons and lampposts of Epping and North Weald. It also had images of the steel fences on Bell Common that are used to make sure the protests don’t block the road and to keep the two factions apart. It’s telling that since these measures were put in place the more violent elements of the protests have faded: perhaps being in a contained area and unable to run at police or throw smoke bombs is less appealing when you’re more easily identifiable. Who knows?
The Insta post was written mostly in my head as I stomped through the Forest in a loop from Copped Hall. I couldn’t work out why I was so upset by the flags – I mean, I used to go out with a rabid Cockney who believed the Queen Mother should have been sainted and that St George was a born Englishman (and that the Anglo-Saxons came from Anglesey, but that’s another story). I’ve lived in England since 1997 and from 1991-1994 when I was at uni. My first date was in England – Coleford was the closest cinema to us. My kids are English, apparently. The flags themselves are not the problem.
It came to me in the end that it was because for the first time in the 28 years I’ve lived here I felt unwelcome. The people putting these flags up – and those saying how lovely they look, and why don’t they leave them up till VJ Day, and shouting down anyone who disagrees and abusing anyone who takes them down, and taking scissors out with them to cut down any counters to the flags – are actively using these flags to intimidate. They don’t even care whether they’ve hung them the right way up. And, as I said, they’re too cowardly to show their faces while they do it. There’s also the usual whinges that you’re not allowed to fly the flags in this country, lefties, woke, no one makes the Welsh take their flags down, two-tier policing, blah blah blah. When someone points out that they are perfectly entitled to fly whatever flags they like on their own property they point out that they’re taxpayers and they pay council tax so they pay for the lampposts…. well, I bet they can’t produce the paperwork to prove it. The vitriol and badly-spelled abuse is ongoing – reasoned arguments and statistics fall on deaf ears.
Hello. If you don’t know me in real life, I’m Kirsty. I’m an economic migrant. So are many of my friends.
TL/DR: racist behaviour makes migrant feel unwelcome.
I migrated to London in 1997. I moved to #epping in 2002 and to North Weald in 2013. I speak English very well and Welsh very badly (just ask my sister). I don’t think this makes me any better or worse than any other migrant, except that in the late 1990s the lack of Welsh prevented me from getting a job in Wales so I came over the border instead.
Today I walked through Epping, where we have a hotel housing other migrants. There’s another hotel in North Weald housing families seeking asylum. Some clowns have decided to adorn every lamppost in #epping and several in #northweald with English flags and the Union flag. This isn’t helped by a cadre of local councillors starting inflammatory petitions and doubling down on the old ‘we’re not racist but’ statements, or claiming they ‘just want to protect the women and kids’.
I have no problem with people with flying whichever flag they want on their own property or on their own cars. I have no issue with peaceful protest.
I do have a problem with people weaponising flags and using them to intimidate and ‘reclaim’ a space from people who probably did not have Epping or North Weald in mind as a destination when they escaped from whenever they came from and almost certainly didn’t make a choice to be accommodated here.
Because that’s what’s happening here. This town has become a focal point for the very worst of ignorant English behaviour and attitudes, using the actions of one man to harass and intimidate dozens more.
The result, for me, is that for the first time in the 27 years since I came here to work I feel unwelcome. My nation is not represented by or on these flags. The people who put them up do not represent me or my views, and I don’t know why the council* haven’t removed them as presumably they’ve been put up without permission or a licence which I believe is usually required for putting flags up in public spaces.
*yes, the council led by the councillor who starts inflammatory petitions. There may be a connection.
The council continues to double down on their claims that it’s the asylum seekers who are to blame for community unrest, and not the people descending on the town to spew hatred. They went to the High Court for an injunction this week claiming this – never mind that in the seven years the hotel has been in use only three arrests have been shouted about, yet 18 arrests have been made among the protestors since they started a month ago.
I can’t seem to shake my disappointment in my local town and in some people I know, and it’s affecting me quite badly. I need a break.
