173: and a bit

Or, things we know now that we didn’t know last week, by Gwrachod Ar Daith (witches on tour). Faithful readers will know that earlier this year we all signed up to do an ultramarathon to raise money for Parkinsons UK. The event was Race to the Stones, 100km along the Ridgeway from Lewknor in Oxfordshire to Avebury in Wiltshire.

We all finished it – not together, but I was only a few minutes behind the others – and over breakfast this morning we put together this handy guide for anyone else signing up to an event like this.

Before the event

Do the training.
No, really. Do all the training, no matter how often you run/do classes/other things. DO THE TRAINING.
Test your shoes and socks. Find what works for you. Your feet will thank you.
Train in the kit you’re wearing on the day. Test your fuelling. Race Day is not the day to experiment.

Three days to go:

No, you’re not coming down with Covid/flu/Bubonic Plague/the screaming lurgy. This is pre-race hypochondria.
Pack early so you can repack at least five times in consultation with your race buddies
A whole bag for your snacks is perfectly reasonable.
Carb load. Pasta or rice every day for a week? FINE.
You will question your life choices. A lot.

The day before:

Eat well. Hydrate. This is not the time for an Indian takeaway and a few pints of Cobra.
Get an early night, because you’re going to be awake very early.
Not all glamping sites are created equal. When they say ‘cooking facilities in each tent’ ask for details, because you don’t want to be messing with a fire pit at 5am. Also ask if ‘complete luxury’ includes bedding. Thank heavens we had our sleeping bags and pillows for the following night.

On the day:

Have that last wee. You won’t regret it.
Start with your team even if you know you won’t finish with them. Have a plan, find your pace and don’t feel you have to keep up. Enjoy it!
Even if you haven’t had a single blister in training you’ll get one on the day.
Use the walking poles and you won’t get sausage fingers.
Small children proffering Haribo are angels in disguise.
Weather happens. Slather on the suncream and bug spray, have the waterproof.
Talk to people. I had some great conversations, and it takes your mind off the distance.
Check in with people, say hi, make sure they’re ‘re ok. It’s an ultra and it’s hard mentally as well as physically.
Use all the pitstops, especially if there are piglets.
Eat ALL the snacks. Fill your bottles. See the medics if you need to but don’t sit down too long.
At some point everyone and (almost) everything will smell better than you.
Look up sometimes and see the scenery!
Just make it to the next stop: bite sized chunks!

Basecamp:

Shower, eat, sleep. Do not be tempted to party into the night, there’s another 50k tomorrow.
Earplugs are your friend. We used Loop ones. .
Eat breakfast.
Rehydrate. Keep warm.

Post-race:

Book a hotel.
Don’t sign up to next year on that wave of post-event euphoria.
Be really bloody proud of what you’ve achieved.
Eat ALL THE FOOD.

And now I need some food!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Alexandria/Nemesis – Lindsey Davies

Amongst Our Weapons/Rivers of London – Ben Aaronovitch (Audible)

Overboard – Sara Paretsky

171: swearing at the shrubbery

Anyone eavesdropping on the Essex Way yesterday afternoon would mostly have been listening to a stream of curses raining down on nettles, people who don’t maintain their footpaths (and in one case actually excavate it with no alternative route posted, although hopefully this is temporary and will reinforce the bank of the River Roding), spiky things that work their way into your socks, farmers who don’t pick up their hay after mowing, the humidity, brambles, cobwebs and more nettles.

Yes, it was our last long training walk before the big event in two weeks’ time, and in our slightly adapted training plan this meant 40k. For both sets of sisters – each with one marathon runner – this translated naturally to a nice round 26.2 miles (42.16k for those of us working in metric). The majority of the Essex Way between North Weald and Pepper’s Green near Chelmsford, where we turned round, is shadeless and cut through crop fields. The ground is so dry, as we’ve had virtually no rain for the best part of five weeks, that the the clay is more like crazy paving with chasms opening up and trapping unwary walking poles.

[brief interlude while I eat this amazing breakfast Tan has just handed me…]

The bits that aren’t cut through crop field are unusually overgrown this year – I’m used to them being well-trodden by dog walkers, but perhaps the heat is keeping them indoors this summer.

