Tag: Brittany

285: quit bugging me

There are many things I like about summer but mosquitoes are not one of them. No matter how much go-away spray you use before you go out for a walk the little beasts always manage to find the single square centimetre you missed – the bit where your bra strap moved, or (as has happened to me a lot recently) they fly up your trouser legs and savage the backs of your knees. I’m sporting five on my arms and one on my neck at the moment. I’m sure they play a vital role in the ecosystem or something but if they could do it without nibbling me I’d appreciate it.

They are the price you pay when you’re staying by a river and want to go out bat hunting at dusk, however. After London sister Tan spotted a Daubenton’s Bat on a walk along the Blavet earlier this year we were quite keen to find some more. Although the weather has changed from summer heat to muggy drizzle, we’ve made it out a couple of evenings this week for a wander along the tow path.

It’s been magical – there will be a glimpse of one bat skimming along the river near the bank or zooming over your head, and then suddenly they’ll be everywhere – chasing each other in circles, divebombing the river or flitting in and out of the trees. We’ve found that the bridges are popular bat haunts, and we’ve stood for ages on the towpath by the road bridge watching them zip around on eye level with us catching insects. They’re so batty they look like toy bats – the sort of bat shapes that Laszlo turns into in What We Do In The Shadows or Count Dracula in Hotel Transylvania. The battiest bats, in fact.

Bonus points have been scored for the kingfishers catching a last few snacks before heading off into their holes for the night, an indignant heron who took off from the path in front of us, a muntjac deer watching us from the other side of the river before disappearing into the crop growing behind it. There’s a coypu couple who swim among the waterlilies near the bridge, chuntering away to themselves as they potter around doing whatever it is coypu do. The owls start muttering to each other shortly after the bats come out.

No sign of the hen harrier or the short-toed snake eagle so far, but there’s a week to go. The two cockerels who live on the same lane have been much in evidence, shouting at random times throughout the day, and the cherry tree outside Dad’s office window has been alive with long-tailed tits while I’ve been shortlisting job applications over three days this week. It’s great that so many people want to work with us but by Thursday afternoon my eyes were crossed and I was thoroughly fed up with AI generated introductory paragraphs. Still, I’m looking forward to meeting the interviewees.

Things making me happy this week

  • Not having to think about what to feed people for dinner
  • French bread and patisserie, especially my favourite religieuses
  • Time to do some fiddly crochet in the sunshine – these peas in pods are crocheted with perle thread and a 1mm hook. I’ve made some bigger ones as well, with friendly looking peas that pop out of their pods.
  • French supermarkets and their fruit and veg sections

Various family members are arriving today and it’ll be lovely to see them, and hopefully over the next week we’ll see more exciting wildlife (that we aren’t related to). I’m assuming my Things and my Beloved a) have noticed I’ve gone and b) are missing me at least a bit. Two of them have texted me with demands for money, so business as usual there.

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading

The Book of Doors/The Society of Unknowable Objects – Gareth Brown

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

Miss Percy’s Definitive Guide to the Restoration of Dragons – Quenby Olson

277: just a little off the leg please

As my children never tire of reminding me, I am not blessed with height. At very nearly 5’4″ to their 5’7″ and above (and rising) I am resigned to this. I am, as I tell them often, of average height, so – in the old days (ie before children) I used to be pretty confident that I could buy a pair of trousers or a skirt from H&M or New Look etc and they would be the right length. (The Office of National Statistics informs me that I have, in fact, been above average height until 2022. Ha!)

Something over the last twenty years has changed, however, and I know it’s not me because last time I was at the hospital I got measured with my shoes off by someone who knows what they’re doing. Now, any pair of ‘regular’ length trousers I buy needs a minimum of 12cm removed from the leg length before they are wearable, and I wear my trousers floor length as it is. This is the case across all retailers. When you google ‘changes in women’s clothing sizes’ a lot of results come back about vanity sizing but this more usually applies to bust and waist measurements. Even the fashion for wearing wide legs (also a favourite style of mine) with heels or flatforms doesn’t account for regular length trousers now covering my feet and flappping about like an illustration from The Shrinking of Treehorn. A midi dress is now almost ankle length, midaxis are loooong and maxis are a staircase accident waiting to happen. If miniskirts are truly a sign of a booming economy, I dread to think what hemlines are indicating right now.

So, this week I decided I’d try a ‘short’ size (from Tu) in the hope that this might solve the problem. Readers, it did not. The ‘short length’ linen trousers covered half my feet and the ‘cropped’ jeans were resting just under my ankles. ‘Muu-uum, that’s the right length for jeans,’ said Thing 1 as I wailed about this, until I pointed out that these were supposed to finish well above the ankle, at which point she reminded me that I was short and offered to take the jeans off my hands for me (no).

How do below-average-height people deal with this nonsense? I’m pretty handy with a sewing machine so can take my own trousers up, but – as I am average height – I shouldn’t have to, as ‘regular’ should surely mean that they take the average as the norm. What’s going on with people’s legs in the fashion industry’s mind?? Answers on a postcard to the usual address, and I’ll try not to trip over my trousers when I go to collect the post.

