235: red hot chillies and tiny hats

This week has seen the return of the crafty mojo after my worst craft stall ever at Copped Hall on bank holiday weekend – I sold two pairs of earrings all day, which tends to make you wonder why you’re bothering. Even the two tiny dachshund puppies I made friends with didn’t quite make up for it…it’s surprising how much impact one off day can have!

I pulled myself together enough to put in my application for a stall at Epping Christmas Market and went back to crocheting chilli peppers on the tube in the hope that the next stall will be more successful. An Italian lady who bought a pair of chilli pepper earrings told me that in Italy chilli peppers are hung up to ward off stop people gossiping about you and to bring good luck, and who doesn’t need that? Perhaps I should start hanging them over the stall.

This year’s decorations will probably not include pigs in blankets unless people ask me really nicely, but there may well be cats as Thing 2 has decided that’s what’s missing from my stall after scrutinising everyone else at the event. There will also be mince pies and mice, and probably penguins. Let’s see where they get me….

I’ve also been making a couple of cross stitch gifts but can’t share them till they’ve been handed over, so you’ll just have to wait.

Tiny twins in Sprite hats. Aren’t they adorable? Just don’t ask me which is which

And tiny baby hats in multiples of two using yarn from the stash, for Arlo and Bohdi, who I finally got to cuddle last Sunday after taking Thing 2 to the cinema to see Despicable Me 4 (we loved it). They are so, so small and so laidback, which I’m quite sure won’t last once they find their voices. We were entranced by the way they mirror each other’s movements. Thing 3 was terrified when we first handed him a baby but got quite relaxed after a while, while proud Grandad was his usual baby expert self. We know he’s proud as he accosted all the neighbours when TT1 popped round last Saturday with the words ‘Grandchildren! Look!’ which is positively effusive for him.

During the evening crafting sessions I’ve been binging the excellent Slow Horses, starring Gary Oldman and the ridiculously elegant Kristin Scott Thomas. I’ve so loved the books and was assured that the series was just as good, and – for once – it is. Hopefully Apple TV’s adaptation of Carl Hiaasen’s Bad Monkey will be just as good – the soundtrack of Tom Petty covers is a good start, as is the casting of Vince Vaughn. We’ve also been watching Brassic, a Sky programme which is very ‘it’s him! from that!’ and extremely funny with it. The hims and thats in this case are Joseph Gilgun from Preacher, and Ryan Sampson from Plebs, both of which we enjoyed.

Other things making me happy this week:

Fountain pens. I have the urge to write letters to people just to write with one. I feel I should be that person, and live with the misguided hope that perhaps a beautiful pen with real ink would miraculously render my atrocious handwriting legible.
Six month health checks for Teddy and Bailey, who do not need to be wrangled into the cat basket at serious risk to my wellbeing, and who are both very doing very well. Lulu, on the other hand, requires a pincer movement, two people and ideally steel gauntlets, full armour and a welding mask. Even then you should have the first aid kit handy.
Washing machine insurance. Mine apparently requires a new drum, a new PCB (whatever one of those is), a new seal and a new front.
Early morning coffee with Amanda.
Impending autumn, with chillier mornings and not melting on the tube.
Visiting the new Islington Museum ‘People of Islington’ exhibition, celebrating local artists and makers. They have a section of elm pipe from the New River which I’m quite jealous of. I wonder if they’d miss it?
The rather elegant cat below, who I met on my way home from Islington Museum. He was waiting impatiently for someone to come home and let him in.

And that’s it from me for the week – next weekend you can find me at the British Library’s ‘Marvellous Me‘ Family Day with illustrator Beth Suzanna making paper portraits. This is the last of our pop-ups for the summer and we’ll be alongside a whole lot of other excellent organisations so do come on down.

Same time next week then!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

The Skeleton Road/Out of Bounds/Broken Ground – Val McDermid

The Masquerades of Spring – Ben Aaronovitch

Murder at the Monastery – Rev. Richard Coles

That Mitchell and Webb Sound (Audible)

234: I thought we said Saturday

Some weeks it feels like the weekend is a long time coming. Other weeks you text your friend and say ‘still on for tomorrow?’, they come back with the title of this post and you realise it’s only Thursday and there’s still a day to go.

Not that it’s been a bad week – just long and quite productive, from chatting to the lovely Islington crowds at Angel Canal Festival on Sunday to writing a journal post about our play adventures over the summer, via a thought-provoking evaluation kick-off session, lots of spreadsheets and report writing, and the odd meeting or two.

Things Two and Three went back to school this week, and Thing 1 came back from a long weekend in Brighton and enrolled in year two of her T-level course. I am so over school now, and no longer feel the need to ensure they have new pencil cases and so on. Not because I’m a terrible parent but because they either lose them or don’t use them, preferring instead to use their blazer pockets, a random paper bag or something equally irritating at laundry time.