Still, we made it – we were lucky enough to see a small group of deer bounding through a field, and heard a lot of skylarks. The River Roding was populated by gorgeous dragonflies, and we saw a cheeky buzzard being chased off by an irate crow. The Willingale Village Day was in full swing as we came through, so we took advantage of their toilets for a quick stop – the PA was audible for a fair way, so we were soundtracked on the outward stretch by the egg and spoon race!

The walk ended up in Co-op, for the now traditional fizzy pop and Calippo fix. Today we’re doing a stretch of the Thames Path in west London for a short 25k, and then we taper before the big event!

To remind you all of why we’re doing this insane amount of walking… check out our page. My big birthday is tomorrow and it would be AMAZING to hit my personal fundraising target as part of that – I’m only £86 short at the moment. Thank you to everyone who has supported us so far – the conversations I’ve been having as I’ve training for this show how devastating a disease Parkinsons can be, and the impact it has on families as well as the sufferer is enormous.

An evening out with Thing 1

On Monday I dragged Thing 1 off with me to see Peter Gabriel at the O2, as he was touring for the first time in 10 years. She likes live music although didn’t really know any of his stuff, but kindly came along with me anyway. He may be 73 but is still putting on a good show!

The show came in at about two hours, with a good mix of the old and new including several from So. Thing 1 liked the faster songs like Digging in the Dirt and the new Panopticom. The first half ended with a high energy Sledgehammer. The usual trio of Tony Levin, Manu Katche and David Rhodes were in place, ably backed by a new touring band including composer, cellist and vocalist Ayana Witter-Johnson who took the Kate Bush parts on Don’t Give Up and harmonies on the lovely In Your Eyes. We missed Biko at the end as we wanted to avoid the tube crush on the Jubilee Line.

There were lots of musings on AI and the connected world, and great visuals – Gabriel is known for his partnerships with other artists and for this tour he’d gone to visual artists including Ai WeiWei and Cornelia Parker to create videos for new material. These are also available as he releases them on his website and YouTube each month with the phases of the moon – including dark side and light side mixes).

We had dinner at Italian Kitchen, which served up an excellent calzone for me and pizza for madam.

Other things making me happy this week…

An evening at the Charterhouse summer event with the work team
An afternoon at Epping Forest District Museum, seeing the Tiger Who Came To Tea exhibition and talking all things museum learning
A morning at the Museum of the Order of St John, including the crypt and the garden
Coffee with Amanda after paddling through torrential rain!
Cuddles with the grandchildren
Carb-loading with a lot of pasta

Right, I’d better go and get ready for the day!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Scandal Takes A Holiday/See Delphi and Die – Lindsey Davis

Back When We Were Grown-ups – Anne Tyler

Carpe Jugulum – Terry Pratchett (Audible)

The Sandman – Neil Gaiman (Audible)

The Mercenary River – Nick Higham

169: some sentences strung together

Nope, I’ve got nothing.

No, I tell a lie: I have an impressive set of mosquito bites, aching feet (but no blister, thanks to Tan’s latest tape discovery) and a massive pile of ironing that requires attention. What I don’t have is a blog post…

Yesterday Tan and I tackled a 32km walk starting and ending in Goring, which took in a section of the Ridgeway, a stretch of the Thames Path and a whole lot of very nice houses to look at. I under-fuelled and had a funny turn in the last 10k (lying in the grass was probably where the mossie bites came from). Kendal Mint Cake came to the rescue with one of their new electrolyte bars and I survived to do a much slower walk in the shady forest this morning. I also went for a dip in the lake this morning: no swimming occurred, but I really needed the cold water.

And now I am going for a nap.

See you next week.

Kirsty x

Ode to a Banker/The Body in the Bath House – Lindsey Davis

Maskerade – Terry Pratchett (Audible)

The Mercenary River – Nick Higham

Under the Whispering Door – T.J.Klune

167: every which way but right

What is it about Clerkenwell and Farringdon? This week I have managed to get completely lost (twice) in the maze of streets surrounding them while trying to find my way back to the office. I think perhaps I get distracted by interesting alleyways and cut-throughs and – once – by a very beautifully executed sculpture of David Beckham’s naked torso, complete with tattoos. I had to go back and look twice, in fact, as it was so well done. Anyway. Where was I?

