Tag: winter

297: is it time for the big coat?

Way back in the late 90s when I was a primary school teacher, we were talking one morning about how we celebrated Christmas/Eid (other celebrations are available, of course). There was a child in my class who I was pretty sure was a 70 year old man in a 5 year old’s body, and we sat bemused as he described Christmas where he and his cousin woke up and after they’d opened their stockings they went outside every year to play in the snow. He was adamant that this was what they did every year, because it snowed every year where they live (round the corner from the school, as it happened). Mind you, he was also firmly convinced that I lived in the school, and when I had my hair cut he asked which scissors I’d used.

Anyway. The point of that story was that it’s not even nearly Christmas but while we were waiting for a bus on Wednesday there was snow falling from the sky, but not enough to play in. Winter does seem to have landed though, with several hard frosts and serious contemplation of the Big Coat. Our new office turns out to be quite chilly, too – the downside of the lovely big windows – so the work blanket and wrist warmers are at the ready.

I do like winter, but not when it’s raining – wind and cold yes, wet and cold no. Cold and sunny is best, with clear skies in the morning when I go to work and the stars are still out. Good views of Mars at this time of year, which tells me it’s too damn early…

Apparently it’s going to be double figures and damp again this week, at least in Cardiff where I’m working on the World Skills UK Championships. Maybe not quite time for the Big Coat yet!

Other things making me happy this week

  • The British Library’s family festival on Saturday – creating imaginary worlds with families using Beth Suzanna’s gorgeous backdrop collages
  • Dark evenings walking back through Clerkenwell and the City. The route back to various stations passes through some very old bits of London.
  • Finishing all the Christmas puddings for Epping Xmas Market
  • Making plans to catch up with old friends next week
  • Not the Central

Now I’d better go and pack before Miriam comes to get me!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

The Legacy of Arniston House – T.L.Huchu

A Slowly Dying Cause – Elizabeth George

The Remains of an Altar/The Fabric of Sin – Phil Rickman (Audible)

The Retired Assassin’s Guide to Country Gardening – Naomi Kuttner

A Fellowship of Librarians and Dragons/A Fellowship of Bakers and Magic – J. Penner, These are described as ‘cozy fantasy’. I should know better.

246: stormy weather and marmalade sandwiches

On Monday I was given charge of the remote controls and decided that it was a good time to watch the Paddington films again: the weather outside was miserable, as Storm Bert and then Storm Conall were making their presences felt with rain, wind and general mankiness, and I was in the mood for something gentle and funny.

At home with the Browns (Paddington, Studio Canal/Sony 2014)

We loved the Paddington films as soon as we saw them – the casts are great, they are funny and heartwarming and Ben Whishaw voices the little lost bear beautifully. Hugh Grant is making a proper career out of being a bit of a villain, too, and camps it up well in the sequel while the role of the explorer’s bitter daughter suits the rather icy Nicole Kidman very well. Julie Walters and Sally Hawkins are always great, of course. Thing 2 and I are plotting a cinema trip to see the third one soon.

In this house we have a list of family films that we love and are happy to watch whenever we find them on the TV. They’re Sunday afternoon films, stuck-in-the-house-and-feeling-poorly films, bad weather films and – as it’s that time of year – I’m going to share some of them with you.

  • Nanny McPhee/Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang. Excellent use of Emma Thompson, and all the children end up well behaved in the end.
  • The Railway Children. Ideally the original but the remake is OK too. You cannot go wrong with Bernard Cribbins.
  • Five Children and It – Suzy Eddie Izzard as the Psammead.
  • Hugo – early Asa Butterfield and beautifully filmed.
  • Fantastic Mr Fox – Wes Anderson does family friendly, with a great voice cast.
  • Slumberland – a more recent entry, magical mayhem with Jason Momoa.
  • Stardust – I’m still cross with Neil Gaiman but this is a great film, full of magic and ghosts and skypirates and Robert De Niro in a dress.
  • Batteries Not Included – tiny aliens! Big business getting its comeuppance!
  • Hook – Robin Williams as an aging Peter and Dustin Hoffman in an excellent wig.
  • The Spiderwick Chronicles – more magic, and a grumpy house gnome addicted to honey
  • Bridge to Terabithia – even though I cry every time.
  • The Princess Bride (duh).
Jessica Tandy in Batteries Not Included (1987, Universal Pictures)