I, on the other hand, know the value (and joy! so much joy) of a new pencil case. I have many, including my sixth form pencil tin which has ‘Beware of the Spiders!’ on it. Today my pencil cases are scattered across project bags filled with notions and crochet hooks, or even occasionally with pencils. Every ‘Back to School’ display in WHSmiths or The Works or Hobbycraft is a temptation.

There is something magical and filled with potential about stationery: new notebooks, sharpened pencils, a rainbow of coloured pens. My favourite notebooks these days are the freebies from events and conferences with their smooth covers and elastic pen holders. For well-organised to-do lists you can’t beat a classic A4 refill pad separated into sections. And dotted and squared pages make me feel cool and creative. The V&A shop does a nice A5 hardback notebook with different sections, which feels solid and professional and classy. All my notebooks bristle with sticky markers within days, which give the illusion of organisation…

Of course, there’s also the fear of a blank page and of making a mistake on that beautiful clean page and therefore RUINING the whole book, but there we are. Perhaps this will be the notebook where you write your best essay or poem or story, or that is the pencil with which you will draw your best ever picture, or create the most magical doodle. You make a silent promise to the notebook or the new fountain pen (I love a fountain pen. I need a new one, I think) to always use your best handwriting and definitely never to tear scraps off the last page for shopping lists or bookmarks. The promise lasts at least until I make my first mistake, but it’s good while it lasts.

Things making me happy this week

Finishing the kantha-inspired bag
MANY baby cuddles on Saturday, starting with Twin 2 and moving on to The Oat (TM) over iced coffees at Gail’s…looking forward to snuggling Twin 1 tomorrow
Starting a new cross stitch small project
The Airborne Toxic Event’s new album
Fab lollies and avocados, but not at the same time
Finally starting to watch Slow Horses, which is so far living up to to the books and is filmed just round the corner from my office
Lulu Moggy coming through her bladder stone operation. She’s now feeling much better and is back to savaging small children

Today I am taking Thing 2 to the cinema for a mum and daughter day out – she offered to watch the new Beetlejuice film but I know she secretly wanted to see Despicable Me 4,m so that’s what we’re doing. There will be popcorn.

Same time next week, gang!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Smoke and Whispers/Why We Die – Mick Herron

We Are All Made Of Glue – Marina Lewycka

Four Seasons in Japan – Nick Bradley

The Skeleton Road – Val McDermid

233: this episode is brought to you by the letter B

How has it come to the end of August already? My sister is posting back to school photos of my small nephew as he heads off to his final year of primary school, Things 2 and 3 are informing me that they require bags and shoes and stuff, and I am hoping for an onslaught of schools bookings as we launch our first teacher newsletter featuring our shiny new sessions. If you happen to *be* a teacher, you can find them here.

It was also a short week, kicking off with the bank holiday. My Beloved has been gently nagging me about a HUGE and enthusiastic bramble which has been making inroads into my little patch of garden. I had noticed it, particularly as it was sending runners across the deck outside my shed in a very Sleeping Beauty’s castle fashion, but I was pretending it wasn’t there in hopes that the Blackberry Fairy would take it away. The bramble was also near the mysterious ‘ole that something has been excavating in the corner, so I grabbed a spade to put some of the earth back in the ‘ole to discourage whatever it is, some secateurs and gloves, and the green bin to put all the bits in.

The bramble was tough and invasive, and had sent very long runners out in a tentacular sort of way across quite a large chunk of my corner. Some of them were trying to take root themselves, striking out and forming their own independent thorny republics. It was a rather lengthier task than I expected, to say the least, and while I was doing it some bitey thing bit my leg twice, which made me quite thorny as well. I was talking to an NHS person a few weeks ago and she said that mosquitoes are very fond of O-positive blood – apparently we are universal donors for bitey bugs as well as people. This explains a lot. The bites were exceedingly itchy and swelled up to enormous proportions. This is why I do not do gardening.

The ‘ole, with a cameo from the bramble. Spot the bees.

The ‘ole was next. It appeared one day, and is too big for a rabbit or a rat, so we are wondering if a foxy is trying to take up residence. If so, he’d missed his chance and the ‘ole was surrounded by furry red-tailed bumble bees being very industrious. They are welcome to nest, but I did put quite a lot of earth back where it was supposed to be which they weren’t too happy about. Bees, eh?