Oh yes, I didn’t know where I was, and that was my point. The first occasion was on Tuesday morning after having coffee with Amanda, who pointed in the general direction of Farringdon and I still managed to get lost. Eventually I found my way back with the aid of Google Maps, which is FINE if you can make it stay in the direction of travel. If not then you have to walk thisaway and thataway until you work out which way is the right one, and then reverse it in your head.

I got lost again on Friday afternoon after a visit to the Zaha Hadid Foundation and the ten minute walk back to the office on St John Street took half an hour. I didn’t realise how lost I was until I found the Mount Pleasant sorting office – I love that building but it was a long way down Farringdon Road from where I needed to be. It is a bit of a maze of narrow lanes and rookeries round there, and tucked away in all of them are lovely old Georgian squares, Victorian houses and funny little nooks.

I did, however, manage to walk successfully from the office to Bethnal Green and was only a bit distracted by Lady Dinah’s Cat Emporium with its window full of furry friends.

This week we also had an ‘all-in’ day at work, when everyone comes on site. In the afternoon we had a workshop on class and class dynamics, run by Tonic Theatre, which was fascinating and uncomfortable in equal measures. From the reaction of our non-UK team members, the British concept of class is more than a bit weird. One exercise was around stereotyping: we were asked to give a working class/upper class sport, saying, food, art form, clothing and name. Another was to think about our own contexts in terms of education, economics, cultural capital and more – and about how that’s changed over generations. Turns out there’s a lot more to it that knowing which knife to use and not calling napkins serviettes or whatever.

Possibly one of my favourite aspects of the new job is being able to do a deep dive back into London history – especially the New River, which is neither new nor a river. The trouble as always is knowing when to surface…

Other things making me happy this week:

Long walks in the sunshine: this weekend I’ve covered 40k over two walks. The first was the Moreton and the Matchings walk I did in the rain on the coronation weekend, the second was a slow loop around Tawney Common.
On a related note, farmers who cut the public footpaths back in have made it to the list. You know who you are (well, I don’t). If you could see your way clear to hacking back the nettles too, that would be great. Nettles are not on the list.
Overhearing one of the trustees talking to ACTUAL QUENTIN BLAKE about ME.
Crochet octopi and a Totoro cross-stitch update

Now I’m off for a shower and a nap…

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

A Dying Light in Corduba/Three Hands in the Fountain – Lindsey Davis

Zero Waste Patterns – Birgitta Helmersson

Exploring the New River – Michael Essex-Lopresti

That Mitchell & Webb Sound S1-5 (Audible)

166: careful K, your nerd is showing

Here I am at the end of my first week at my new job, which is pretty flipping exciting indeed.

You know sometimes when you start a new job that you spend the first few days feeling a bit lost, as everyone else is getting on with things and no one is quite sure what to do with you? Or they give you a whirlwind tour of the building and then you spend the next week trying to remember where the staff toilets are, what the coffee arrangements are and who that person is in the corner.

This week was not that week.

Tan and I flew back from Mallorca on Monday night – delayed by an hour, the M23/M25 junction was closed, so was the South Circular, so we had to detour through the wilds of south-west London (there are a lot of Specsavers and Boots stores there, I can tell you). The saving grace was that the loud idiot who had been on our flight out was not on our flight back, though the rest of the hen and stag parties were so we suspect he was either arrested or deported*. I was staying in Ealing, so I staggered into bed just after 2am (bless my brother-in-law for setting up the airbed for me before we got back!) and lurched out again at 6. The plan was to meet my bestie at 8am for a first day coffee, as we’re now working within a few minutes’ walk of each other.

The Elizabeth Line had other ideas – a 25 minute journey took more than an hour and a half, which was either due to a faulty train, someone on the track, an eddy in the space-time continuinuinuum, or possibly the software gremlin which has been causing the emergency braking system to engage randomly since they upgraded it in April. The Lizzie line starts running at full timetable this week, so let’s see how that works.

Anyway. Day one included a speedy tour of the building. We’re lodging temporarily in a comms company’s back office, while our own FABULOUS new site at New River Head is under development. It’s open and friendly, and we’re all in the same room. Hot desks again, so I’m still carrying a laptop around, but never mind. Here, the station to go home is closer than the Secretariat gate at the V&A was from the offices. Once logged in I had a whole pile of emails waiting for me, things to read, and in the afternoon we had a project team meeting at the new site. No time to feel lost! I do need to make a laptop bag though.

