Category: General musings

190: remind me whose side we’re on again?

I must first start with an apology – it turns out I lied to you last week and I was not, in fact, refreshed and raring to go but rather coming down with a horrible cold which quite ruined the early half of the week. It was one of those colds where you can’t think straight, everything feels sort of achy and even your hair hurts. Not the best frame of mind for writing budget submissions, I think you’ll agree. My mind was so fuzzy that when I did a covid test in the office on Tuesday morning and the ‘C’ line came up, I freaked out, grabbed a mask and would have shot out of the door in the direction of home if my less-germy colleague hadn’t reminded me that the ‘C’ was for control and not Covid, and that I needed two lines for a positive test.

Still, by Wednesday I was almost human again which was just as well, as we launched our schools events for National Illustration Day with a CPD led by two of our illustrator-educators (Lily and Toya). They demonstrated the activities available in the free schools resources and some of the participants shared their work around celebrations: all the different things we celebrate that bring us together, human moments of contact and joy, as well as celebrating illustration itself. Now we’re planning the day itself – 24 November, for anyone who’d like to get involved. We have had some discussions this week about whether it’s appropriate to be celebrating anything, given what’s going on in the world, but our focus for schools was always on celebrating the fact that we are all different but celebrations bring us together…

…which, if I do say so myself, is a brilliant segue into Guy Fawkes Night and all its attendant celebrations: bonfires and fireworks and sparklers and lights in the darkness and things. Apparently we’re supposed to be celebrating the fact that Parliament and the King weren’t blown up. Personally, given the political omnishambles (I love this word) of the past fifteen years or so, I have developed more and more sympathy for Mr F and his co-conspirators. These days they may of course have contented themselves with a Change.org petition or a nice middle-class march from Hyde Park to Westminster with accompanying banners and memorable chants, but these probably won’t be being marked four centuries later with mass gatherings in muddy fields.

I love the whole family ritual of Bonfire Night, right down to that muddy field. Last night I volunteered to help at the local school and Scout group’s display, and ended up checking tickets on the gates. Seeing all the families arrive with the kids in snowsuits and earmuffs and wellies and bobble hats, all excited about the evening ahead, was lovely. People were coming through and telling us that this was where they’d been to school and it was the first time they’d been back in years, some of the teachers were there with their families, teenage couples were there on dates, multigenerational groups were out in force lugging grannies and grandads along for the fun. We were in competition with another, bigger display at the airfield, run by the local Round Table, so it was gratifying to see so many people.

The display was excellent and went on for ages with a satisfying mix of things that went bang and wheeeeee and fffzzzzz and pew and pop, making gorgeous showers of lights and sparks and causing ooohs and aahs from the crowd. Thing 2 (responsible for the videos above) was with her best friend, and they had a great time getting their shoes muddy. I walked home with them afterwards, with the pops and bangs of the airfield display and smaller garden versions echoing round the village. I shall look forward to next year!

Other things making me happy this week:

  • Asda only giving me 4 substitutions and 7 things they couldn’t provide – still double figures but at least they found some potatoes this time
  • A mooch round the charity shops of Bishops Stortford with my Beloved and Thing 2
  • A really interesting meeting at New River Head on Friday afternoon with two brick experts who work in historic building restoration and conservation
  • Not having to claim back all my tube journeys because of delays on the Central Line
  • Organising the office Secret Santa
This week’s Christmas decoration test

And that is it for me for another week – I have a day planned of crafting for Christmas markets (I’ll be at Epping Christmas Market on 2 December and Maple Walk School on 3 December), and still have a to-do list as I keep finding things I need to make!

Same time next week,

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Flip Back/Low Action/Attack and Decay – Andrew Cartmel (Audible)

Underground Overground – Andrew Martin

The Saki Megapack

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)

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 £25 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

178: Somewhere Down The Crazy River

I can’t say I’m overly impressed with the weather this week, to be quite honest with you all. It’s August and I have had to wear actual socks and actual shoes and think about whether to take an umbrella. And then it gets hot but it’s cold in the morning so I have to think about layers. It’s like being on holiday in Wales and having to be prepared for all eventualities, up to and including hurricanes, tornadoes and the Central Line.

July was cool, as can be seen in the temperature supernova update – last year was all hot reds and oranges; this year cool greens and yellows dominate. September will probably be tropical. Huh.