A gorgeous cooling-off evening swim on Tuesday with Jill, Sue and Rachel
My clever Thing 1 getting a distinction in her T-levels this week. We’re so very proud of her, as it hasn’t been an easy couple of years. Her tutors from college have been very supportive, too.
Press your back button now if part of your summer holiday planning still involves the annual childcare juggle. I’m about to be unbearably smug.
My Horde are now 14, 16 and 19 and while the teenage years come with their own set of challenges (their hormones coming in while mine are going out, romance dramas, friend group angst, the constant growing out of shoes and trousers, to name but a few) those challenges no longer include having to trade off annual leave, swapping childcare with friends or considering packing them off to boarding school and leaving the country till they’re 18. I read all the Chalet School books, I know it’s all kaffe und kuchen every day and midnight feasts and adventures up mountains. They’d have been FINE. Probably.
While we’ve always been amazingly lucky with the various childminders and big sisters who have looked after them over the years, it’s still flipping excellent not to have to worry about it every year.
The flipside is never knowing quite how many teens will be scattered about the house and garden when I get in or who will be around for dinner. If they’re here they get fed and I assume that works when they’re at other people’s houses too. We’ve always operated open door parenting, on the principle that if we’re there for the fun stuff they’ll know the door will still be open for the harder stuff too.
Several nights a week there’s at least two teenagers asleep in the living room, one in the cabin and right now there’s nine people ranging from the ages of two to 27 racing around the garden with water pistols. I’m sitting surrounded by chaos and the remains of an impromptu barbecue and – honestly – I love it. Especially the bit where they just get on with it with no input from me.
It also means I can go and work in France for a week and then have a week of peace before school chaos starts again; go for a drink with colleagues or friends after work; or be at my desk by 8am.
This is not to say parenting teens is a breeze: emotional crises arise, there are still dramas and we’ve got T-level results this week and GCSE results next week but, on balance, I think we’re doing OK.
I expect one day they’ll all leave home and I won’t know what to do with myself but till then I’ll keep embracing the chaos.
A lovely day off on Friday with Miriam, with breakfast at the Mayfield Bakery and a very relaxing massage.
Finding Breton cidre at St John after work on Thursday, and remembering how nice it is to do these things.
A peaceful day at Shelley Church fête crocheting toadstools and chatting to nice people. The meerkat went home as a raffle prize with a very excited teenager.
Painting wooden toadstools with Things 1 & 2 in the garden
Epping continues to be overrun by racists twice a week and this is not making me happy. I have an evening out planned with a like-minded buddy in two weeks and we are going to allow ourselves a 10 minute rage before we have, as she put it, a delightful time. I am all for this. In the meantime, I am trying extremely hard to think about all the positive things that happen to me rather than the idiots who seem to be happening around me. So that’s what this week’s post is all about: do add the good things happening to you in the comments.
There are some people who you don’t see for several years – Covid, moving house, changing jobs, life getting in the way, those old chestnuts – but when you finally catch up with them it’s as if you’re picking up a conversation that you were having about five minutes ago. Yes, that’s a cliche but – like most of these things – it’s a cliche because it’s true. That was Thursday evening with my fierce Italian friend Sabrina. Dinner out and the world was put to rights (ah, if only – but I felt better for it!). Even better, it was back on my old West India Quay stomping ground which still looks wonderful in the sunshine.
Giving the rainbow hare/bunny to one of my colleagues – he loved it which made me very happy! Now his partner wants one too. I have let it be known that I am bribable with cake as he is an excellent baker.
Starting my Christmas (sorry) crochet in good time – with a new version of a pig in a blanket. There will be mice, pigs, robins, pingwings and more.
Signing up for the Autumn Welsh Market at the London Welsh Society
A long walk (nine miles) on Saturday, trying a new route out to Shelley Church where I have a stall next weekend. I won’t be walking there then though. I wandered through woods, farmyards and fields and met some excellent dogs.
