119: fifty before fifty

Today it’s my birthday and I have reached the grand old age of 49. Most of me still works, after a fashion and in the case of my knees with a considerable amount of grumbling. The hair is probably a bit greyer under the various purple and red hues I apply to it, there’s a few more laugh lines and it takes longer for the sleep crease by my nose to disappear of a morning. I spoke to someone the other week on her 49th birthday and she’d made a list of 50 things to do before 50. One of them was to do a cold water swim minus the wetsuit, and I said I’d do that one with her, but 50 things in a year is an awful lot. That’s nearly one a week!

Rest assured, dear readers, I will not be making a list of things to do before I am 50 – well, I will inevitably be making innumerable lists before I am 50 but they will be things like:

make vet appointments for cats
order repeat prescriptions
find your glasses
don’t forget your lunch
tidy the shed

and other such prosaic things. I do not think those things would be on a bucket-list affair. Those probably have things like hot air balloons, sky dives, skipping up Mount Everest. Things that take a lot of organising.

I would like to:

swim in the sea
swim in a river!
make a dent in the shelf of shame
walk the Essex Way but not all at once – over a few weekends with friends would be my plan
hike up Yr Wyddfa
visit the rest of the Magnificent Seven cemeteries (four down, three to go)
tidy the shed (it has to be done.)

That’s seven, then – so lots of room for ideas.

I have celebrated so far with a relaxed barbecue in the back garden yesterday and I have been for a swim this morning with some friends. My gift from my beloved is a new second-hand shed that we collected the other day, which needed repainting, some patching with new planks, and general TLC. It’s now in its new home in the garden, waiting for me to hoover out the cobwebs and fill it with things, which means the original shed will have enough space to work in! What was lovely when we went to collect the shed was seeing the original owner’s daughter zipping round the garden on a bike that belonged to eldest stepdaughter originally, which we’d given away in lockdown – reduce, reuse, recycle in action! Literally, in this case.

London sister gave me an excellent Tilley hat for adventuring in (to go with the adventure pants) and broached the idea of doing an ultramarathon next year…apparently one isn’t actually expected to run the thing, and I love a good walk, so why not….

Other things making me happy this week:

finishing the stashbusting Summer Night shawl
starting the Satuko shawl in a gorgeous yellow colourway
evening swim on Thursday
the museum’s 150th birthday celebrations
the end of Thing 1’s GCSEs
new haircut
walking through sunny fields

Things making me really f*cking angry this week:

The Supreme Court of the United States. Welcome to the old world order: backstreet abortions, maternal mortality rates shooting up, desperate actions by desperate women who for whatever reason (and those reasons are f*ck all to do with a bunch of conservative men and one traitor to her sex) can’t carry a baby to term, don’t want to have a baby, aren’t ready for a baby, whose lives will be put at risk by pregnancy, who have been raped. Women who cannot afford a baby, let alone the hospital bills for having the baby in the first place.

This is not about babies or children and the right to life: if that was the case they’d do a lot more about gun ownership. Only weeks ago the same court struck down a New York state law requiring people to prove they have ‘proper cause’ to carry a concealed weapon. This, in a country where gun violence has overtaken motor vehicle crashes as the leading cause of death among children and adolescents.

This is not about babies. This is not about children.

This is about power, who holds it and who doesn’t.

It ain’t women, and it ain’t kids. Guess who’s left.

Rant over, at least on here.

Kirsty x

The Sacred Bridge – Anne Hillerman

The Broken Cage – Sarah Painter

Ingathering: The Complete People Stories – Zenna Henderson

104: Happy second birthday, WKDN!

Well, here we are with post 104 and that means I’ve been knocking these weekly rambles out for a whole two years.

And what an odd two years they have been. I have just looked back at week one, where I made a list of projects I was going to finish and some of them did get done, but several didn’t. Let’s mark them as ongoing (all the best action lists do this) and move on to the next item. We are still in the grip of Covid-19, despite the prime idiot’s best efforts to convince us otherwise by throwing parties and stuff: once again, this week more of my friends and family have tested positive at the same time than at any other point. It’s the second time round for one friend’s daughter, and the first time was less than six weeks ago. The tube is ridiculously busy and so many people aren’t wearing masks (I forgot mine a week ago and felt quite reckless, but after the person I was with tested positive two days later I have remembered it every day). It almost feels as if Covid is ‘soooo 2021’ and now we have to get on with worrying about nuclear buttons and Putin’s ‘special military operations’ instead.