There have been many good things about the week, however:

  • Getting to go to a workshop at All Change Arts with Alaa Alsaraji, one of our Community Illustrators, and poet Rakaya Fetuga
  • Meeting the other Community Illustrators – Grace Holliday, Jhinuk Sarkar and Lily Ash Sakula to talk about their current projects
  • A creative meeting with storyteller Olivia Armstrong about a Quentin Blake inspired session
  • A new haircut
  • Barbie. I loved it. I really loved it. I may never listen to Matchbox Twenty in the same way again.
  • Getting round to making this pair of extremely dramatic self-drafted trousers from a tutorial by Tendai Murairwa in Simply Sewing magazine in a gorgeous teal and purple wax print fabric. I even made a toile for these to test the fit.

Jukebox hero

Robbie Robertson, ex-member of The Band, Dylan stalwart and solo musician died this week aged 80. I’m not going to pretend I’m a massive fan, but rather I’m someone who sings along when his songs come on the radio – apart from his first, eponymous, solo album which I love. Featuring collaborations with U2 and Peter Gabriel, among others, it yielded his biggest hit (this week’s title) and also the gorgeous Broken Arrow which Rod Stewart had more success with.

Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4471540

Somewhere Down The Crazy River was a fixture on the jukebox in a village pub I used to spend a lot of time in, usually selected by one particular person. A few times in your life, if you’re lucky, you meet someone who fills a space in your soul that you don’t even know exists. They are the folded beermat underneath your wobbly table leg (and there have been times when my tables were very wobbly, believe me); someone who gets you on your level. I’ve had several of these people in my life and I thank my stars every day for them. I lost touch with this one for 13 years but reached out (with a Blues Brothers birthday card) on his 40th and we remained in contact for the last couple of years of his life. I’d bought and written a card for him every year but never sent them until this one, and I will forever be glad I did. I still raise a glass every year on his birthday – yesterday would have been his 51st. Hopefully he spent it duetting with Robbie Robertson over a lager with a lot of lime.

Same time next week!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading

The Echo of Old Books/The Last of the Moon Girls â€“ Barbara Davis

Amongst Our Weapons/October Man – Ben Aaronovitch (Audible)

Paint Your Dragon – Tom Holt

The Mercenary River – Nick Higham (I keep dropping in and out of this one)

177: but I only want the little one

Yesterday was my Beloved’s birthday and so despite the rain we all trooped off to Toot Hill Show – once he had dragged the Things out of bed at noon, anyway. Toot Hill is a small village over the next hill, and they have a proper village show (this year is the 70th anniversary, in fact) complete with local handicrafts, home grown fruit and veg and flower displays like ‘three dahlias in a vase’. My friend Jill’s Victoria Sponge was highly commended – she’s been threatening to enter for several years now and there may have been a riot if she hadn’t got some kind of mention. I’d thought about entering the handicrafts section but forgot. I’ll remember next year. Probably.

I was very taken with the alpacas, but apparently they weren’t for sale. They make the weirdest noises – quite like a whinging teenager, come to think of it, but quieter. There were the usual motley crew of rescue ferrets and a fun dog show; a sheepdog demonstration and allegedly BMX riders but we missed them. In previous years there have been Indian Runner ducks being herded by the sheepdog, and the local hawk and owl sanctuary display, but Storm Antoni was making its presence felt.

My Beloved brought home enormous quantities of interesting cheese, and I did not bring home an alpaca. Not even the little one.

The rest of the day was spent taping and cutting pattern pieces out ready to add to fabric. I’m going through a dramatic trouser phase at the moment and at some point my beloved paper bag waist black ones from H&M are going to give up the ghost. Possibly I need to learn how to do that thing where you make a pattern from your existing clothes, but there just don’t seem to be enough hours in the day. I am off to see the Barbie film this morning and hope to get some sewing in this afternoon.

Other things making me happy this week

  • A trip up to see the future home of the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration – honey bees and butterflies galore thanks to the buddleia which abounds on site
  • A picnic lunch with Amanda – no cocktails or cemeteries but a ridiculously small dog to watch
  • Crochet cacti and a whole family of tiny mice
  • An interesting training session with Climate Museum UK
  • Discovering new ways to walk to and from the office, which revealed the Barbican entrance to Farringdon station

And now I’d better go and find something pink to wear, which Things 1 and 2 tell me is compulsory for Barbie watchers.