Other things making me happy this week (mostly by not biting me)

Deciding what this year’s crochet Christmas decorations will be, starting with some very cute chilli peppers. Later versions did, of course, have eyes.
Catching up with my QB predecessor Kate and talking about rest (and cats and work!) over coffee at Bench
Taking Ian and Stacy from the V&A Academy around our new site and picking their vast brains about creative courses online and in real life
Gorgeous swim with Jill on Saturday morning
A mooch around the charity shops of Epping, scoring a couple of Marina Lewycka novels as I’m really enjoying the one I got from the library
The final day of our play project with families from The Parent House – joyous, chaotic, colourful, and a great way to introduce our local community to the site and find out what they want from us. The sun shone, Valentina is the undisputed Queen of the Snack, Thing 2 came along again, and we had an amazing day. The site has never been so colourful!
And last but not least, the arrival of A & B, aka Grandthings 3 & 4, thanks to TT1 Amy and her partner Callum. Can’t wait to meet them!

Today I can be found at Angel Canal Festival talking to people about the Centre, and hoping the thunderstorms hold off…

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading

The Good, The Bad and The Little Bit Stupid – Marina Lewycka

1983 – Tom Cox

The Covent Garden Ladies – Hallie Rubenhold

What You Are Looking For Is In The Library – Michiko Aoyama

Four Seasons in Japan – Nick Bradley

The Days Are Just Packed – Bill Watterson

232: lazing on a sunny afternoon

Last Sunday was sunny and warm and as my living room was full of teenagers and I was feeling crafty, I retreated to the garden shelter with my coffee, fabric hexies, paper templates, a glue stick, a book and an excellent playlist on Spotify. I had a lovely morning sticking things to other things and making pretty patterns until I ran out of glue and had to wait for the Amazon man to arrive.

In the meantime, I delved into the shed and found a fat quarter bundle of Makower quilting cottons in red, cream and gold and with the aid of my trusty rotary cutter cut out some diamonds using these Clover templates, with the germ of an idea for some star decorations in my head. Thing 2 joined me after her friends had gone home, bringing her book, and kept me company in the sun. She also had a go at making some hexie flowers using some orphan hexies that weren’t quite what I wanted for my project. (You can see her project if you click through on the Instagram post below), and walked both the cats on their harnesses. It was a really lovely afternoon, peaceful and creative and exactly what you want summer Sundays to be like.

My hexies are destined to become the sleeves of a Liliana jacket, and the rest will be made of a wine-red twill cotton. I decided a whole patchwork jacket would be a bit much but if I do the sleeves in hexies and add patch pockets (of course) it should work well. I’m considering adding cuffs in the twill fabric as well, to tie it back together. You can see the rough sleeve layout below, with a fade from navy through purple into red. If it works it’ll be great, if not I’ll look like some mad hippy…let’s see what happens! I need to decide what to line the sleeves with – twill might be too heavy, but I may have some lining fabric in the right colour in the shed.

Other things making me happy this week

An inspirational conversation with some MA students I met at the RCA in July. I’d offered to have a coffee and a chat with them, as they’re interested in participatory arts practice, and the 45 minutes I’d scheduled turned into 90.
Day 2 of the play co-design project – this week we went to Holland Park and had a great time in the adventure playground. This week’s illustrator was Joey Yu, and we had some new families and repeat families. We are very much looking forward to the final session this week! Thing 2 joined me for the day as well.
An evening swim with two new converts on Thursday evening. Many ducks and much putting the world to rights.
Thing 1 started her first job at the local pub. I am hoping for some transferable cooking skills.
Making the Named patterns Kielo dress in a paprika coloured jersey fabric which is way outside my usual wardrobe colours. I look like a carrot.
I finally remembered to take a photo of my current portable project. I had a long conversation with a nice old lady on the tube who was very interested in what I was up to. I love the colours in this one!
The new Tom Cox novel, 1983.

Today I’ll be hanging out in my little gazebo at the Copped Hall Open Day, touting my wares and carrying on putting those hexies together. Hopefully people will buy stuff, but if not I’ll have had a nice afternoon in the sun!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading

The Darkest Domain – Val McDermid

Honeycomb – Joanne M. Harris (Audible)

The Covent Garden Ladies – Hallie Rubenhold

Stray Cat Blues – Ben Aaronovitch etc

1983 – Tom Cox

Tackle! – Jilly Cooper. I keep reading these in case she’s regained her touch. She hasn’t. Please stop, Jilly. For all our sakes.

231: are you coming out to play?

Friday was the first day of our new community co-design project. You remember, the one that was giving me sleepless nights last week in case no one turned up or it rained all day or it was a total disaster, that sort of thing. I have form for this sort of thing – on one school trip all those years ago I managed to lose two children and a parent helper – so it’s not unreasonable to worry!

Luckily it all seemed to go very well – 18 people came along and we took 18 very similar people back to Islington so I am counting it as a win. The Panda coach turned up on time – one of the children was very excited, as they had apparently ALWAYS WANTED to go on a panda bus. I didn’t know Panda Buses were a thing, but there we are. A bonus point to me… Another child had never been on a coach before so the adventure started early for her! No one was sick and we had exactly the right amount of snacks for the day. Pom-bears were the most popular – Valentina, my colleague, hadn’t heard of them before, although my director says they go very well with red wine. We’re a cultured bunch, us.