There are of course many more films that I will watch every time they are on, but these are the family favourites that even the grumpy teens will join us on the sofa for. I was excited to discover that the BBC are finally reshowing The Box of Delights, starting next weekend: more E. Nesbit transformed into TV magic. And Christmas film season starts tomorrow!

Things making me happy this week

  • The first of the Christmas fairs, which went very well. I’m glad I’m still making little robins!
  • The second National Illustration Day: so many people shared the illustrations they use and see every day, and the director made an excellent cake.
  • Coming back to work and finding paper chains all over the office.
  • The Asda order having everything in stock!
  • Tiny Christmas jumper brooches.
  • Clear skies so I see stars when I leave the house and dawn when I get to London.
  • Baking the Christmas cake that I definitely wasn’t going to make this year.

Things I’ve been giving hard stares to this week:

  • The weather, especially when it causes traffic chaos like floods and road closures.
  • Decisions made by the local council which add to the traffic chaos.
  • People who have no idea where they are going in tube stations and decide that the best place to stop is immediately beyond the ticket gates.
  • Evri drivers who claim to have delivered the parcel to the delivery address, when in fact they have delivered it to a house in a completely different road. At least they got the number right, which minimised the ‘excuse me, is this your doormat’ conversations.

Today I’m going for my first swim in ages and am expecting it to be cooooooold….

Same time next week, gang!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Going Rogue/Dirty Thirty/Now or Never– Janet Evanovich (Audible)

Wayward – Hannah Mathewson

The Guest Cat – Takashi Hiraide

Bad Monkey – Carl Hiaasen

201: baby it’s cold outside

Well, this week has been a refreshing blast of actual winter cold between Storm Henk disappearing and Storm Isha landing. Short of snow, gorgeous cold sunshine is my favourite sort of wintry weather, with frosty mornings and ice on puddles to crack. We drove back across from Brittany to Calais on Monday, with Tan delivering a running temperature commentary as we went - zero degrees was the high point. As I’m doing both highs and lows on the temperature stitch this year I should be able to show contrasts in a way that I haven’t before. 

The needle minder felt appropriate for this pattern!

This year’s tracker is the ‘Goth Stitch-a-Long Temperature Cabinet‘, by GrandmaBeWildin. As you can probably guess from the title, it’s a little less of a colour explosion than the last couple of years though for consistency I am going to use the same thread range for the temperatures. I’ve chose a printed aida fabric again, this time a parchmenty colour which reminds me of old library books. The cabinet is underway (only 4500 black stitches to go!) so hopefully by the end of the month I’ll be ready to start tracking. This year it’s a ‘book’ for every day in the high temperature, with a band that shows the low.

Of course this lovely cold snap also meant that Redricks Lake was frozen, with ice a good three inches thick. Yesterday’s dippers had fun with mallets breaking enough of a hole for people to dip, and despite the rise in temperatures today we still got to dip with the ‘bergs. It was our coldest dip yet at just one degree, so we were in for about three minutes before running for our robes and a hot chocolate!

Note the northern tans….

Other things making me happy this week

  • Tea and cake with my gang of ladies, with the best china. Plans were laid for an alternative village WI which doesn’t meet on a weekday afternoon and which has interesting speakers.
  • The Brothers Sun on Netflix – Michelle Yeoh on top form
  • Restocking my supply of Surf-fizz at Carrefour
  • Lots of reading. Lots.
  • Breakfast meeting at Bench to start planning National Illustration Day 2024
  • Getting on top of the paperwork!
  • Meeting the Education Committee at Copped Hall Trust to talk about their schools programme

And now it’s time for a quick nap before the Things start demanding feeding…

Same time next week?