The rest of the week has been reading policies and strategies and plans, and delving into my London library (glad I kept that!) to find out more about the history of the New River – ah, you’re a nerd already!, said the Director. Little does she know…I’ve met my team, arranged some more meetings with various people to get up to speed on things, and generally felt useful.

*Our flight out was disturbed by him making downright offensive comments to and about the air staff, passing mothers-of-brides. He claimed he was ‘bringing the party’. I suspect someone else had dropped out and the groom had invited him to fill the numbers as they’d been at primary school together, as the rest of the stag party were nice and well-behaved. The man next to me had words with him. He made a comment about other people needing to wear headphones. I lost my cool (ha!) slightly. Yes, I called him sunshine. We were all friends by the end of the flight but still…

The rest of the week…

Our last day in Mallorca was Sal’s birthday, and we started off with an early swim at the tiny beach in Deia where we disappointed the local white van men delivering beer to the bar by keeping our tops on. We suspect they were waiting for the lithe blonde lady who appeared as we were leaving, who would have made them much happier. Breakfast on the balcony followed, with fresh pastries, oranges from the tree and Spanish hot chocolate. The ‘little stroll’ around Deia we’d decided on turned out to be just under 9k, taking in the beach again, a climb up the hill beyond the villa where we saw a black vulture circling, a wander round the town and finally tapas and a well-earned drink. We also saw a red kite or two, heard a nightingale, and discovered some really loud frogs.

A little stream through Deia, with various washing troughs

On the Sunday we’d tackled a nice easy mountain (!) and scrambled over to very pretty Valdemossa, where we had well-deserved cake and a wander round the town while waiting for the bus back. The buses are a hair-raising experience at times, as the roads are long and windy and the buses are…not. They are bus-sized buses, as Jane said. The bus back from Valdemossa was slightly late, and the driver made a special effort to make up time on the way to Deia. We were sitting down but still felt the need to hold on!

Sally and Jane at the top of the mountain

Yesterday’s long walk was much less exotic, but also a lot less mountainous as it was in Essex – I did manage to find some hills to boost my elevation, though. I took the same footpath I used a few weeks ago but turned right instead of left at the bottom of the hill. I should have turned round after 6k, as a 12k was on the plan but I was enjoying the walk so I carried on. 24k later… the walk took me through Theydon Mount, Hobbs Cross, Theydon Garnon, Theydon Bois (as I’ve said before, Essex likes to make the most of a good name), past Ambresbury Banks and down into Epping, where I joined the Essex Way through Coopersale and Gernon Bushes back home. The sun was out, the glam rock playlist was on, and the pace was fine. Today there’s been a swim at the lake – the swans have one cygnet left and they are quite feisty. One bit an unwary swimmer’s foot, in fact.

There’s a 12k on the cards this afternoon, so I’d better go and fuel up!

As always, you can find out why we’re scrambling up mountains and wandering through forests at our JustGiving page. I’m £175 off my personal fundraising target, and it would be great to raise as much as we can for Parkinsons Research. Gwrachod Ar Daith translates roughly to ‘Witches on Tour’ – a long tour at 100km and now only 6 weeks or so away…

See you next week.

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Last Act in Palmyra/Time to Depart – Lindsey Davis

That Mitchell &Webb Sound – Audible

165: the goat ate my homework

Next week I shall tell you all about my first day at work, but for now you’re getting some lovely photos of the view from the villa, our 8 mile walk from Deia to Port de Soller (including the sun/rain contrast taken two minutes apart), local wildlife, and breakfast picked fresh from the tree. Today apparently includes mountains and Valdemossa.

If you’re wondering why these four mad women are tackling mountains in Mallorca… Have a look here

And now it’s breakfast time…

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

The Iron Hand of Mars/Poseidon’s Gold – Lindsey Davis

Maskerade – Terry Pratchett (Audible)

164: triangulate!

As I type this I am sitting down with my feet up, and this is where I plan to stay until the Horde require feeding again later. So far this weekend I have covered almost 29k, and I have definitely earned the afternoon nap I’m planning just as soon as I hit the publish button on this post.