The visit this week was to Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, where they have a children’s garden which explores in a very playful way all the things plants need to grow – sun, water, earth and air – in four zones. The idea of the project is to take local families to different playful green spaces (next week is Holland Park Adventure Playground) and then in the final week we’ll work with a play artist to construct models of play opportunities which will be shared with the architects and landscape designers to inspire our own new gardens. Each day is being live illustrated by illustrators, so we can see what families engage with most, and what captures their imagination. We also gave all the participants their own sketchbooks to record whatever they wanted, and one to a small girl who was fascinated by illustrator Grace Holliday’s sketching and was peering over her shoulder. We told her dad all about the Centre – no engagement is ever wasted!

Valentina and Grace met us at the entrance to the Gardens, having left me in charge of the bus journey, and we headed off to the Children’s Garden and Earth area where we found huge sandpits, slides like earthworms and wooden playhouses as well as logs and ropes to help people up a large mound. The younger children enjoyed the sand while the older ones (the group ranged from 5 – 16) enjoyed the sunshine. The second space was Water, where there were pumps and rivulets, with a paddling zone complete with stepping stones. Climbing structures were, again, more popular with all but the youngest children. The round structures you can see in the images above were in the Sun area next to Water, along with some huge eucalyptus trees and some very cheeky baby jackdaws. I loved the use of coloured perspex in the tunnel. Few people seemed to use this area, perhaps because it wasn’t obviously ‘playful’.

We liked the ‘rules of enjoyment’ scattered through the gardens as well as at the entrances – ‘Our trees are for hugging not climbing’; ‘Our plants are for smelling not picking or eating’ and others – offering alternatives to engagement rather than ‘don’ts’. There are clear paths to each area as well as stepping stone paths through flower beds to encourage exploration. They close the space for quiet sessions but the space overall didn’t feel as if it had been designed with accessibility in mind – there weren’t obvious alternatives to climbing frames or the paddling area for wheelchair users, for example, and I couldn’t find any information on the accessibility map on the website (which is also hard to read). I would have liked to have seen this information in a variety of easy to find formats on the website, particularly as we had at least two children with Austistic Spectrum diagnoses on the visit. Kew has a great facilitated community and access programme but for independent visits the information isn’t obviously available. I am happy to be corrected on this, of course, but this is the sort of information we know our visitors need to have.

We went to the Family Kitchen for lunch, where we provided children’s lunch boxes and pizzas for the grown ups. The toilets are sensibly located there too, and a playful handwashing station. Kew have also put a shop in there and an extremely expensive Hackney Gelato ice cream parlour, which I am quite sure a lot of parents could have done without, especially as entry to Kew isn’t cheap.

After lunch we went to the Air space, which was the most popular with our families – little trampolines sunk into the floor, rope swings, colourful windmills and a giant hammock, and lots of things (pollen, apparently) to jump from and on and over. Again, things to climb on were most popular – the Oak Circle, a huge oak tree ringed by a high level walkway, attracted all the children, while a bench ringing the tree provided some much needed seating and shade for us! Grace Holliday, our illustrator, captured so much movement and joy in this zone.

The usual herding of kittens through a final visit to the loos and retrieving them from the shop ensued, and then it was back on the bus to Islington through a lot of traffic which seemed to be Taylor Swift’s fault, at least according to the coach driver who had to battle back round to Harrow afterwards. I’m looking forward to the next adventure, and hopefully the families are too!

In other news…

Poor Lulu cat had to have a sleepover at the Royal Veterinary College this week, which meant a long car journey each way. She was at pains to tell us how unhappy she was about this, especially when speed bumps and potholes made their presence felt. We finally have a diagnosis though – she has not one but six bladder stones and an operation is needed to get rid of them as they aren’t the sort which can be zapped or dissolved. Thank heavens for insurance, which covered the £1548 cost of her stay. She now has bald patches on her legs, chest and belly and took a good 48 hours to forgive me.

Cat attempting to disappear

Thing 3 had his ingrown toenail operated on (and they did his other foot just in case). He was very brave and looked like a duck when he came home. No photos of this, though.