It’s been a fair while since I’ve been quite so consumed with rage as I have this week, so you lucky readers get to read my rant about what’s been going on in our local town. If you’re a right-leaning, Reform-voting person who uses the actions of one person to launch a sanctimonious ‘we’re-not-racist-we-just-want-to-protect-our-children’ protest then you may wish to go and read something else. Perhaps the Daily Mail or the Express. The Torygraph probably has too many long words, though I concede that they do have a good crossword. Anyway.
I have written before about the experiences I have had with refugees and asylum seekers through my previous job and at my local primary school. I met many children from Somalia and Angola when I was first teaching in London: a significant number of whom had no idea (as four and five year olds) whether their parents were dead or alive as their parents had sent them away with an aunt or a friend to give them a chance to grow up. I’ve met more people recently through a work project.
Without exception every single one of them has been friendly, open, grateful to have reached somewhere they might feel safe and where they are ekeing out survival. One thing that’s been made clear to me through many conversations is that leaving their homes and putting their own and their families lives in mortal danger was not a choice they made lightly. Can you imagine being in a position where your only choices were certain or uncertain death and what it must cost you to make that choice?
In our Essex village there is a contingency hotel where families seeking asylum have been housed for several years now. Prior to that it was being used by Redbridge Council as emergency housing. It’s an old Travelodge and even when it was being used as a ‘proper’ hotel it was getting one-star reviews. Five star it aint. An asylum seeker set fire to it a few months ago. There was a crowdfunder started by a local secondary school to help the children housed at the hotel find accommodation close to the school so their GCSEs weren’t disrupted, and it was very well-supported. The accused arsonist tried, a week or so later, to set a similar fire in the Bell Hotel, Epping (this one has 2.7 stars) and he was arrested.
The Bell Hotel, Epping, has been used to house single male asylum seekers for about the same amount of time and under the same conditions. One of these asylum seekers – just one, although that’s more than enough – tried to kiss a teenage girl in Epping, and attempted to do the same to a woman. He’s been arrested and remanded in custody. This is right, as no one has the right to assault girls or women or men or boys or anyone else. It’s also probably saved him from serious injury at the hands of the locals, who have used this occurrence as an excuse for two violent protests and some vandalism and abuse in the ten days since, under the banner of ‘Epping has had enough’, with another one planned for today. The actions of one man are being used as an excuse to target and uproot the lives of hundreds of other people at these two hotels.
Well, I’d had enough when my teenage daughter was assaulted by the owner of a local business a couple of years ago and no one* felt the need to riot and protect the women and children of North Weald….but then the only border he’d crossed in the past few years was the one between Hertfordshire and Essex. Perhaps that made a difference?
Last Sunday there was a ‘peaceful protest’ at the hotel in Epping, which caused all sorts of traffic issues. Peaceful, that is, being a relative term: I’m sure the two hotel security guards who were beaten up and left with severe injuries when they got off the bus to start their shift might disagree. On Thursday there was another protest which most certainly wasn’t peaceful. Here’s the callout which went on Facebook:
The ‘leftys’ and ‘antifa’ they mention were a contingent from Hope Not Hate – not well-known for inflicting ‘violence and anger’ as far as I am aware unless smiting the enemy with well-reasoned research-backed arguments and workshops counts. And of course the far right element turned up, including known members of Far Right groups travelling from wider Essex and East London, and the ‘peaceful protest’ degenerated. Eight police officers were injured. These ‘peaceful protesters’ in balaclavas were attacking police vans and throwing things. They were using fireworks. Presumably these balaclava-sporting thugs are the same people who object to women wearing hijab. It strikes me that if you’re going to attend a protest for peaceful reasons, you probably ought to be brave enough to show your face and not be carrying, say, a blunt instrument and a smoke bomb or two.
