…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!
This week I was going to write about the V&A floral embroidery course with Lora Avedian that Heather and I signed up for on Tuesday, where we’d learn all about couching with ribbon and things. Due to technical issues at their end they ended up turning off the live session and sending out the recording instead which I haven’t watched yet.
Then I was going to write about the quilted overcoat I started making – the Ara jacket by Daisy Chain Patterns. I taped the pattern together and cut out the fabric but then encountered some technical issues at my end* so didn’t finish that either. It’s being made from a duvet cover (of course) and I can’t decide which side I like best for the outside. It’s also got four – FOUR! – pockets.
Other things I haven’t finished this include a brilliant plan for getting illustration into schools; most of the coffees I’ve made in the office; the cucumber I definitely meant to add to my sandwiches so as not to waste it. There were excellent – though not technical – reasons for not finishing all these things, mostly to do with the community programme and a lot of meetings, but it means my to-do list has not shrunk in any way.
Things I did finish: several books, a lot of Thing 2’s excellent hot cross buns, and this Bananasaurus which is definitely better viewed side on. Fortunately its for a soon-to-be-two-year-old….
A team outing to Wilton’s Music Hall for a tour by our architects, who did the restoration there and also at Hackney Empire.
An early morning swim with Jill and a lot of coots, talking about Tove Jansson with people who love my Moomin tattoo.
Finding the latest Vera Stanhope novel right next to the return bin at the library, just as I needed a new book to read (no, really, I did)
Feeling like a celebrity on a visit to Young V&A
Getting started on a whole rockpool’s worth of sea creatures for the British Library
Meeting an adorable corgi puppy called Leon at the lake. No idea what his owner was called.
This week we’re having a family day out on Monday, because apparently weekends are too peopley (Easter holidays are going to come as a shock to my Beloved, I can see) and I will be attempting to finish things. Possibly.
Have a good week!
Kirsty x
What I’ve been reading:
Cold Earth/Wild Fire/The Long Call/Silent Voices/The Dark Wives – Ann Cleeves
Moving Pictures/Sourcery – Terry Pratchett (Audible)
On Monday my friend Jill convinced me to go with her to a new exercise class, called Strength and Supple, or possibly Supple and Strength, I don’t know. It didn’t include glowsticks or loud music, anyway. It did involve hand weights, yoga mats and blocks and – somewhat unexpectedly – small beach balls which we were supposed to tuck behind our knees and use to commit some awkward stretches.
Those who know me well are aware that agility and I are, at best, very distant acquaintances. Graceful poses and I are not friends at all. Expecting me to get from downward dog back up to standing is, I feel, something that should only be undertaken behind closed doors and possibly in a darkened room. I can get half way and then I get sort of stuck, much like Winnie the Pooh attempting to make an exit from Rabbit’s house after a whole pot of honey. It’s best just to hang a tea towel on me and leave me to get out of it in my own time. Really.
After the downward dog bit there were some warrior poses and some leaping about in the name of cardio, the aforementioned beach ball bits, and then Jill had promised me a nice relaxing bit at the end. But first, FIRST, there were some contortions that involved holding the beach ball between our knees while lifting a yoga block over our heads and attempting to sort of not do a sit up. At least, that was what I think we were supposed to be doing. I could be mistaken.
Sounds simple, yes? Lying down is well within my wheelhouse, I thought, as at least I can’t fall over and I can deal with getting up again afterwards. This turned out not to be the case as my head decided that this was an opportune moment for one of its occasional bouts of vertigo and it was touch and go whether I’d throw up or not. I gave up, sat up and added ‘lying down’ to the list of things getting that little bit more challenging as I get older.
Talking of funny turns, this week I have been listening to Marcel Lucont, who first dropped onto my radar with the excellent poem ‘Wine in a Can’ which you can see below. He’s very dry, very funny, probably not actually French, and has a podcast with the best bits of his interactive live show ‘The Whine List’ which caused Thing 3 to ask what on earth I was listening to. He’s deliciously judgy without punching down, and worth a listen though not in front of young children.
Other things making me happy this week
A surprise in the post from TT2 – a cute picture of my Beloved, Thing 2 and GTs 2 and 3 taken a few months ago.