Yesterday’s walk was 18k, and thanks to a combination of Google maps, the Ordnance Survey app* and my Walking in Essex book I mostly didn’t get lost (although I did take a wrong turn somewhere near Matching Green and had to reorient myself) and made it back to my start point successfully. I followed a route around Moreton and the Matchings, a set of pretty little Essex villages which didn’t even look too bad in yesterday’s persistent drizzle. One thing you can say about Essex is that when they land on a name they make the most of it – Matchings Tye and Green; Magdalen, High and Little Laver; a swathe of Rodings and a plethora of Woodfords.

The walk took four hours, give or take a minute or two, and enabled me not only to get some distance in and try out my new Injinji socks but also to avoid all the nonsense going on on the telly yesterday. It was great – wandering down green lanes and through fields in blissful peace. In 18k I only saw two other people, and a dog adopted me for the last mile or so and kept me company. I hope he found his way home. It was a lovely route, occasionally taking in sections of the Forest Way and Stort Valley Way, tracing the Cripsey Brook for a while, passing various little country churches and chapels, listening to the birds and saying hello to horses. It would have been better if my Strava and OS tracking hadn’t failed, but never mind.

Today’s walk was almost 11k, with my friend Rachel and her one-year-old Weimaraner Loki who bounced about so much that he must have covered twice the distance. I came back with soggy feet, pawprints and half of Essex on my boots thanks to the clayey soil. We saw a moat with ducks, a lot of long grass, pretty yellow wagtails and skylarks zipping about and then took a very long detour home!

The bacon butties I made for lunch were very well-deserved!

*the OS map also got a lot of use last Monday when Tan and I went for a walk in the Surrey Hills – being able to locate ourselves with map references when following directions like ‘turn right at a metal gate’ was useful. That walk had lots of pillboxes, bluebells and excellent views as well as some unexpected alpacas.

Other things making me happy this week:

A day with my new team and the luxury of a proper handover with my predecessor at the Quentin Blake Centre
A full moon swim followed by marshmallows and hot chocolate
Finishing my latest socks
Another long weekend, but I am not walking ANYWHERE tomorrow
A remnant fabric pack to experiment with

Next week I’ll be coming to you from sunny Majorca! It’s my last week at Young V&A, too…

And now it’s nap time…

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Venus in Copper/The Iron Hand of Mars – Lindsey Davis

Lords and Ladies – Terry Pratchett (Audible)

161: no sense of direction

Yesterday I was suffering from a lack of motivation caused, I suspect, by the knowledge that to get to any good trails from my house would involve a ludicrous amount of sticky clay on my boots. I do not like mud, and living where I do at the edge of the London Clay Bed (that’s geology, that is) there is a lot of about, especially after the amount of rain last week. However, the training plan called for an 8k so I needed to do something.

(Why are we training? See here and please throw some pennies our way!)

With the promise of bara brith and a sausage roll London sister agreed to make the trek over to Essex and with the help of Peter Aylmer’s Walking in Essex we headed off to Hatfield Forest for a 10k ramble. It’s a handy little pocket sized book with 25 different walks as well as a good guide to the Essex Way. Thanks to a walk round Lea Valley Park one summer afternoon, Tan refers to Essex as a ‘flyblown wasteland’ which is a little unfair, as currently it’s more of a swamp.

We parked in the official car park near the cafe and lake, and the start of the walk was back in Takeley Street. I flummoxed Tan by being completely unable to relate where we were to the map in front of us. That was the point that she made me hand over the book and promise never to attempt a solo walk which wasn’t clearly waymarked. This is probably a good idea.

Anyway, thanks to Tan we found the start of the walk on the Flitch Way, a ‘linear nature reserve’ along a former railway line from Braintree to Bishop’s Stortford. After half a mile or so we turned off into fields along the Pincey Brook valley, stopping for a picnic on a handy tree trunk. The walk intersected in places with the Harcamlow Way and then looped back into Hatfield Forest, where we realised just how close we were to Stansted Airport’s runways.

