Menopause is a hot topic at the moment, it seems. Companies are providing training sessions on menopause awareness, and there’s lots of research going on: how it affects women’s working lives, for example, and it’s even covered in some companies’ diversity training. In the interests of equality the company I work for are offering a male menopause awareness (it’s called andropause, apparently) later in the year. Apparently there’s more to it than fast cars and Grecian 2000 – who knew??
There’s checklists of symptoms (the old hot flash isn’t the half of it), there are charities dedicated to it and it seems to be everywhere – we’ve come a long way from delicate references to ‘the change’ or ‘her time of life’. About time too, in my opinion: it’s meant that in my annual performance review this year I was able to say to my lovely line manager that I’m experiencing symptoms and at times this is affecting work, and to have this concern logged in my record. I have a doctor’s appointment booked with a female GP (though this is apparently no guarantee of understanding) to talk HRT in a couple of weeks. Whether I can actually get my hands on any HRT is another matter entirely, as there are huge supply chain issues with it and women are being sent away empty handed by pharmacists. At least (I hope) I won’t be fobbed off with anti-depressants, as I already have those and can rule that out for them.
My main symptom at the moment*, and the one that’s making work difficult, is the brain fog: the memory problems and the inability to concentrate. I find myself in the middle of a sentence with no idea how I got there or where I was planning on going next: last week, while talking to a theatre company, I found myself making a circle in the air with my finger repeatedly, but with no idea why. A quick recap with colleagues suggested I might have been talking about the design process, but this is happening with increasing frequency – it’s hard to advocate for a project if you can’t remember what it is. Some days I work like a butterfly – landing on one thing, fluttering off for a bit, coming back to it. The kids know that it can take several minutes for my mind to process something and for me to respond. Luckily the theatre company is run by women ‘of a certain age’, as they say, and they were very good about it, but I can’t count on this all the time.
If I know in advance that I’m going to be asked to speak about something in a meeting I can script it, but I am starting to dread being asked ad hoc questions as there’s no guarantee I can formulate an answer or that my brain has kept up with the conversation. Things are slightly better if I can do something with my hands in a meeting, which is much easier when the meeting is online, but not everyone is keen on me bringing my crochet project with me. I do think if Amanda Spielman, head of OFSTED and one of our trustees, can get away with knitting through important meetings and since our mission is all about creativity and skills I should definitely be allowed.
So, it’s off to the doc for a chat for me, and hopefully I’ll be a new woman – or at least a woman that can finish a sentence.
I am under orders to ‘write something good’ this week, as instructed by a friend in a message yesterday. No pressure then! It’s early Sunday morning, I walked 15 miles yesterday, Thing 2’s alarm woke me up at 6am (no, I have no idea why she sets a 6am alarm either) and now I have to ‘write something good’. Ha!
This particular instruction came from an old friend from home. We used to drink in the same pubs, with excellent jukeboxes and good company, so it makes sense to write about music and memory this week. There’s a lot of science-y stuff around music therapy and the benefits of music for people with dementia and acquired brain injuries, but – making a rash generalisation here – the music we listened to as teens/young adults has the greatest power to cast us back in time. (Even Radio 3 agrees, so I must be right). Followers of my Facebook page will know that I have what I call my mental jukebox: when a song pops into your head and you can’t get rid of it. I don’t know what triggers the songs and refuse to take any responsibility for them (and sometimes they are extremely random). I just share them via YouTube. The playlist has been stuck in the seventies for a while, but I’m not complaining.
Here are the last three offerings from the mental jukebox:
I wasn’t born till 1973, but I know the Hammond track from a ‘Greatest hits of 1973′ CD that someone bought me for a birthday present once, and the Lightfoot track was covered by a band called Elwood in 2000. In the year 2000 I was living in London and listening to a lot of music – I’d always choose music over turning on the TV, even now. The research says that songs that were on in the background become the soundtrack to your lives.
Warren Zevon
I discovered Warren Zevon myself, as – other than Werewolves of London – he didn’t get a lot of airplay on mainstream radio. I always loved Werewolves and went off to find the rest of his back catalogue later. The instruction to ‘write something good’ came in a message chain that started with ‘I’m listening to Warren Zevon’. Zevon is a clever, funny lyricist: I love people who can play with words and write whole stories in a few lines of a song.