The head of the local council has organised a petition to get the hotels shut down. Local councillors – including the execrable one from Ongar who was ejected from the Tories, became independent and is now in Reform – hand delivered a letter to the Home Secretary saying much the same. The local MPs are burbling away on the subject – Tory, of course, since a monkey in a blue suit could stand for parliament round here and get elected. The only time I have ever queued at the polling station was for the Brexit referendum, and look what happened there.
Apparently it’s all Keir Starmer’s fault, even though the Home Office have been using the hotels for the same purpose for more than five years. Social media is full of people complaining that these asylum seekers are supposed to seek asylum in the first safe country they arrive at (this is not the case – neither the 1951 Refugee Convention or international law require a person to claim asylum in the first safe country they reach, although the UK government would prefer it if they did); that they’re living in five star hotels (patently not the case) at the expense of local people who can’t get housing; and so on and so forth.
Social media is also full of people choosing to post anonymously. People going on about women and children not feeling safe on the streets of Epping. People claiming that all the violence was the police’s fault for not sending the ‘leftys and antifa’ back on the train and, in one case, giving them a lift to the hotels in their van. People accusing the police of ‘treason’ for throwing ‘the flag of Britain’ in a hedge. It was the St George’s flag so presumably the poster failed geography at school and also hasn’t been informed that old Georgie-boy was a resident of the Middle East and never set foot in England. Accusing the police of a hit and run, as they allegedly drove into a protestor who was sitting in the road.
Well, the only time I haven’t felt safe on the streets of Epping was this week, quite honestly. I lived in Epping for 12 years and we’ve been in North Weald for another 12. I walk alone for literally miles and have never felt worried. On Sunday I had to wait for a connecting bus home and wasn’t happy about that as we’d just come past the Bell on the rail replacement bus and had seen the police presence. On Thursday we were held on the train at Theydon Bois while the police dealt with an incident on the station, and I was reassured to see the heavy police presence on the station. I was less reassured – quite pissed off, in fact – to see the fear on the faces of the family who got on the bus with me. There’s a look about the people coming to the hotels: nervous, worried that they’re getting on the wrong bus, small scared children hanging onto one parent or other, a buggy laden with bags of possessions. Their fear makes me angry.
I feel terribly sorry for the teenager and the woman who were assaulted in Epping, of course I do. I am angry, however, that their experience is being used as an excuse for racism and violence against an equally vulnerable section of society. The people of Epping, if they genuinely want to make the streets safe for women and children, should perhaps volunteer for a rape crisis charity, or for Shelter, or for an organisation that does some good instead of allowing themselves to be allied with thugs and scum.
*except me, obvs. And my friends.
Things that did make me happy this week (yes, there were some)
Going to the monthly Dog Swim at Redricks with Sue and the Bella-Dog. Quite honestly the most joyous event ever. All the humans in the water and the dogs occasionally fetching a ball to humour them
The blackbird in the garden who sings the first six notes of Elton John’s ‘Passenger’
Baby badgers bumbling in the bushes
Our second access panel meeting
A lovely evening at the Quentin Blake: Ninety Drawings exhibition. I got to chat to Axel Scheffler who is a delight.
As my children never tire of reminding me, I am not blessed with height. At very nearly 5’4″ to their 5’7″ and above (and rising) I am resigned to this. I am, as I tell them often, of average height, so – in the old days (ie before children) I used to be pretty confident that I could buy a pair of trousers or a skirt from H&M or New Look etc and they would be the right length. (The Office of National Statistics informs me that I have, in fact, been above average height until 2022. Ha!)