Hatfield Forest was full of dog walkers and miniature swamps, as well as cowslips and primroses, and although we didn’t find the promised Iron Age remains at Portingbury Hills we didn’t get lost despite diversions off the route round Colin’s Coppice. Back at the lake we had a look at the Shell House, designed by a 15 year old who may never have seen a chicken or an eagle, and admired the ducks before sitting down for bara brith and hot drinks – coffee for Tan and hot chocolate for me – just as the weather started to turn. And turn it did – the rainstorm hit as we were on the M11 and visibility was almost nil as we were coming back into North Weald.

It was easier to find some motivation this morning so I was up and out by 7am, with a non-muddy route planned which took me up to North Weald Redoubt, Ongar Park Hall farm and Dial House, and across to Toot Hill where I got distracted by a road I hadn’t been down before (to Clatterford End) before remembering that I was going swimming at half past eight which meant racing home to sluice off and change into my bathers. I spotted my first hare of the year as well as three muntjacs and a whole lot of rabbits along the route.

Not a flyblown wasteland – the view this morning

And now I need a nap, but the ironing is looking at me…

Other things making me happy this week

Homemade bara brith
New Kate Shugak installation appearing on my Kindle
Being bounced at by the Bella-dog this morning
Hyacinths on the windowsill
The cherry tree at the end of the road in full blossom and smelling like marzipan
Sunday afternoon with time for a nap….

See you next week!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Kate Shugak investigations 8-18 – Dana Stabenow

156: we’re off to see the blizzard

This post – number 156 – marks the third anniversary of this blog, and since most of those early posts covered lots of walking, it seems only right that I should carry on rambling.

After last week’s 20k walk I have been FAR more sensible and followed the training plan that’s plotted out neatly on my calendar: 5k on Tuesday evening and two lots of 5 over the weekend (although that turned into an 8 and a 4, but never mind). I’ve said it before and I will almost certainly say it again, but getting out and walking reminds me that I’m very lucky to live in an area with lots of space to ramble and lots of wildlife to admire.

Tuesday evening’s walk took me across North Weald Common, over the fields behind the house and down a country lane. The sun was just setting and the moon was rising, the wildlife was on the move and after a busy day dashing around with work it was a moment of peace.

It also turned out to be the last fine weather for a couple of days, as Wednesday to Friday were drizzly and miserable with snow showers, sleet, rain and wind at this end of the world. Storm Larissa brought lots of snow to other parts of the UK but we just got the dregs which felt very unfair.

Not to be thwarted, however, when the sun came out on Saturday I dragged my beloved and Thing 3 off for a walk to make the most of it. We covered an 8km loop which took us through the woods in the ancient Ongar Great Park where we heard a nuthatch and great tits shouting their heads off, round Tawney Common and back up through the wood on a lollipop route. We saw buzzards, many rooks and crows and spotted signs of spring.

Saturday also included a cold water swim, which at 5 degrees felt icy. The cold snap meant that the pipes had frozen in the cafe and I’d forgotten the flask, so a quick trip to McDonald’s for breakfast was in order afterwards. The lake ducks, who also rely on the cafe for their breakfast, were most aggrieved.

The final walk this morning was a 4km with Sue, one of my swimming buddies, and the adorable Bella-dog and was around Ambresbury Banks just past Epping. We had a good ramble round the banks and along some of the wide tracks in that part of Epping Forest – there’s the remains of the Outer London Defence Ring in the area, lots of puddles for Bella to paddle in (including one rather deeper than she expected!) and lots of interesting leaves and sticks to chase (Bella again).

Other things making me happy this week

Hanging out with teachers – both serving and trainees

On Tuesday afternoon one of my colleagues and I headed off to Central Foundation Girls School in Mile End to meet the Tower Hamlets Secondary Design and Technology Network, who we’d been trying to get in touch with for several years but (thanks to GDPR) have proved elusive. We took along a few items from the handling collection and talked to them about the new museum but most of all we listened to what they wanted from us in terms of curriculum support and school visits.

On Thursday I visited the London East Teacher Training Alliance, who I have been doing sessions with for more than a decade and who are some of my favourite people to work with. I love ITT students as they’re all still so enthusiastic, and the early years students in particular who are all about the play. We did the Think Small session to start with, designing and building animal homes, and then two of our Creative Learning Facilitators joined the session to share the learning they’d gained from using the Hero Arm to talk about limb difference to very young children. We finished up with a fingerprint activity inspired by the whorls created when 3D printing the Hero Arm: thinking about individuality and what makes us all special.