Things making me happy this week (aka ‘The Happy List’)

Thing 1 got an A in her first T-level exams – we are incredibly proud of her and her hard work after a rough year last year.
Thing 2 finally gave in and made me a lemon drizzle cake. It was excellent.
I put my quilt top together and stuck a lot of paper hexagons onto fabric hexagons, for which I have a cunning plan.
Making the Sew House Seven Wildwood dress. No photos, it needs to be on to look its best. I managed to get the skirt front backwards so it wraps the wrong way. Who knows how I did it, but there we are. It’s green.
Seeing the London Museum’s new logo make it into Private Eye‘s ‘Pseud’s Corner’ not once but twice….in the same issue. I love the Museum, having worked there for 12 years, but loathe the pigeon and ‘splat’
Three days off – some sewing, some sleeping, some KFC with Thing 1, some reading
The finale of The Umbrella Academy – such a good series, and great use of Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman. It made me want to rewatch DC Titans though.

And that’s it from me for the week – I must go and throw pizzas at teenagers in the hope of pacifying them. Thing 2 has three friends over for a sleepover – ‘sleep’ being a very relative term.

Same time next week then 🙂

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

The Covent Garden Ladies – Hallie Rubenhold

Honeycomb – Joanne M. Harris (Audible)

1989 – Val McDermid

The Full English – Stuart Maconie

The Last Voice You Hear – Mick Herron

230: there’s a nap for that

I like sleep. I’m a big fan of it, quite frankly, and am willing to embrace it at the drop of an eyelid. Lockdown was brilliant, as I was on furlough, it was really hot and I could have siestas in my hammock whenever I wanted. Weekends almost always include a good nap or two. At night I like to read a bit (until the book falls out of my hands, usually) and then snuggle down with whichever cat happens to be on hot water bottle duty until the alarm goes off.

The hot water bottle on International Cat Day this week

One of the most annoying bits about menopause – which was saying something, given the rest of the symptoms – was the constant waking up at stupid o’clock and not being able to go back to sleep, but the patches seem to have sorted that out. Sleeping with earplugs has also helped enormously. My Beloved claims that earplugs aren’t helping him as he can still hear me snoring, but he can always get his own.

However, so far no one has made a patch that reduces wakefulness due to stress (the first of our National Lottery Heritage Fund community co-design projects starts this week, and what if no one turns up? I haven’t booked the transport yet! Is the bus big enough? What if it’s a total disaster? What if no one comes to the last day which is the really important one? What have I forgotten? What if too many turn up for the bus who didn’t RSVP? Argh! ).

There isn’t a patch to deal with having an 18 year old daughter on the loose in London with her friends, either. Thing 1 has embraced raving and has been off to South London (of all places!) a few times since her birthday. I am not sure why I am more concerned with her going to Vauxhall or Lambeth than when she goes to Camden, but there we are. We give her the lecture every week: no sex, no drugs, no sausage rolls (on the basis that rock’n’roll is in short supply at raves, but there might well be a hot dog seller or a 24 hour Greggs to hand). She’s quite sensible, we think, and we know she’s got a getting home plan and she’s with her friend from the village, but STILL. It’s my job.

At this point my mother is cackling away in her little village in Gaul and muttering about karma. I see you, mother. Don’t deny it.

Things making me happy this week

A couple of evening walks with Thing 2 through the fields and woods between our village and the next. There were deer, we startled a badger on his dusk patrol up near the fishing lake, gorgeous waterlilies.
I say walk – my Achilles has been playing up so more of a hobble. Still, I made it to week 5 on the C25k before it went. However, this evening it went ‘pop’ which Google assures me is not a good sign.
A day at the Peel/Three Corners Street Party – bubbles, dogs to make friends with (including a puppy who’d never seen bubbles before and kept trying to catch them), a DJ playing excellent tunes, lots of people interested in our project.
Saturday with my gazebo, touting my wares at a local church fundraiser. Sold a few bits and bobs, talked to lots of nice people and cut out a lot of paper hexagons for an English Paper Piecing project while sitting in a pretty graveyard. I love a graveyard, as you know.
Hydrangeas flowering nicely thanks to no intervention from me
The prospect of a few days off and a new dress pattern.
Apple cakes using my mum’s recipe, making use of the windfalls in the garden.
Early doors walk with Jill on Friday, putting the world to rights and plotting dastardly deeds.
Progress on the kantha-inspired bag which I keep forgetting to take photos of.
Unputdownable books.

And that’s it from me – next week I’ll try and remember to take photos, as I’m off with a load of families to Kew Gardens. If they turn up. And if the bus is big enough.

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Still Life – Val McDermid

Joe Country/Down Cemetery Road – Mick Herron

The Diary of a Secret Tory MP – The Secret Tory MP

Honeycomb – Joanne M. Harris (Audible)

The Full English – Stuart Maconie

The Covent Garden Ladies – Hallie Rubenhold

Necropolis – Catharine Arnold

229: Alexa, tell me a joke about robots

It’s Saturday evening and I am surrounded by small children jumping on and off the sofa and my stool as we run through my repertoire of counting songs, from monkeys jumping on the bed to frogs sitting on a log. We’ve exhausted Alexa’s store of jokes (turns out she doesn’t know any jokes about Transformers, much to Grandthing 1’s disgust) and all her fart noises. She’s now ‘having a rest’ (aka ‘Granny turned off the microphone’) and the kids are being kittens. The garden’s full of the Things and the Timeshare Teenagers – or Timeshare Twentysomethings now – and their partners, and various of their friends have been drifting in and out over the day as we do ‘open door’ parenting. If they know there’s a welcome for them and all their friends in easy times, they know the door will always be open when things get tough.