Something over the last twenty years has changed, however, and I know it’s not me because last time I was at the hospital I got measured with my shoes off by someone who knows what they’re doing. Now, any pair of ‘regular’ length trousers I buy needs a minimum of 12cm removed from the leg length before they are wearable, and I wear my trousers floor length as it is. This is the case across all retailers. When you google ‘changes in women’s clothing sizes’ a lot of results come back about vanity sizing but this more usually applies to bust and waist measurements. Even the fashion for wearing wide legs (also a favourite style of mine) with heels or flatforms doesn’t account for regular length trousers now covering my feet and flappping about like an illustration from The Shrinking of Treehorn. A midi dress is now almost ankle length, midaxis are loooong and maxis are a staircase accident waiting to happen. If miniskirts are truly a sign of a booming economy, I dread to think what hemlines are indicating right now.
So, this week I decided I’d try a ‘short’ size (from Tu) in the hope that this might solve the problem. Readers, it did not. The ‘short length’ linen trousers covered half my feet and the ‘cropped’ jeans were resting just under my ankles. ‘Muu-uum, that’s the right length for jeans,’ said Thing 1 as I wailed about this, until I pointed out that these were supposed to finish well above the ankle, at which point she reminded me that I was short and offered to take the jeans off my hands for me (no).
How do below-average-height people deal with this nonsense? I’m pretty handy with a sewing machine so can take my own trousers up, but – as I am average height – I shouldn’t have to, as ‘regular’ should surely mean that they take the average as the norm. What’s going on with people’s legs in the fashion industry’s mind?? Answers on a postcard to the usual address, and I’ll try not to trip over my trousers when I go to collect the post.
A gorgeous swim at Guidel-Plage followed by an excellent lunch with the family. Just look at the colour of that sky.
Watching the swifts zooming around the French neighbour’s house, stopping in to feed the babies and zooming off again. Excellent entertainment while sipping rose spritzers, nibbling brie and baguettes with ancienne crisps. Also zooming around were Asian Yellow-legged Hornets, so now we know how to report them in France but luckily not in French. My French continues badly.
A fun morning meeting VI formers at Stoke Newington School’s careers event. The students were confident, friendly individuals who were being allowed to express themselves. Late students in reception were met with sympathy because of the heat, no detentions were being handed out and kids were helpful and welcoming. Some academy trusts could learn from this (not the one my kids go to!)
There’s a decorative section of the New River in Clissold Park over the road from SNS, complete with noisy coot chicks shouting at their mama.
A completely amazing day of rehearsing the new schools session before launch on Monday across several Islington schools. Props include umbrellas, masking tape, a lot of buckets, beads, ping pong balls, drainpipes, hi viz and a hard hat. My role was to pretend to be a seven year old and throw daft answers at the team to see what they’d do. At least, that’s what I was doing.
One of the actresses said Chris and I make an excellent double act – but then our first conversation about a zillion years ago encompassed ladies of negotiable affection, Doctor Who, shipworms, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, how to demonstrate the physics of the St Paul’s dome with a small trampoline, and we’ve just gone on from there.
Today marks the start of a few weeks of non-stop work, kicking off with the Cally Festival in Islington where we’ll be talking about the Centre, getting people excited about the project and highlighting one of our fabulous community projects. Last year it thundered and lightninged at Cally and we all had to cram under the gazebo, so let’s hope this year is dry as we only have a market stall.
…was actually a sneaky way of saying that I was off to France with Tan for the weekend. The parents knew she was going but not me.
Tan and I had an excellent Japanese dinner at Hare and Tortoise in Ealing on Wednesday night, then headed for Gatwick on Thursday morning. Volotea, a Spanish carrier, has started flying twice weekly to Brest.
The cabin staff were extremely efficient and – this is important – did not spend the entire flight trying to sell us scratch cards/lottery tickets/duty free/food. There was a menu accessed by a QR code, so you could eat if you wanted, but no hard sell.
You can’t check in online, so there was a bit of a queue, but the team were smiling and friendly and efficient.
These mice were the outcome of the flight and a slight delay…
When we arrived at the parents’ house Tan sent me up the drive while she reversed the hire car up the tricky drive, so I wandered into the house… mum spotted me first and then dad appeared to say ‘that’s not the daughter I was expecting!’
