248: festive fatalism sets in

I had my hair cut on Saturday afternoon and during the usual chat the stylist said she wished she was as chilled out as me about Christmas. Anyone who knows me knows that at this stage in the festive month it’s less about being chilled out and more about fatalism: whatever I do or don’t do, it’s going to happen anyway so I might as well give in. The outside lights are finally up so we are longer the sole dark corner of our little Essex street, and the shopping is all done bar the food and the presents actually being delivered to my house to wrap and then cart over to Ealing to hand to my sister next weekend. Thing 2 and I braved Harlow today, which was exactly as horrible as I expected it to be, so stocking presents are also sorted. (T2: Do you want me to come in Superdrug with you Mum? Me: It’s up to you – do you want the magic of Christmas ruined or not?) There were people singing carols, a tree walking about the place, a talking postbox that must have been driving the Trespass team to unprecedented levels of fury, a crammed Santa’s grotto filled with frazzled parents and WAY too many people.

The trip to Harlow was also to go to the cinema to see Paddington in Peru and to get her very belated birthday ear piercing. This was her first needle piercing and the lady said she was the best fainter ever – I was less impressed, as I had to catch her before she hit the floor. I manoeuvred her onto the bench, but it was a close call!

Paddington was enchanting, with Olivia Colman as a not-suspicious-at-all nun, Antonio Banderas as a lot of people, and the usual stellar support from an A-list of British actors. Julie Walters as Mrs Bird gets a bit more airtime in this instalment, Sally Hawkins was missed as Mrs Brown (Emily Mortimer is just a bit too mumsy) and the return of Phoenix Buchanan was worth waiting around for. Considering the time of year there were no trailers that really jumped out at us for our next outing, but I suppose Moana 2 is already out there. (As an aside, my Beloved is watching the new version of Ben-Hur – honestly, doesn’t he know that biblical epics are for Easter??)

We’ve been hitting the Christmas watching quite hard this week too, with Violent Night and Elf making the cut, as well as a nostalgic treat with the BBC showing the Box of Delights for the 40th anniversary (ouch). The special effects and language are a bit dated but the story remains magical. I looked up the book on Amazon as I don’t think I have ever read it and, lo and behold, the most recent version is illustrated by none other than Quentin Blake…

…whose Box of Treasures is also available on iPlayer – a series of animated versions of his picture books. The two latest instalments, Angel Pavement and Loveykins are now out, and to tie in with this our team at work have been working with BBC Teach to develop a Live Lesson for Key Stage 2 based on Zagazoo, another of the treasures. These live lessons are great, supporting the curriculum and complete with downloadable resources. They’re completely free and remain online afterwards for teachers (and home educators and so on) to use, and you can watch it online from 9am on the 17th or ‘live’ and interactive at 11am. How was that for a brilliant segue?

Other things making me happy this week:

An impromptu team lunch on Monday which left me craving a jacket potato with cheese.
Coffee with Amanda
Taking my little family out to dinner on Friday
A lovely community event making festive gifts in Holborn
My Christmas Spotify playlist

Today I’m off for a chilly swim with the woolly hat gang, a trip to Tesco to do the Christmas food shop and some baking later on. Even though we’re off to TT1’s for the big day the kids were horrified that they wouldn’t get a Christmas dinner at home so guess what I’ll be up to on Boxing Day?

Same time next week, unless the interminable drizzle has washed us all away…

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

One For The Money – Janet Evanovich

Hogfather – Terry Pratchett (Audible – both versions!)

A Child’s Christmas in Wales/Under Milk Wood – Dylan Thomas (Audible)

Midnight at Malabar House – Vaseem Khan

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

76: back to school

Normal service resumes after the last couple of weeks! It’s September after all, with the new school year kicking off: new shoes, new bits of uniform ordered if not actually delivered thanks to the shipping delays, driver strikes and shortages that definitely aren’t anything to do with Brexit, good heavens no, timetables downloaded, last minute coursework that Thing 1 assured me all summer she’d done, and so on.

Last weekend I braved Westfield (is it only me that feels the need to shout ‘Westfield! in a bad Radio 1 DJ sort of way?) with Thing 2 in order to buy school shoes. She has very very wide feet (an I fitting) so I knew Harlow at the end of August really wasn’t going to provide what we needed. Instead we had a mum and daughter day out shopping. We also needed school trousers, as we haven’t been able to find the particular style she wants online – the Next ones came up like thick leggings, the George ones were too high waisted, the suggestion of the Banner or Trutex ones either earned me a withering look or weren’t in stock (ditto New Look, Very, Tu, Morrisons, Matalan – everywhere!).