This week I worked at an awards event – a black tie do, hosted by the fabulous Robert Llewellyn (aka Kryten from Red Dwarf). He was very professional and a thoroughly nice chap, and I got to be a glamorous assistant and hand awards to the presenting sponsors as they came up to announce the winners. One of the speakers has since tested positive for Covid, so I am still testing daily as I’m out and about in schools a lot at the moment and I don’t really want to be the one that carries it back in with me! I wore a red velvet M&S dress that I had grabbed in a charity shop without even trying it on as the last time I had to dress up was for this same event in 2019, and – quite honestly – who still fits into anything from back then?? Luckily it fit like a dream, and for £6.50 it was definitely worth it.

I finally got home at just before 1am, in a cab with a lovely driver who talked to me all the way home which meant I at least stayed awake! Back in London for teaching the next morning, I was so tired that I had a proper senior moment with my brain on autopilot: I got off the DLR three stops early, and had to get on a bus to get to the school I was working at. The sessions – Imagine This, delivered by artist, writer, facilitator and all round fabulous person Julia Deering – were a good way to spend a morning. Designed to get kids thinking about set and costume design, they are an explosion of colour and imagination with the end result of amazing jungles, ice caves, castles, restaurants, game worlds and seasides peopled by heroes, magical characters and (on this occasion) Sonic the Hedgehog. I’m back at the school this week with the ‘Think Small’ session. I always think you get the measure of a school as you walk through the door, and this one is so welcoming and friendly. The pupils are confident and happy, and keen to share their ideas – we’ve really enjoyed spending time with them. I was at another school in the afternoon to cover a coding club session, and somehow I made it back home without falling asleep anywhere – two days later I’m still shattered, though I did make it out to swimming this morning and for a walk yesterday. If anything has proved I can no longer party like it’s my birthday, it’s a midweek late night….

The #8 bus to Bethnal Green, looking surprised I was still awake

And that’s been week 104 – here’s to year 3 and more weekly rambles through the life of a middle aged muddle.

Same time next week then, gang!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Influential Magic – Deanna Chase

The Mangle Street Murders – M.R.C. Kasasian

Children of the Revolution – Peter Robinson

Doctor Who: Tenth Doctor Novels vol 3 (Audible)

98: don’t have the baby tonight, I’m on my second pear Cosmo…

…so said my friend K 11 years ago this week, as she was lined up to babysit when Thing 3 decided to make an appearance. Ha, I said, nothing’s happening tonight, not even a twinge.

An hour later my waters broke, contractions were already well advanced and my sister was on her way over to relieve K. Thing 3, The Boy, my surprise baby arrived three hours later – four days early.

If you were to ask me how I felt during that pregnancy the answer would be – then and now – ‘worried’. How would we afford a third baby? We had decided we’d stop after Thing 2 but by the time the letter arrived from the hospital to tell my beloved to make an appointment it was too late. We’d just got back from a week in France with my parents, and we’d had to stop six times between Calais and Caen for me to have a wee – my period wasn’t due for another two weeks so it was too early to test, but I knew. I was almost 37, working full time and with a three year old and a one year old already. The positive test result was not a surprise.

I was on antidepressants, so they got me off those. The 12 week scan was normal but the blood tests came back with high risk of Downs Syndrome, so I had CVS testing which came back with good news but also the news that this little pudding was going to be a boy – which really was a surprise, after his daddy had produced four girls. I refused to believe it completely until he arrived! I was referred to a consultant – despite being ludicrously healthy, with no problems in my previous two pregnancies. Each time I saw the consultant or his registrar I asked why I was seeing them and got a different answer every month – none of which were very helpful and I never saw the same person twice. They kept sending me for scans which were all normal, they decided to send me for the blood glucose test much later than they should have done (also normal), and the only result was that I became more and more worried. At 36 weeks I got cross and demanded that I was signed off by the consultant as otherwise I wouldn’t be able to have the baby in the birthing centre (as it happened he was a labour ward baby as they were so busy that night – we were the last ones in before they closed the ward to new arrivals).

He was probably the easiest of all three of the Things – apart from not sleeping anywhere but on me at night for his first few days which meant I got no sleep at all. I think this is often the case for third babies as they basically have to drag themselves up. I probably enjoyed his babyhood more because I didn’t get post-natal depression this time round, and he went onto a bottle at 12 weeks as I couldn’t keep up with his feeding.