In the evening we went to the pizza place in the local town – the thinnest base and hugest pizza, followed by an excellent coupe tatin ice cream – vanilla and caramel ice creams, cooked apple slices and cream.
Friday was spent admiring French bakery and vegetables, napping and then going for a walk along the canal where there were hordes of swallows and noisy coypu in the lagoon.
On Saturday – before the predicted heatwave – we headed off to Port-Louis where the sun was starting to break through. We had a mooch around the market where we were beguiled by the smells of the strawberries and fresh produce, and then headed to the beach where I hopped into the sea for a quick dip.
I’m writing this sitting in the garden shelter in my bathers late Saturday morning. I am writing it now so I can schedule it for tomorrow morning as I may have melted in the 33 degree heat predicted for this afternoon. It’s been getting steadily hotter all week, and the garden shelter has become my office on my WFH days which has been a blessing as the house has been baking. Bailey’s chosen sleeping spot this week has been plastered against the north east corner wall where it’s cool as the sun never gets into it. Lulu, on the other hand, keeps lying in the sweltering conservatory and looking at me accusingly although there is a perfectly good hard floor in the kitchen she’d be cooler on. She’s not allowed out unsupervised as she swears at Ziggy and last week made it into the neighbour’s garden. Ted is making his displeasure known through the medium of loud miaows.
The shelter was formerly known as ‘under the treehouse’, before the kids stopped using the treehouse because of the spiders and my Beloved cut down the tree because it (a planted Christmas tree from his childhood which had grown enormous) was blocking the solar panels. It’s been one of those projects that, in the words of designerly types, just kept iterating.
The original plan was a small crows nest that the kids could climb up to, but then they got involved and it was big enough to have a small picnic table, some shelves, a crows nest rigged from an old Ercol chair, rigging and a roof. It was bigger than my kitchen. Then Thing 1 and her dad designed a seat underneath made from an old wooden bed frame, and gradually one of the sides got enclosed. The deck underneath it was extended to the edge of where the strawberries and fruit trees live in the winter and the pool in the summer.
The original treehouse with Thing 2 in the crows nest
When the original tree and treehouse came down the platform stayed, although he raised it a foot or so. A green roof was installed with succulents to attract wildlife. Then last year one of our neighbours, who knows of my Beloved’s penchant for recycling, brought over a conservatory which was being removed from a posh house refurb. The doors and windows have been fitted to the shelter so we can sit surrounded by greenery but sheltered from the weather. It’s got quite a nice half-timbered effect at the back and cladding on the corner now too.
The view from my ‘home office’Inside viewThe garden shelter
This year, he’s added a slanting roof to the front to replace the sailcloth canopies we’ve had in previous summers as they’re never square and always collect rain in a dip in the middle. My role was to remove the plastic protection from the powder coated panels before they went up, and occasionally to have an opinion (something I am quite good at, unlike DIY). Last weekend we rigged a sailcloth along the front for shade for the babies during the Father’s Day BBQ and this has now become a cunningly rolled curtain. I confidently expect to come back one day and find out that it’s been extended to meet the house so the furry thugs can access it via a Great Escape style tunnel from their catio. (He’s just informed me that he’s bought some coolpads for the cats, so this isn’t too much of a stretch.)
I came home from work yesterday and it was full of teenagers celebrating the of their GCSEs with a sleepover (9 of them!) and today it’ll be full of family which is always lovely. I love having a houseful, especially if I am not required to feed them.
Evidence that the fox is still on site at New River Head, having a good explore of the new concrete floors
Calippos
Getting all the schools booked in for piloting the new school sessions – and remembering just why I used to appreciate Brian and the box office at times like this. Eight days of delivery, eight different schools, three facilitators and one me….
Surviving Thing 2’s GCSEs. Two down, one to go…
Tom Hiddleston dancing. I am shallow.