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading

The Prayer of the Night Shepherd/The Smile of a Ghost/The Remains of an Altar/The Fabric of Sin – Phil Rickman

The Last Devil to Die – Richard Osman (Audible)

The Chalice – Phil Rickman (Audible)

Week forty two: in praise of the humble wellington boot

About this time last year. my walking buddy Jill and I decided that the fields were so muddy and we spent so much time shrieking as our trainers got soaked by puddles that we’d just start wearing wellies instead. With the wellies came much more freedom: not just because we could stop picking our way across the swampy, horse-churned paths, of course, but we also found ourselves actively seeking out muddy puddles and splashing through them. We mutter ‘squelch squerch, squelch squerch’ as we squish through the mud – can’t go over it, can’t go under it, got to go through it! We stomp on icy puddles to hear the crack, and this morning we chose to come back through the fields behind the station as we knew it would sound really crunchy as the footprints – both people, dogs and deer – are filled with ice. Who would have thought that such practical footwear could spark such joy?

The fields are breathtaking this morning: it’s still below zero out there, and the trees are rimed with ice. It was still dark when we went out, the freezing fog was still hanging around, and the white trees loomed in front of us like bloody great ghosty things. A phone camera doesn’t do it justice, as you can’t capture the atmosphere, but these are from our walk this morning:

Walking through the ancient woodland on our way back was a more close-up experience: the frost was outlining leaves and turning the grasses and seedheads into architectural sculpture. It plays havoc with your walking pace but the wearing of wellies turns a walk into a less purposeful, more mindful experience – the word ramble comes to mind. With walking boots or trainers I always feel I should be pushing onwards.

  • A moment of summer
  • Grass
  • Icy twigs
  • Heavy frost on the holly
  • Bracken
  • Brambles looking sparkly
  • Queen Anne’s Lace

Walking this week, both with Jill this morning and with Sue and the Bella-dog in the afternoons, has been a lifesaver. I had forgotten the home school/work juggling act, trying to focus on a meeting when there are two out of the three children either arguing with each other, with me or asking questions about their set work. Thing One – hurray – just gets on with it. Thing Three – mostly – just gets on with it but is susceptible to being wound up by Thing Two, who occasionally gets on with it but generally accompanies herself with a stream-of-consciousness blow-by-blow of whatever she’s up to. The Spanish lesson – accompanied in Spanglish – was particularly tricky (for me, at least).

However, I am so grateful to all their teachers for providing high quality work for them, as well as making daily contact via Zoom for Thing Three. Gavin Williamson, the Education Secretary, has put both his feet firmly in it this week by telling parents to email Ofsted and complain if the remote learning wasn’t high quality enough: I believe Ofsted were quite annoyed as well. Parents took to their email and to Twitter to praise schools instead, especially given that on Monday schools were ‘safe to open’ but by Tuesday they were all closed until half term. Twelve – twelve – hours to move entirely online, as the address by the man (described beautifully by my friend Chris as the ‘bloviating haystack’) wasn’t made till 7.30pm.

  • This was an excellent tree
  • Socially distanced paddling
This bunch can’t resist a paddle

The other thing saving my sanity this week is – as ever – crafty stuff.

I finished the ‘Second Breakfast’ cross stitch, and have started the temperature tree that I mentioned last week. So far it’s all tree and no temperature, and I have used almost a whole skein of DMC 839. I chose to use sparkly white aida fabric for it for no particular reason other than that I had some and I like it!

All tree, no temperature

And that was my week: it’s been a quiet one, and for that I am grateful. Today my plan is to sort out my craft book shelves and see if I can organise them a bit, and to make oat and raisin cookies as they are a family favourite.

See you at the end of week 43!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

21st Century Yokel – Tom Cox

Educating Peter – Tom Cox