Crochet socks

Two pairs finished this week! The first ones are the Calecentine Socks by Vicki Brown Design and CoopKnits. I used Stylecraft Head over Heels Allstars sock yarn in Saltaire, and the tail end of a ball of Drops Nord for the ‘windows’. I like Vicki Brown’s socks as the patterns are straightforward, unlike the Dragon Scale socks on the right.

The sizing on these was ridiculous – even with a hook 3 sizes up than that recommended they came up too small and too narrow and had to be frogged and redone. The yarn is the one used in the pattern (Cygnet Boho Spirit), so I can only assume the S/M/L size range in the pattern is for very small people!

Kumihomo: Japanese Silk Braiding exhibition

As I had a rare afternoon without meetings I took myself off to Japan House in High Street Kensington to see this exhibition. It’s quite small but very lovely, and while I knew what kumihomo was I didn’t know about all the applications or how it’s being used today.

I had a great conversation with a woman who was fascinated by the stitching and construction of a Victorian dolman garment, and watched some very soothing videos of dyeing silk and weaving braids. Hopefully we’ll be able to explore this in the programming around the Japan: Myths to Manga exhibition at the museum later in the year.

Cats

They always make me happy, to be fair.

And now I have to do the ironing that I didn’t do last week….

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Going Postal/Making Money – Terry Pratchett (Audible)

Changes/Ghost Story – Jim Butcher

151: if you go down to the woods today

February has landed at last – January was a very long year, wasn’t it? The sun is shining, daffodils and crocuses and suchlike are starting to show signs of life and, despite the Daily Express’s* constant and dire predictions of the RETURN OF THE BEAST FROM THE EAST and POLAR VORTEX bringing SNOWBOMBS and other such cheery weather, it all seems pretty optimistic and springy out there.

I have just returned from a rather nice ramble through the local woods this morning – just over 10k tagged, though I suspect it was more as my Strava app crashed somewhere in the forest. Soundtracked by some random stuff on Spotify, it was a fairly speedy romp on trails and tracks: everything from the 60s with Simon and Garfunkel, Dusty Springfield and Creedence Clearwater Revival right through to more recent stuff like the Beastie Boys, Zac Brown Band and The Offspring. Along with the many squirrels dashing about the place, I was lucky enough to spot a muntjac ahead of me on the rhododendron walk that borders Gaynes Park, ring-neck parakeets at Stonards Hill in Epping, and many people with their various hounds including one with only three paws and a very friendly face.

Today’s walk was a tried and tested route, which took me through ancient coppiced woodland in the old Ongar Park Wood, Gernon Bushes nature reserve and through to the sports fields in Epping where I looped back round to come home. There were some muddy patches, but the path was nothing like as impassable as it has been in previous years when it’s been a swamp until at least May. This probably says something about the weather over the last year or so, although the bog in our back garden would say otherwise

Essex, despite being ridiculously flat, does have some good walking – I still want to complete the Essex Way at some point, but it may be in stages! Hopefully in the course of training for the Race to the Stones I can cover a bit more of it – there’s a useful book which breaks it down into circular walks. The Stort Valley Way also starts near the village, heading up to Harlow and beyond, and there seem to be a few others in the area as well.

Now I just need to develop a sense of direction.

*please note, I do not read the Daily Express but Google and MSN like to show me the headlines on their homepages. I am cheered by the fact that in a couple of months the headlines will change to HOTTEST SUMMER ON RECORD and GLOBAL MELTDOWN and MORDOR RETURNS. It’s like getting out your summer wardrobe.

Other things making me happy this week…

Teaching the Think Small session at Chobham Academy – I love the ideas kids come up with to make animal homes
Thing 3 turned 12 yesterday.
Finishing January on the Temperature Supernova
Crocheting socks.

Less happy-making was having to cancel a long-awaited trip to Cardiff to see the Socially Distant Sports Bar live show with gigbuddy Jen – while I am completely behind all these strikers, they RUINED my weekend. Also, vet bills.

Anyway – next week I shall be broadcasting from France! I can’t wait…

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

The Last Remains – Elly Griffiths

Men At Arms/Feet of Clay – Terry Pratchett (Audible)

Death Masks – Jim Butcher