Sunshine all week! The cherry blossom is out and London is looking shiny
My Threads feed being completely full of penguins after the orange basketcase’s announcement of trade tariffs on the unpopulated Heard and McDonald Islands – no people, anyway, but thousands of penguins exporting who knows what.
This week the kids are off school so I don’t have to wrangle any of them out of bed, so that’s something to look forward to! Today we’re going for a swim and Jill’s mum – queen of the knitted bobble hat – will be coming to meet her subjects.
Same time next week,
Kirsty x
What I’ve been reading:
Red Bones/Dead Water/Silent Voices/Thin Air – Ann Cleeves
Raising Steam/Moving Pictures – Terry Pratchett (Audible)
This has been one of those hectic weeks, thanks to one of my moonlighting gigs with We Are FTW – this time at the edie25 show at the Business Design Centre in Islington. Edie is all about corporate sustainability, so there were lots of interesting people to talk to about retrofitting listed buildings, for example. I won’t run out of nice notebooks for a while, either (as if that was ever going to happen!). I love doing these events for my friend Isla – it’s a great way to remember that there’s people doing things that don’t revolve around my current obsession with accessible bathroom fittings. Who knew?
I seem to be spending a lot of time at the BDC, as it’s where the Stitch Festival was last weekend and where I’m attending another event next week. It’s a lovely building which I think used to be the Agricultural Hall, and it had a great illustration of the ‘Oranges and Lemons’ rhyme which features our New River windmill. Their ops team were so helpful and friendly, which is not always the case! It was lovely to see the same agency event staff from previous conferences and to catch up with Anna, over from the Czech Republic for the event.
Detail from linocut Oranges and Lemons, by Tobias Till, 2014
I was most impressed by the catering, however, where the Good Eating Company pulled a 100% vegan menu out of the bag for more than 1200 people over two days – including a mushroom bourguignon that was unbelievably tasty, some oat and raisin cookies that were almost as good as mine, and vegan doughnuts. Apparently this was the first time they’d done a 100% vegan catering job: no repetition of main courses over the two days, either. The avocado and chocolate mousse was a bit gritty and the panna cotta didn’t quite work but everything else was amazing. The speed at which everything disappeared was testament to how good it was. They also have their own small farm, work with the Garden Army to support wellbeing and leftover food was distributed to the local homeless people through a charity based at the BDC.
We stayed in a very quirky (!) little hotel in Prebend Street called Angel Townhouse, which possibly caters mainly to the naughty weekend market as there’s mini hot tubs in each room, no dining facilities and good sized showers. I assume it’s a converted pub, with rooms over two floors above a wine bar and very thin walls. The bed was comfortable and my shower on the first morning was excellent, but sometime over the day the boiler packed up and no one on the first floor had any hot water by the evening – RUINING my plans for a hot tub and a good book after a busy day – or the following morning. I might be happy to hop into icy lakes in subzero temperatures but I don’t want to do it in my bathroom!
We ate at Pizza Express on the first night and Thai Square the second – excellent pad thai and lovely lemony satay chicken.
Conversation over dinner on night two – as all conversations have over the last couple of weeks – veered towards Adolescence, the brilliant, thought-provoking but absolutely terrifying series on Netflix. 66.3 million views in less than two weeks, the first streaming show to top the UK’s weekly viewing charts: the hype is deserved. National-treasure-in-progress Stephen Graham is angry and bewildered as the dad, Owen Cooper as his furious, radicalised son is remarkable (especially in the scenes with the psychiatrist) – as is the entire cast, actually. The cinematography ratchets up the tension right from the beginning. Each episode was shot in a single take and I can quite understand why Ashley Walters was going home in tears each evening.
My Beloved and I watched it over two evenings and I’ll be watching it again with Thing 3 whether he likes it or not, quite honestly. I can’t add anything to the reams and reams of print that the series has already generated but if you have teenagers – of any variety – watch it with them. If it doesn’t win every award going next season then something is very wrong. It will make you angry and uncomfortable and sad in equal measure but what it’s saying is vital. You could also listen to this episode of The Trawl (thanks to Tan for introducing me to this gem of a podcast). But watch it.