The day I came home from work and the ice cream van arrived at the same time, followed by a dip in the pool
Air con in the office
Finishing Thing 2’s prom skirt – and she loves it, luckily. She’s going to look beautiful (of course) but also unique as she’s brave enough to make her own fashion choices.
A Solstice swim on Saturday evening – the lake was 27.4 degrees this week
Picnic food. I’m on catering strike.
Making a sensible decision not to train this weekend
On Friday it was soooo muggy that I gave up on indoors and spent the afternoon working in the garden shelter, watched occasionally by next door but one’s cat Ziggy and some pigeons. Not at the same time though, as Zig has a well-founded reputation as a mighty hunter and has been plotting to poach our roof-pigeons for quite some time. He sits on our conservatory roof and watches them, and they peer down at him from the guttering. One day he’ll make the leap…
He’s a very beautiful ginger tom who – like all animals – is a sucker for my Beloved and also for the nepeta planted near our pond. The pictures above are a before and after set for his plant love-in. The Chinese rhubarb on the other side of the pond is considerably less battered as Ziggy and the occasional other cat visitor doesn’t luxuriate in it. The nepeta was almost completely demolished but is making a comeback. As long as they leave the newt who has recently taken up residence in the pond alone they can keep the plants!
The pigeons, on the other hand, were mostly side-eyeing me as they stripped the blackcurrant bush of pretty much every last currant. I don’t mind this as we never really do anything with them other than make blackcurrant vodka if there’s enough, and also if they’re nicking the currants they’re not eating the strawberries. I am mostly eating the strawberries and the raspberries: there is nothing like a perfectly ripe strawberry picked in the sunshine and eaten still warm.
The promised thunderstorms scheduled for Friday afternoon and evening failed to appear, though it is at least a bit fresher with some breezes. Today we have the family round for a Father’s Day barbecue, which is causing me to wonder why I am supposed to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of what was put in the freezer after the last barbecue in April.
A full moon swim at Redricks Lake on Wednesday night – the water was hovering about 20 degrees, and I was feeling lazy so I mostly dipped and enjoyed the atmosphere. It’s always so pretty with the fairy lights.
And that’s it from me for the week – I’m off for a swim this morning to set me up for the day, then a bit of sewing to finish the prom dress before the hordes descend!
A happy Father’s Day to my excellent dad, too! He may need to re-register his Kindle as apparently we can no longer buy Amazon.com e-gift cards to be sent outside the US.
Kirsty x
What I’ve been reading:
Anna Again/My Favourite Mistake – Marian Keyes
Shadowlands – Matthew Green
The Gilded Nest – Sarah Painter
Earl Crush/Ne’er Duke Well – Alexandra Vasti
The Secret Service of Tea and Treason – India Holton
A Demon’s Guide to Wooing a Witch – Sarah Hawley
Hex Appeal/Hex and the City/Hex and Hexability – Kate Johnson
I’ve had a couple of conversations this week at work about focusing so much on the small stuff that the far away stuff is getting away from us. The small stuff (well, a monumental horse, if you can consider that small) is what’s keeping me awake at night these days, and then while I’m worrying about the horse in the wee small hours I remember all the other stuff I have to do that isn’t getting done because of the horse and then rooooouuuunnnnnd we go again. The poor horses in the fields on my walking route are probably wondering why I am cursing them and glaring as I walk past. They haven’t done anything apart from look like horses, obviously, but I’m not being selective with my equine animosity right now.
Part of this is trying to be several people all at once. Thank heavens for the return of my Community Partnerships Producer who is looking rested after a few weeks in Italy with her family, or at least she did until she walked into my personal maelstrom. She works two days a week with us, so in a few weeks we’ll be looking for the other half of her role but right now I am that other half and summer is always an intense period for community work. We’re building our centre with a desire to be a place where the community feels at home, and unlike at Young V&A we don’t have a 150 year history in the borough so we need to set out our stall now, letting people know we’re coming and that we want this to be a place for them. This means popping up at the summer festivals and chatting to people. This is an excellent part of my job, but then I have to find other people to do it with me and for some reason not everyone wants to work weekends. The horse project is also a community thing, but it’s proving a little tricky to recruit participants.