Our little blended family is expanding at the moment, and it brings me much joy: TT1’s partner has a little girl the same age as GT1 (they’re the ones being cats) and the pair of them are very much looking forward to being big brother and sister to the twins when they arrive in a few weeks’ time. This little girl loves Lilo and Stitch, collects snails and has an endless imagination. She’s a water baby and spent all afternoon in the pool splashing about. Turns out Grannies always have enough love to go around, although I think we’re going to need a minibus for the next family day out.

Other things making me happy this week

Airconditioning on the Elizabeth Line. Especially when the Central Line is up to its old tricks again
Running – I’m up to week five on the couch to 5k plan and while the 8 minute blocks came as a shock to the system today I still enjoyed it!
A day at the Royal College of Art with a colleague talking to the MA Visual Communications students -one of them told me that my talk had helped him decide what he wanted to do next. It’s nice to be a good influence instead of a terrible warning sometimes.
Also, they have a nice fernery in the middle of the college, with huge tree ferns, and the roof terrace has a view of the Albert Hall
Some gorgeous and much needed evening swims with Sue and a lot of ducks
Slow stitching on a felt hoop – a Corinne Lapierre kit of toadstools and ferns – at home, and on the sari silk patchwork bag on the tube.
The film of Paul Gallico’s book Flowers for Mrs Harris – they didn’t ruin it, hurray!
Sourdough crumpets – thanks to London sister Tan for the recipe, which is a winner

Now I’d better go and sort out tomorrow’s batch of bread….

Same time next week then,

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

The Stones of Green Knowe – Lucy M.Boston

London Rules/Nobody Walks/Down Cemetery Road/Joe Country – Mick Herron

The Moonlight Market – Joanne Harris (Audible)

228: magic and moonlight

This week’s tube journeys have been accompanied by Joanne Harris’s latest novel, The Moonlight Market, which is being marketed as ‘Neverwhere meets Stardust‘ (the marketing team at her publishers are probably cursing themselves). I love both those books, and also am a huge fan of everything else by Joanne Harris, so that I was going to read this was a given.

But…it’s also set in London. London Below, London Before, London today – the London we see in front of us, the London that might be waiting for us down one of those intriguing little alleyways that the older parts of the City (and the city, I suppose) do so well, the London that might be there if you catch it in the corner of your eye. Clerkenwell and Farringdon have many of these, and I am easily distracted by the thought of magic and adventure.* I blame growing up with books where statues came to life in gardens; where forests grow in naughty children’s bedrooms and you can sail away to the land where the wild things are; where there was a permanently frosted world through the back of a wardrobe; and a house full of Civil War ghost children, ebony mice that come to life and lost jewels.

You might say London has enough stories to be going on with, without making up more, but one of the best things about a city with more than 2000 years of stories and people is that there will always be room for more. London, as Peter Ackroyd and Edward Rutherfurd have proved, is enough of a story in itself.

However, people do keep writing these stories, for which I am profoundly grateful. The Moonlight Market is a story about a London man who works in a camera shop on Caledonian Road (‘the Cally’, as it’s known locally) who falls suddenly, unexpectedly in love with a woman who is (of course) more than she seems. A photographer himself, he discovers that his negatives show things that can’t be seen in daylight, and his search for these places and people lead him to the Moonlight Market on a London Bridge that only exists on moonlit nights. Threaded through this is a fairytale about the doomed affair between the Moth King and the Butterfly Queen, and the resulting war between the Silken Folk of the day and night courts. Like her Chocolat series, magic exists and co-exists with the mundane world, and sometimes crosses over – all the best urban fantasy is filled with possibility, of course, and Harris’s books are filled with it.