Later, when I started finding my own musical taste, I discovered Bruce Springsteen with the help of Born in the USA and then a babysitter who was a huge fan. He’s another person who can pour whole worlds into a song and over the course of a live show can take you from joy to tears. He’s been in my life for the last 35 years, and probably counts as the longest soundtrack ever. U2 are up there in my lifelong soundtrack too: The Joshua Tree led me into their back catalogue
I grew up on the Beach Boys, Simon and Garfunkel, John Denver (my mum’s all time favourite), Bill Haley and the Comets, Elvis Presley, Don Williams, Dr Hook and a host of country singers, Ray Stevens (thanks Dad), and those songs have the power to cast me back to long car journeys to West Wales and later to Spain for family holidays. These songs say summer to me: hot weather and the excitement of heading off for a couple of weeks on the beach. I can still sing along with most of them, and they always make me smile.
Often it’s individual songs that take you back in time. Bryan Adams’ Summer of ’69 takes me to a field in Tregare, The Violent Femmes’ Add it up to a dodgy student nightclub in Preston, Rage Against the Machines’ Killing in the Name to The Warehouse, Don McLean’s American Pie to the Griffin in Monmouth while Meatloaf’s Dead Ringer for Love means The Nag’s Head and playing pool in the back room. Green Day’s Basket Case whisks me off to a basement bar in Aberystwyth, Let it Go from the Frozen soundtrack to my sister’s car filled with kids, The Orb’s Little Fluffy Clouds means the Lake District to me.
Lloyd Cole and the Commotions are forever attached to my best friend, and I know that Dexys Midnight Runners Come on Eileen causes her to think of me – it’s the song that never fails to lift me out of any down moment. Joan Armatrading’s Drop the Pilot is another one. The Blues Brothers soundtrack makes me think of an old friend, as it was his favourite film. Robbie Robertson’s Somewhere Down The Crazy River is the Glen Trothy in Mitchel Troy. There are so many others that raise a wistful smile, or cause me to really really want a pint of cider and a cigarette, or to be in a car with the windows open and the volume up in the sunshine.
The lovely thing about music is that people just keep making it, and there’s always more to discover and add to your personal memory bank. Which songs take you back, and where to?
(Will that do, Nigel?)
Edit: I forgot to include Ocean Colour Scene’s The Day we Caught the Train and Frank Sinatra’s My Way, so a friend tells me – bringing the Durham Arms on Hackney Road back into sharp relief! Thanks Leddy 🙂
These boots are made for walking…
And so, luckily, were my trainers as my walking boots are now more than 20 years old and definitely on their way out.
Yesterday London sister found herself at a loose end so she headed over to Essex – I haven’t seen her since September, which is the longest time we have been apart since I was studying in Aberystwyth and she had just moved to London. She brought coffee and I brought cookies and we headed off up the hill to join the Essex Way at Toot Hill. The weather, despite a frosty start to the day, was perfect for walking – not too hot or cold, and gloriously sunny. We walked through to Ongar and back, with a rest stop at St Andrews Greensted, and plotted a longer walking break which we’ll hopefully manage in the next couple of months. I do love to walk, as you may have noticed, and I’m lucky to have some good footpaths in the area. We covered just over 10.5 miles along paths lined with blackthorn blossom and primroses, saw fish in the Cripsey Brook as well as a lot of bank erosion that must have happened over the winter, and met a friendly collie dog greeting walkers behind the church.
I’d already done a 4.5 miler in the morning, so I am more than a little creaky today! I slept well last night…
I have just had my breakfast – buttered Bara Brith warm from the oven, as my early wake up call meant that I could add the flour, egg and spices to the tea, sugar and fruit I left soaking last night and get the mix in the oven early. Usually I’d be taking it for a post-swimming treat but I have managed to double book myself today and have a life coaching session this morning. I have to think of a problem or question, but I think the problem is really that I am quite content at the moment! My Covid-19 jabs are booked at last, work is going quite well and I have enough time to read and make stuff. What’s not to be happy about?
Tunisian socks finished!
On that note I had better go and get myself organised for the day!
Kirsty x
PS – I forgot to share this V&A blog post the other week when it was finally published!
What I’ve been reading:
Angel’s Share/Rose’s Vintage – Kayte Nunn
Maskerade – Terry Pratchett
A Comedy of Terrors (Flavia Albia) – Lindsey Davis (Audible)
What Kirsty did next 