Things making me happy this week
Loop earplugs, as even on a quiet street London is noisy!
A good day at the Stitch Festival with Heather – I didn’t buy anything!
Mother’s Day Moomin biscuits – thank you TT2! And Moomin sweets – thank you Miriam!
The local library ordering service
Setting up my fundraising page for the half marathon I wrote about last week – it’s here if you’d like to start me off towards my target. On a slightly related note, the hotel in our village, also mentioned last week as I worked with some of the asylum-seeking families at the local school, caught fire on Friday night. Everyone was evacuated and no one was hurt, fortunately, but the event caused the usual spewing of racism and hate on social media including accusations of arson and one person whose only concern was whether the road was open yet (while the blaze was still, well…blazing. Oh, the humanity.) If I’d lost everything and fled to safety with my children once I don’t think I’d be in a rush to do it again. This event did not make me happy, but did highlight the need to choose love over hate every. Single. Time.
An unexpected journey – only to Harlow with Miriam and E to see Edith and do a bit of shopping but I did get to go to Lidl which is always exciting. I did not buy a chainsaw. The box was damaged.
A potential crochet commission – more on this later!
Asda delivering 94% of the things I ordered, and sending sensible substitutes for the others. Wonders may never cease.
An email from Thing 3’s head of year informing me that he was pupil of the week, which is nice.
Proving once again that you can’t take me anywhere without running into someone I have a connection with – this time the Uber driver bringing us back to Essex.
Making friends with a tiny Jack Russell/poodle cross called Figgy – four months old and a wiggly, wriggly puppy with a tail that wagged her rather than the other way round.
Same time next week then…
Kirsty x
What I’ve been reading:
White Nights/Telling Tales/Blue Lightning/Hidden Depths – Ann Cleeves
Well, maths-wise (if not date-wise) this post marks five years since I started rambling at you all about whatever I was up to – the header image is from March 2020.
My first post was written as we were heading into the original lockdown and I introduced the people and felines who live in the house. It was never intended to be a lockdown diary – I originally registered the domain name as a way to document the reinvention process at Young V&A that I was working on. And then I just carried on as I was enjoying myself. I’m now on a different reinvention project, which is physically on a much smaller scale, but feels like we’d doing something important as there isn’t anywhere in the UK at the moment dedicated to illustration in all its variety.
The family has pretty much reinvented itself too: the cats are the same ones (just older and grumpier) but we’ve added another three grandsons and one blended granddaughter to the mix. The things were 13, 11 and 9 when I started – two in primary school and one in secondary, and now they’re 18, 16 and 14 and one is prepping to leave college for university, one is leaving school for college and one is picking his GCSE options and calling everyone ‘Bruv’.
I’ve probably crocheted my way through several marathons’ worth of yarn, and I still haven’t finished the Seurat cross stitch I was working on (really must pick that up again). I’ve tried out many new crafts, for which I don’t have nearly enough time, and made a whole lot of clothes and quilts. I’ve written 258,827 words (just under 1000 a week on average), which is quite a lot really. 2023 was the year I wrote the fewest words, but I did spend the first six months of that year training for a couple of ultras and so I walked a lot of miles instead. I think that’s an excellent excuse – it was certainly a memorable 50th year, I spent much time with family in the process and we raised money for an excellent cause. I’d quite like to do it again… I’ve read an enormous number of books, some of them several times – I’m looking at you, Pratchett, Aaronovitch and co – occasionally I think I should do what my sister does and just make one big list and if I could work out how to do pages on this thing as well as posts I might.
Most of the last 260 posts have been cheerful moments, but at times I’ve been frustrated and angry at things like sexual harassment, inane political decisions, school dinners, and the marginalisation of arts and craft. I’ve been honest and open about mental health and parenting and navigating these things with the added joy of peri- and menopause. It’s nice to have a little corner of the internet of my own, mostly, and I enjoy recording my week and being able to frame what I’m thinking. Other people reading it is a bonus….so thank you to everyone who comes along for the ride. And to my Dad, who binges once a month. (Hello Dad). Not so much to my Beloved who says if there’s anything he needs to know I can just tell him about it.