If you love urban fantasy and London, here’s a few more worlds you can explore:

Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series
Mike Carey’s Felix Castor novels
Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere (I am extremely disappointed in recent revelations about him, but I still love this book)
Benedict Jacka’s Alex Verus series
Paul Cornell’s Shadow Police series
Christopher Fowler’s Bryant and May series
Sarah Painter’s Crow Investigations
Neil Blackmore’s Soho Blue (not magical, but worlds colliding and some of the most evocative writing about post-war London I’ve ever come across)

A good writer makes the setting as much a part of the story as the characters and the action. I first understood this when I did a module at uni called ‘The City in the American Mind’, which introduced me to Sara Paretsky’s Chicago through the eyes of V.I. Warshawski. I’d probably be terribly disappointed if I visited – in my head Vic’s office is in a classic noir setting in ‘the Loop’ , there’s vast tracts of post-industrial wasteland, and there’s a Great Lake smack in the middle. Similarly, Dave Robicheaux’s swampy, louche and lush Louisiana (James Lee Burke is the author here) would not live up to my visions, and if I go to San Francisco I want it to be in Armistead Maupin’s 1970s rather than today. Clearly I need a time-travelling Doctor….but again, that’s another story.

*This probably explains why I get lost a lot on the way back from meetings….if I walk down there, surely it will lead to there (it often doesn’t, but what possibility of magic and adventure would there be if I just walked straight down St John Street to the office?

Other things making me happy this week:

Coffee with Brian on his last day ever at Museum of London. Hashtag end of an era or something.
Trip with some of the team to the Tower Bridge Experience. Team now convinced I know people EVERYWHERE as one of the bridge hosts is a double-ex colleague from both MoL Docklands and V&A.
Finishing week four of C25K without injury. Crossing fingers, touching wood etc, and sticking everything together with RockTape.
Finishing a sashiko-stitched cat bag
Being able to sit in the garden and work surrounded by plants and sunshine. My Beloved’s new garden shelter is coming on well.
Taking the lovely Matt Shaw round the site in preparation for a new project, watched by this pretty fox.
Cinnamon buns for breakfast courtesy of Thing 2

Things making me fall about laughing this week:

The Museum of London’s new logo. Sorry, London Museum. I can see what you were thinking but sparkly guano and a discombobulated flying rat aren’t doing it for me.

Still, I spotted the model when I was out with the team at Tower Bridge:

Today I am off for a swim with Isla, and I might even make something. You never know….

Kirsty x

Cover image: Network Rail

What I’ve been reading:

The Life of a Scilly Sergeant – Colin Taylor

The Secret Hours – Mick Herron

The Children of Green Knowe/The River at Green Knowe/The Chimneys of Green Knowe/An Enemy at Green Knowe – Lucy M. Boston

The Moonlight Market – Joanne Harris (Audible)

227: Tasmanian Devil mode engaged

This week I am feeling a little more human – thank you to all the lovely people who reached out to me after last week’s post via Facebook, WhatsApp and so on. It was much appreciated. Thanks also to my Dad, who told me to get on a plane next time and he’d pick me up at the airport for some time off from responsibility. The thought is very tempting, especially on evenings like Thursday when I got home from work at about 8.30 having been to a leaving do and no one had bothered to cook.

I had a couple of days off this week, with the intention of relaxing – it’s probably an indicator of how bad a state I was that it was a real effort to slow down and not feel as if I HAD to finish everything I started. In retrospect, a nine-patch quilt wasn’t the best choice of lazy project. It lends itself to chain piecing for the patches, strips and blocks so you work almost on autopilot. I decided when the blocks were pieced together that I’d make it Quilt-As-You-Go rather than continue in automatic mode which meant some slower focus on keeping my stitching the ditch neat. You can see the quilted blocks here., and Bailey inspecting my work.

So that was the weekend and Monday. My brain was still in overdrive, so when on Tuesday I got up, put my table up and caught myself going into autopilot I made the conscious decision to slow down. So I put the table away, picked up my book and decided to have a lazy day instead. And it was lovely! I had a lunchtime nap, watched some Doctor Who with Thing 2, read my book and later in the day I did some cross stitch and caught up with the temperature tracker which had been sadly neglected since the end of April.

I wasn’t completely sane by the time I went back to the office on Thursday but I was definitely feeling the benefit of some time out. The quilt isn’t finished, but that’s OK – it’s not going anywhere and will still be there when I’m ready to work on it.

Things making me happy this week

Thing 2 becoming hooked on Doctor Who and asking for it to be put on in the evenings. We have just come to the end of David Tennant and Matt Smith has landed.
Having an 18 year daughter – where did the time go?
Sunshine (until it got too hot)
Dinner with London sister and Cardiff cousins on Saturday night
Making it to Week 4 on the Couch to 5k. Five minutes of running doesn’t sound like a lot….
Making business card holders for my lovely business cards. With pocketses!

Same time next week, dear readers! The ironing awaits and I have run out of trousers….

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Spook Street/This Is What Happened/The Secret Hours – Mick Herron

Hot Water – Christopher Fowler

Down Under – Bill Bryson (Audible)

226: a visit from the hound

Full disclosure: this is not a post about actual dogs. Sorry. Especially to my cousin who really, really likes dogs.