I had a really invigorating meeting with one of the festival organisers from the council on Thursday – one of those amazing conversations where ideas bounce off each other and things come together. It spun on into the next meeting, with a small crossover where I introduced the illustrator to the producer and things blossomed. Thursday, in fact, was all about meetings. The Radical Rest session I listened to while I was working on things that couldn’t wait (Sorry Kate, I know I missed the point!) was, ironically, about burnout in the cultural sector and there have been moments in the last couple of weeks where I’ve been ticking off a lot of the symptoms.
Schools remain within my remit: this week a school approached me about a CPD, which they initially wanted in September but then moved to July. Because all our sessions are tailored to the needs of each school, I have to meet with the school to work out what they want, reach out to the fabulous freelance illustrators who actually deliver the sessions, and do the admin around it. Schools session bookings have been honed over the years – from working closely with the bookings teams at London Museum through many years, taking bookings myself rather than remaining at arm’s length so I understand what needs to happen. There’s still admin around this, of course: sending invoice requests and confirmations, making sure the illustrator is in place and has all the materials they need.
Developing and piloting new sessions is on the radar: a science x history x illustration session which we need to deliver to six schools in the next term. Working with the lead facilitator to identify dates, locating a second facilitator and getting their dates, reaching out to schools who you’d think would like free sessions on local history but who actually take emails, a phone call to make sure they’ve got the email, resending the email as they probably just deleted it the first time, and then checking back up later to organise a conversation where I tell the teachers all the things they’d know if they’d just read the damn email in the first place. Developing the resources that support the session; making sure the materials are ready, doing the schools bookings admin, reporting to the funders, attending the sessions, evaluating the sessions. We’ll be recruiting someone for this soon as well, and they’ll be working on family programmes for when we open.
With my Welcome and Participation Lead head on, I’ve been working on access. Organising the first meeting of the Access Panel – booking rooms; booking BSL interpreters and audio describers; reading, watching and listening to expressions of interest; meeting with the consultant. I’ve never been so interested in toilet door fittings and it’s now perfectly normal behaviour to ask friends to take photos of these if they go anywhere new. Sorry Amanda….you need to know it’s not just me though…
I’m thinking about tech and furniture for the learning spaces, about interactivity for the site as a whole, about outside furniture and play and illustration opportunities, about how people are welcomed, about creative programmes for when we open, about how we make links with teachers and other cultural organisations along the New River to support CPD for our key boroughs when we open, about how I can embed illustration in learning throughout the school system, about how we market our schools offer more locally, about how we how and when we bring on our volunteers, about how we diversify our front of house, who the young people will be for our final project in the autumn term. My head can’t contain all the things so despite my highly organised to-do list I feel like I am juggling five oranges and then someone throws me a chainsaw.
Also in my head I know this is a pinch point and things will even out again….but I’M A BIT STRESSED RIGHT NOW. I’m not very good at admitting when I’m at my wits end when I’m at work as I try to be quite positive – all the while knowing that toxic positivity is a bad thing, but also knowing that the experiences in my last job where any negativity got you burned have left me somewhat scarred. It’s a conundrum indeed.
A ramble through new footpaths on Sunday last week, via the fields to Epping Upland and back round to Epping – saw my first hares for a while which made me happy.
An early morning Tuesday ramble where I shared a field with a huge herd of deer
A chaotic afternoon for GT2’s 2nd birthday last Sunday.
Two thirds of the sea creatures done: still to go are three crabs, three turtles, one starfish and one jellyfish. These are going to live at the British Library which I am pretty flipping excited about, I can tell you. I feel more neon colours coming on, especially for the jellyfish.
Visiting the site for the first time in a couple of months – it’s all coming together!
What Kirsty did next 