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

The White Hare/The Sea Gate – Jane Johnson

Odds and Gods/Paint Your Dragon – Tom Holt

The Hanging Tree/Lies Sleeping/False Value – Ben Aaronovitch (Audible)

The Echo of Old Books – Barbara Davis

176: a week of two halves

A somewhat misleading title but does lead nicely into one of my work visits this week, which saw me heading to north London for a visit to the Emirates Stadium. It’s not often a single meeting puts me within a hop and skip of the 10,000 daily steps target but this one did, with a whistle-stop tour taking in the changing rooms, the press conference room, the post-match interview bit (which looks a lot more glam on the telly, I can tell you – in reality it’s a corner under a concrete stairwell), the stands and various corporate spaces, as well as the pitch and the Hub.

Not shown: any football players changing

The Hub was what I was there to see, really: having spent 17 out of my 21 years in museums knocking about Tower Hamlets, I’m now being let loose on Islington as we’re embedding ourselves in the borough while we develop the new Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration at the old New River Head site. Islington isn’t somewhere I know very well, other than sneaky visits to drool over yarn I can’t afford at Loop and hanging out at the Crafts Council occasionally. Islington, in my head, is a literary thing: Douglas Adams and Nick Hornby, Charles and Carrie Pooter in middle-class Victorian Holloway. As it turns out, it is quite literary, but also full of actual people as well. Who knew! So I am on a bit of a mission to talk to a lot of them in the hope that we can work together.

As well as the Hub, I found myself at the Museum of the Order of St John this week, where I was enveloped in an enormous hug by lovely Maggie, an ex-colleague from Museum of Childhood. Coming as a nice surprise to someone instead of a terrible shock is a good thing! If you haven’t been to this little gem of a museum, it’s worth a visit: full of interesting medieval things and housed in a fascinating building, and they have a lovely family programme. Time it right and on the same day you could do The Charterhouse and wander through to St Bartholomew the Great, tucked away behind slabs of modern brick and concrete, and the Postman’s Park.

Between St Bartholomew the Great and Smithfield

Other things tucked away behind modern slabs in the area include Bleeding Heart Yard, where Amanda and I finally managed to go for our belated 50th birthday dinner – we’ve rearranged it twice when work got in the way, but it was worth the wait. We ate at the Bistro, sitting outside on their shaded terrace which was quiet on an early Tuesday evening. We chose the set menu: I had gravadlax of salmon, followed by wild Brixham seabass fillet and crème brulée, while Amanda had roasted beetroot, Chicken Paillard and chocolate delice. We shared fine green beans and pommes frites…and a side of fresh, warm madeleines which were wonderful. The friendly waiter didn’t even bat an eyelid when we asked for a side with our desserts, bless him. The Aperol Spritzes were perfect, too, and we laid off the wine as migraines are no fun at all, and that’s currently the result of even a small glass at the moment. Why prosecco doesn’t have the same effect is anyone’s guess, but I won’t complain.

Other things making me happy this week:

  • A conversation with illustrator/author and fellow South Walian Isabel Benavides who launches her first picture book in August and who is coming to do a family workshop for me at Finsbury Library
  • A 90-page conservation plan for the site which was full of fascinating information.
  • An early morning walk with Thing 3
  • Far too much crochet and my new Banks jumpsuit covered in otters. I sewed it on my Aunty Jo’s old Singer Samba sewing machine, freshly serviced and a dream to use.
Not jumping
Rear view
Covered button with otter
Shy cactus
Chrismouse
Catcus

Things making me sad this week:

The death of Sinead O’Connor, who I loved as a teenager. The Lion and the Cobra is a hugely powerful album. Hopefully, whatever the cause of death turns out to be, she’s found some peace now.

Same time next week!

Kirsty x

Cover image: “The Laurels”, “a nice six-roomed residence, not counting basement” – Drawing of “The Laurels”, the fictional home of the Pooter family. First published in The Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith. London, J.W. Arrowsmith 1892.

What I’ve been reading:

Heir of Uncertain Magic – Charlie N. Holmbury. Also started The Will and the Wilds but it was bloody awful so I stopped. Life is too short to read books you’re not enjoying.

Museum of Magic – Beth Revis

Odds and Gods – Tom Holt

Broken Homes/Foxglove Summer/The Furthest Station/The Hanging Tree – Ben Aaronovitch (Audible)

The White Hare – Jane Johnson