It became increasingly obvious by the end of last week that I was in the middle of a fairly serious wobble, on a scale that I haven’t experienced for a while. I should probably have spotted it earlier in the week, when being in a room with people was too much, I was heading to bed at 8.30pm with a book to avoid the sensory overload of the TV, completely unable to concentrate at work and going round and round one piece of work that I just couldn’t get past, and seriously contemplating calling in sick and sitting in silence all day.

When I am on a downward spiral I have a tendency to make questionable decisions and while in my head I know that I should refrain from making them, that same head is the one causing the problem in the first place so those filters are not necessarily in place. At one point I even gave in and had a rest in the office on the giant beanbag (this is a thing! We are allowed to do this!) because I couldn’t keep going. I tried taking an afternoon off on the Friday but spent most of it waiting outside a lock-up to drop off our festival kit, as the person who was supposed to be there to meet me wasn’t, so that didn’t work. My Saturday was taken up with an extended family barbecue which meant I had to be sociable – not that I don’t love them all but I just didn’t have the capacity for it. Sunday was Cally Road Festival so I had to be extrovert all day when my entire being was fighting it…

Even a good long stomp through the fields on Monday morning in a ‘forced restart’ attempt didn’t help: I couldn’t hit my pace and felt like I was wading through treacle physically as well as mentally. The paths were sticky and swampy after several days of torrential rain, and the final straw was stepping on a tussock of grass which turned out to be disguising an ankle deep puddle.

When you’re (allegedly) a functioning adult with a responsible job and a family and several cats and a never-ending pile of laundry, you don’t feel you have luxury of giving in to a wobble – which means that you add denial to the load you’re carrying. Twenty plus years of dealing with depression should have taught me that this is a tactic which never works – a breakdown isn’t like a Teams meeting that you can schedule in between another couple of meetings, and unlike a piece of work you can’t block out a day in the diary to get it out of the way. I described it to a colleague as feeling like I was juggling axes and someone had just thrown me a chainsaw.

As the official office Mental Health First Aider (with a certificate to prove it!), if anyone came to me and said they were feeling like this I’d have taken them off for a cup of tea and a chat, helped them speak to their line manager, signposted all the things we have in place to support them, and probably encouraged them to take a few days off to rest. As the person having a mental health crisis this week, I forgot to do this for myself…there is an MH First Responder as well, but I forgot that in the moment and also she’d have had to refer me back to me….

Depression is also a terrible liar and tells you that you’re being silly and making a fuss and you’ll just be bothering people if you go and tell them how you’re feeling….so you don’t.

I am very lucky in that our organisation is inclusive and open and run by people who actually want you to thrive, rather than others I have worked in where you felt were dispensable as there would always be a stream of people waiting to work there. I felt confident enough on the Friday to say to my boss that I was struggling (probably so that she could sense-check my questionable decisions) and she checked back in with me on the Monday morning to see how I was doing and to work with me to put a plan in place for the week – an extra day at home if I needed it, time to rest etc. I think I am coming out of the other side now, and have booked a couple of days of me-time this week (plan: read books, turn fabric into other things, sleep). I think (I hope) that I am past the days when the first thing you do every morning is wonder whether this is going to be a good day or a bad one (now I just wonder which bit of me is going to ache most) but it was an unpleasant reminder that every so often the Black Dog can still put his paws on my shoulders.

Things making me happy this week

An England football game that wasn’t 119 minutes of tedium (including extra time) with 90 seconds of excitement. I miss Gareth Southgate’s waistcoats. I like Gareth Southgate and would like him to win the Euros except for the fact that if this happened English fans would bang on about it for the next 60 years.
Things 2 & 3’s sports day on Friday. I loathed sports day as a pupil, detested it as a teacher and hated it as a parent but felt guilty if I missed it even though there are two parents in this household. Now they are in secondary school I don’t have to go and I don’t have to feel a single SMIDGE of guilt about it.
New business cards which means I have an excellent excuse to make a new business card holder, which my Beloved thinks is unnecessary but what does he know?
Handing over the community part of my job to our lovely new Community Partnerships Producer
Thing 1’s brownies and Thing 2’s S’more Cookies
Getting a date for Thing 3’s foot surgery that’s not months and months away – don’t panic Mother, it’s an ingrown toenail
Not having to work this weekend and a lovely swim in a weedless lake with Sue and Rachel on Saturday morning
Discovering a quilting technique – Kawandi – I haven’t tried yet but which looks like fun.

Today I get to spend some time with GrandThing 1 while my Beloved helps Timeshare Teen 1 move house before GTs 3 and 4 arrive, and I’m looking forward to my time off! Thing 1 is 18 on Monday so I must also make a cake and wonder how that happened….

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Going Rogue – Janet Evanovich

The Secret Hours – Mick Herron

The New Iberia Blues – James Lee Burke

Down Under – Bill Bryson (Audible)