Things making me happy this week

  • A gorgeous swim at Guidel-Plage followed by an excellent lunch with the family. Just look at the colour of that sky.
  • Watching the swifts zooming around the French neighbour’s house, stopping in to feed the babies and zooming off again. Excellent entertainment while sipping rose spritzers, nibbling brie and baguettes with ancienne crisps. Also zooming around were Asian Yellow-legged Hornets, so now we know how to report them in France but luckily not in French. My French continues badly.
  • A fun morning meeting VI formers at Stoke Newington School’s careers event. The students were confident, friendly individuals who were being allowed to express themselves. Late students in reception were met with sympathy because of the heat, no detentions were being handed out and kids were helpful and welcoming. Some academy trusts could learn from this (not the one my kids go to!)
  • There’s a decorative section of the New River in Clissold Park over the road from SNS, complete with noisy coot chicks shouting at their mama.
  • A completely amazing day of rehearsing the new schools session before launch on Monday across several Islington schools. Props include umbrellas, masking tape, a lot of buckets, beads, ping pong balls, drainpipes, hi viz and a hard hat. My role was to pretend to be a seven year old and throw daft answers at the team to see what they’d do. At least, that’s what I was doing.
  • One of the actresses said Chris and I make an excellent double act – but then our first conversation about a zillion years ago encompassed ladies of negotiable affection, Doctor Who, shipworms, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, how to demonstrate the physics of the St Paul’s dome with a small trampoline, and we’ve just gone on from there.

Today marks the start of a few weeks of non-stop work, kicking off with the Cally Festival in Islington where we’ll be talking about the Centre, getting people excited about the project and highlighting one of our fabulous community projects. Last year it thundered and lightninged at Cally and we all had to cram under the gazebo, so let’s hope this year is dry as we only have a market stall.

Same time next week!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Blood Trail/Blood Price/Blood Banked/Blood Shot/Blood Lines – Tanya Huff

Shadowlands – Matthew Green

Greetings from Bury Park – Sarfraz Manzoor (Audible)

The Wild Life – John Lewis-Stempel

200: surprise!

Here we are at post number 200, which is quite a lot and probably I should look back at the last 200 weeks and be all marvelly at what I’ve achieved. 200 posts is what I have achieved, despite Covid, labyrinthitis, new jobs, children, and general life happening all at the same time. Thanks to all of you who have been with me since the beginning (hello Mum, hello Dad, hello Fi), and to everyone else who’s dipped into my ramblings, roamings and adventures with the sewing machine.

Anyway, this week I am coming at you from a cold but sunny Brittany, where London sister and brother-in-law and I rocked up on Friday evening to surprise my mum for her significant birthday. I can’t tell you how old she is as she may make me sleep in the garden. Dad had managed to keep the secret, even sneakily making up the beds, hiding the extra baguettes in his office and putting the fizz on ice without Mum noticing.

A snowy coffee
Winter fun in Le Shuttle terminal

Having left Ealing at 6am for a morning Eurotunnel crossing, we made good time across a snowy Normandy and a not-snowy Brittany – spotting the dozens of birds of prey, deer and trees full of mistletoe (at least while I wasn’t snoozing) and only running into a bit of traffic on the Rennes rocade where a combination of roadworks and rush hour conspired against us. At 7.10 Tan dropped me off at the bottom of the drive so Mum wouldn’t hear the car, and clutching the magazine featuring Irish sister Steph* I knocked on the door. Dad had apparently delayed their dinner as long as possible, so when the door went he said he hadn’t finished and made mum get up. She opened the door and stood and looked at me for about 30 seconds in total silence while her brain processed the fact that the daughter who was supposed to be in Essex was on her doorstep. And then I told her I’d hitched a lift with Tan and Darren…there were tears and hugs and much joy, as well as cursing Dad for being a sneaky so-and-so**.

On Friday Tan, Darren and I went for a walk along the Blavet to see if we could spot a coypu in the lagoon. We didn’t spot a coypu but we were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a kingfisher, a heron, a kestrel, any number of ducks, a buzzard and a cormorant in its favourite tree. It’s a canalised river which flows through to Lorient, and the towpath is popular for walking and running. Last winter we did a 10 miler along there with a total ascent of about 3 metres, which tells you how flat it is!

One of the great mysteries of French life is when the polite passing greeting changes from ‘bonjour‘ to ‘bonsoir‘ – if you open with bonsoir, you can guarantee that they’ll come back at you with bonjour, so mostly we’ve given up and just start there. Yesterday’s walk was no different. On the outward stretch we bonjoured away merrily until we’d almost reached our turnaround point. Tan bonjoured a French gentleman who responded with ‘Non! Bonsoir! Nuit est arrive!‘. When we met him again close to his turnround point in Pont-Augan, I bonsoired him….to which is his response was ‘trop bonsoir!’. Er, what…. had we bonsoired him too many times? Was it too evening, in which case was there a third option of ‘bonne nuit‘? Duolingo – or, indeed, Mr Morgan French (to distinguish him from any other Mr Morgans at the school)- never covered this clearly tricky aspect of the language. Is it some secret French thing designed to catch out the tourists? Answers on a carte postale to the usual address, s’il vous plait.

We are here till Monday, when we’ll make the marathon trek back across to Calais. By then I confidently expect to be approximately 75% baguette.

*Women’s Weekly, since you ask, in a feature all about her live interpretation business, Time Steps. Steph had promised to send her a copy….

**censored, for the delicate ears of my readership

Other things making me happy this week

  • A great meeting with Little Angel Theatre about where we could work together
  • Kicking off a new project with our illustrator Alaa Alsaraji and Holborn Community Association’s Digital Arts Club
  • A swim with Sue and Rachel – the temperatures are heading downwards to extreme sports levels again!
  • Getting organised for this year’s temperature tracker and starting a new Hydrangea blanket as well as mounting last year’s.

Same time next week, mes amis

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Midwinter of the Spirit/A Crown of Lights/The Cure of Souls/The Lamp of the Wicked – Phil Rickman

The Last Devil to Die– Richard Osman (Audible)

Map Addict– Mike Parker