I’ve also liked reflecting on all the things that make me happy each week so without further ado it’s…
Taking part in a ‘Today at Apple’ session where we got to use the Apple Pencil Pro to do drawing and things. I went along with my very talented colleague Silvie, who knows which end of an iPad is which. I’d like to live in the Apple Store, they’re always so calm. I’m also quite tempted by an iPad but that’s because I have a butterfly brain.
The weather! Thing 2 and I had a sundown walk on Monday and she was disturbed by the fact that everyone was smiling and saying hello – that’s the effect of the sunshine!
Not going to work in the dark in the morning.
Finishing the jumper I’ve been making, modelled beautifully by Thing 2, and starting a hexie cardi with the frogged Hydrangea blanket
Not BlueSky, who suspended me for activity breaking their community guidelines – which confused me as I’d only had the account for three days, had followed one person and posted once.
Today I am off for a long solo walk, probably through the Forest as despite the sunshine off-road is still a swamp. This is annoying as there are many footpaths I have yet to explore.
Same time next week!
Kirsty x
What I’ve been reading
The Ballad of Smallhope and Pennyroyal – Jodi Taylor
This week has mostly been characterised by a severe migraine, probably hormonally-triggered*, which started on Monday and was still reminding me of its existence on Friday afternoon. On Tuesday I attempted to function semi-normally with the aid of various drugs and Tiger Balm but – in retrospect – this was a mistake. The commute home was rather wobbly, to say the least. After forty odd years I should have learned that migraines do not care that I have things to do, and that they cannot be defeated by pretending they aren’t there like annoying people and housework.
By Wednesday morning I couldn’t move and spent the morning in bed under a pile of cats and in the hopes of being able to open my eyes without the light poking me in them every time I tried to see anything. By Thursday a tentative ceasefire was in place as long as I didn’t try and do anything silly, like move too fast.
Migraines, for those of you that don’t have them (you lucky things, you) are most definitely not headaches. You can do your very best to avoid them – my known triggers are lengthy exposure to fluorescent lights (including the ones in the meeting rooms at work), red wine, cheap dark chocolate, Gordon’s Pink Gin and strong cheese. Other triggers may be stress, hormones, tiredness or – you know – just existing so you can never guarantee that one won’t sneak up on you while your guard is down. They are characterised by fun things like severe throbbing pain, possibly on one side of your head only, nausea, visual disturbances, light sensitivity and laughing in the face of basic over-the-counter painkillers.
Sometimes, with ocular or retinal migraines, you get all the fun stuff but not the pain. If I’m awake I usually get about half an hour’s warning before the pain sets in, which – if I’m at home – allows me to take evasive action or try to head it off at the pass. However, if the migraine lands while I’m asleep and wakes me with pain it’s too late for that – this is apparently unusual, but no one bothered to tell my migraines that.
I spent a while seeing the Migraine Clinic, who suggested things like eating yoghurt or a banana before bed in case it was low blood sugar; prescribed fun drugs (one of which – a nasal spray based on ergotamine – had a lengthy list of side effects which included ‘death’), but who in the end weren’t very helpful. A nurse suggested coming off the pill, which may have incurred side effects like children which were not on the agenda at the time.
Over time they have reduced in frequency if not in severity (also they have increased in duration) so I have learned to live with them, to be careful with triggers and to keep in hefty stocks of anything that works. Yellow Syndol used to be the best, as it relaxed you so much that you slept through the worst of it. Now my mum and dad keep me stocked up with a French over-the-counter drug which is the relevant ingredient from yellow Syndol, as we discovered last year – but I can’t take it and work…..
I keep seeing an internet tip that either suggests a bag of frozen peas on the neck at the same time as putting your feet in hot water, or it may be hot water on your neck and your feet in a bag of peas, I can’t remember, but when the migraine toad hops into your head that’s just one too many things to try and manage.
*Now, I’m the first to admit that I have no proper idea how HRT works (magic, I think) but if this migraine is a result of all my hormones being replaced I think we may need to be worried….. no one needs a repeat of my teen years, I can tell you that without any fear of contradiction.