Tim Westfield! Westwood. WestWOOD. Not field.

Thing 2 has been, from a very early age, a child who knows her own mind. In many ways this makes me proud. In other ways it makes me want to slug gin in my coffee and leave her to it. Despite Westfield’s (Westfield!) many shops, we failed to find either shoes or trousers so I ended up buying shoes we could both live with online and she can either alter her thinking about the kind of trousers she wants or wear skirts for the year. I too can be stubborn. We did have a lovely lunch at Wagamama followed by bubble tea for her, and she chose some new clothes at Primark and New Look as well as some bits and bobs from Flying Tiger. I bought some more notebooks – I do love some stationery!* I took her over to the less shiny side of Stratford too, as she wanted some baskets for her bedroom: after Westfield (etc) I think the old Stratford Centre came as a bit of a shock to the system. I used to shop there when I first lived in London as it was the closest place to Forest Gate. It hasn’t changed much, really, in the last 25 years. The planners tried to make it look pretty by installing shiny leaf sculptures (or possibly fish) in front of it in 2012 in case tourists happened to glance in that direction on their way to the Olympics, but it didn’t really help. I suspect some actual investment might have been a better idea, except that just didn’t happen, and what they were left with was an island of Poundlands and Shoe Zones.**

The ‘Stratford Shoal’ by Studio Egret West in 2012. It’s not so shiny now.

*as it turned out I did not need to buy notebooks as I came home with many many new notebooks from the Digital Accountancy Show I worked at later in the week. Ah well. Still, you never know when you’ll need a notebook. Or ten.

**I could go on about the regeneration of Stratford for 2012 at length, but I won’t because it makes me quite annoyed.

Making and doing

I had a few days to recover from the ordeal of shopping with Thing 2, so obviously this involved fabric and leaving pins all over the floor, crochet and cross stitch. After the challenge of making Irish sister’s 1920s skirt I gave in and bought the Japanese Haori and Hapi pattern from Folkwear that I have been ogling for several years. They are not cheap patterns, but come with wonderful histories of the garments and traditional detailing information. They are also adding more and more of their paper patterns to their PDF catalogue, which makes me happy indeed.

I used a gorgeous fabric from Kanvas Studio – Moonlit Lilypads from their Moonlight Serenade collection, and for the lining some tie-dyed cotton that was sold as a star print but when it arrived the print was distinctly…. herbal. The fabric is a one way print which the pattern isn’t suitable for but I rather like how its turned out despite that.

I made the Haori option – a lined, mid-thigh length jacket which comes up quite long on me. The pattern was occasionally a bit confusing to follow, with hand drawn illustrations, but as long as I took it slowly and did a lot of pinning and tacking it wasn’t too bad to construct. My hand sewing is shocking, so if I ever decide to enter the Sewing Bee I’ll have to work on that, and I cheated by machine stitching some of the bits I should have slip stitched but hey, I’m the one wearing it. I love the sleeves, and this is quite cosy to wear so I think it should get a lot of use.

Continuing the Japanese theme, I used some of the leftover koi fabric from making a Simple Sew Lottie blouse to make this Nori Kimono bag. I lined it with some ladybird print polycotton fabric that was an ebay purchase, and it’s had a compliment or two already. I haven’t worn the blouse yet! I love this fabric, it’s so colourful.

As ever I have been cross stitching and crocheting: the temperature tree is up to date, the Hobbit Hole is finished, the Build Your Own Beehive Shawl and the socks are ongoing, and I took a break to make a chicken sweater as one of my lovely colleagues adopted some commercial laying hens (not battery ones!). These are all the bits I haven’t shared with you in my last couple of sensible weeks.

The chicken-adopting colleague, myself and two others also visited Tate Modern to see their summer activity – drawing freely in the Turbine Hall as part of the Uniqlo Tate Play programme. The artwork is amazing and it was great fun adding our little bits to it! I really want to make something out of one of those banners!

The latest thing I have been up to is dabbling in Dungeons and Dragons for the first time in about three decades – I filled in for someone who couldn’t attend a regular game on Friday and managed not to kill his character off so hopefully I’ll be allowed back! The host (Dungeon Master) and his wife have a beautiful gaming table so dice trays are very much the order of the day – I played around with an online tutorial yesterday, and using things from in the craft shed I made a collapsible fabric one and another using a shadow box frame. I’d forgotten how horribly velvet frays so I shall have to do something about the edges but it was quite quick and fun to make.

It’s been a very productive few weeks, as you can see! I’ll see you all again for week 77…now I must go and do the ironing I have been putting off for months.

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Soul Music/Sourcery – Terry Pratchett

Thief of Time – Terry Pratchett (Audible)