And now he’s 11, went off to his first Scout camp yesterday (OK, his dad went to get him at 11pm as he was homesick for the cats apparently) and is off to secondary school in September. No more school runs (I have only really done these on a regular basis since lockdown so the novelty has yet to wear off!) where I have to brace myself for a hug as he launches across the playground at me. He’s nearly as tall as me now, with longer hair and a nice line in snark – can’t think where he gets that from. He’s still my baby though.

In other news….

This week I made a dragon (called George) as a prop for our D&D game, and started this year’s temperature tracker. I’m using this Rainbow Galaxy pattern by Climbing Goat Designs for 2022.

I’m also working on the Neon Pikachu (still), yet more pigs in blankets, and another unicorn… work truly is the curse of the crafty classes.

But first, the ironing!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Something to Hide- Elizabeth George

Self-help for the Bleak – Rich Hall

1979 – Val McDermid

Doctor Who: The Ninth Doctor Novels (Audible)

Running Tracks – Rob Deering

66: happy birthday to me!

Yesterday was my 48th birthday, and among the presents I requested from the various people who asked was an Ordnance Survey map of Chelmsford and the Rodings, and one of their Pathfinder books of circular walks. I bought another map (Chelmsford, Harlow and Bishops Stortford) with one of the Amazon vouchers I was given as well. Those of you who have ever been anywhere with me and experienced my sense of direction might wonder a bit at this, of course, as I am the adult who once got so hopelessly lost in Sainsburys in Whitechapel that I handed myself in at Customer Services and waited to be collected. I am also regularly flummoxed by Google maps on my phone: it’s all very well showing me where I am, but it still takes a few false starts, watching the direction the arrows are moving when I walk, to work out the direction of travel.

Still, you all know I love a good walk, so my thinking is that with the aid of these maps I can explore a bit more of my local area. North Weald sits on the border of both these maps, rather than conveniently in the middle, hence needing two of them.

I have a vague plan that for my 50th birthday I will walk the whole of the Essex Way over a series of weekends, in the company of whoever I can persuade to do various stretches with me. I have a couple of years to plan this adventure, fortunately! I have done some of the local stretches on training walks, and I am keen to do the rest. If I was the sort of hardy hiking person who could be bothered to carry lots of equipment on my back I might do it all at once, but that’s never going to happen!

I like marking big birthdays. I haven’t worried about my age since I was 27 and I cried all day as I was so old. Back when I was still in infant school in Cardiff our class teacher, Mrs Price, asked us to work out how old we would in the year 2000, and 27 was the answer: it felt such a long way away, and such a vast age to a six year old, that I never forgot it. No other birthday has ever felt so traumatic!

My 30th was a mad evening out in London with friends, where we did the Jack the Ripper walk after a few drinks in All Bar One at Tower Hill (chosen as it was formerly the Mark Lane underground station, and I am nothing if not a nerd). My 40th was a barbecue in the back garden, with a ball pool for the kids and surrounded by friends. So I am planning an adventure for my 50th: it’s a big birthday, so I ought to celebrate it by doing something interesting with people I like. Volunteers for future weekends on the Essex Way welcome!

Other gifts included yarn, rhubarb and ginger gin and books: you all know me so well!

There has, of course, been other things in my week: my second Covid vaccine, so I am now fully 5G enabled or something (I don’t care if it causes me to pick up Radio Caroline, quite honestly, as long as it means I can see my parents and sisters). It was the monthly sunset/full moon swim, and this month the moon was up but covered in clouds so I still didn’t see it from the lake. There has been lots of making, but nothing I can share yet!

There has also been a lot of reading: a book that had me grabbed from the first page, and which would have kept me awake into the early hours to finish it if the battery on my Kindle hadn’t died. Once Upon a River, by Diane Setterfield, was one of those 99p Kindle deals that’s been lurking on the virtual shelf of shame since then. I finally got round to it this week. It’s one of the best books I have read for a very long time – if you haven’t run across it already, go and grab it. History, magic, mystery, the Thames: what else do you need?

And now I must head for Tesco, as the cupboard is mostly bare and the Horde need feeding! Same time next week?

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Once Upon a River – Diane Setterfield

Madame Burova/The Keeper of Lost Things/Queenie Malone’s Paradise Hotel – Ruth Hogan

Cider with Rosie – Laurie Lee (Audible)