….baby cuddles with the twins (pre-haircut – typically it wasn’t looking quite as mad this afternoon despite being washed and left to its own devices)
Deciding to frog the Hydrangea blanket I was making and turn it into a hexie cardigan instead, and turn the hexie cardigan I was making into something else. I know I’ll wear the Hydrangea colours!
Many tiny granny squares completed
Friday was the ninth anniversary of Ted and Bailey coming to live with us, or rather deigning to allow us to serve them as our feline overlords.
This week, I hope, will be less painful and more productive….today I am off for a much shorter walk with Sue and the Bella-dog and I can foresee a nap…
Kirsty x
What I’ve been reading:
The Holly King – Mark Stay (I keep reading this series in the hope it will improve, but suspect after reading his ‘worked in publishing for EVER’ bio that he may not have got a contract on the strength of his writing, and certainly not on his dialogue. This is actually the better of his series, too. This is not saying a lot.)
Well, here we are back from France, having eaten our own bodyweights in baguettes, boule and in Thing 2’s case, brie.
On Sunday we headed off to Port-Louis where my ever- tolerant family put up with me pottering off into the sea for a dip in my bobble hat. The water was so clean and clear, the sun was out and the kids had a wonderful time exploring rock pools, collecting seashells and poking crabs to make sure they weren’t dead. Port-Louis is always good for tiny jewels of green seaglass so I came back with a pocketful for my collection. Thing 2 wants to try making some jewellery with it.
We hit the beach again later in the week for Dad’s birthday at Larmor-Plage, which is a bit further round the coast and has shiny mica-rich sand. The shoreline was populated with tiny sanderlings sounding like squeaky toys as they skittered in and out of the waves. Cormorants, geese and ducks bobbed up and down a bit further out. We pottered along the headland and onto the next beach, with more rock pools and bigger chunks of glass. The Things are becoming more discerning – not frosty enough, still too sharp – as they scan the sand. Lunch was at Le Tour Du Monde, where I had moules mariniere, and Thing 3 excavated an entire lettuce worth of greenery just to remove the tomatoes from his club sandwich.
Further inland, we took some walks along the Blavet, a canalised river which comes out at Lorient. The towpath has been underwater for a lot of the winter so far, and the water is still high. The usual cormorants were haunting dead trees like baby dragons, a heron and a white egret lurked in the shallows and we were lucky enough to see a few kingfishers flashing along. Tan saw a Daubenton’s bat but it failed to make a second appearance no matter how hard we looked.
The most striking thing is the huge increase in coypu activity. The banks are riddled with their holes and on one evening wander we saw a whole family playing and swimming, including a baby pottering about near its mum. The rain last night was torrential so their dens are probably submerged again.
Considering it’s February we’ve been incredibly lucky with the weather. It only really turned bad on Thursday when we went to Hennebont for the market. We changed our minds and took the kids to Decathlon instead to spend their holiday money, and then took a lengthy detour around Lorient and Lanester on the search for the Chinese buffet for lunch.
Every trip out seems to have ended with a visit to whatever supermarket is on the way back: Super U and the Leclerc Hypermarket were the favourites. I seem to have gained a whole shopping bag of French food (and I remembered treats for the office!) including my favourite Surfizz sweets, cherry compôte and caramel sauce. The kids are amazed by the range of food on offer. I’ve got butter and proper Port Salut too.
In the evenings I’ve been working on my crochet jumper: the back, front and half the first sleeve are done. I chose the pattern as it reminded me of a jumper I loved when I was at uni – the link to the pattern is in the Insta post below.
Dinner times have been a chaos of conversation, as usual when we get together. I think Thing 3 will be quite relieved to get back to normal!
And now it’s back to normal service – kids are back to school on Monday, I’ll be back in the office and I’ll have to think about what to feed people again. I’ve missed Thing 1 and my Beloved, of course, and I think I’ve missed being woken at 5am by starving felines!
Same time next week…
Kirsty x
What I’ve been reading:
Lost Man of Bombay/The Dying Day/City of Destruction/The Last Victim of the Monsoon Express – Vaseem Khan
What Kirsty did next 