Fluidity

 

I walked in the late afternoon yesterday, catching the last of the sun on the creek before it disappeared behind the fields. I went the chestnut tree way, and loaded up my pockets with smooth edible pebbles. We've found that if you slice through the skins and boil them for a few minutes they are relatively easy to peel. Relatively. Ha ha. It also helps if you are not too picky about the papery skin under the peel. I know you are supposed to find this bitter and unpalatable and spend ages scraping it all off, but frankly, once they're chopped up in soup, who cares? I don't mind it. I'm a heathen. I know.

I was thinking, as I rounded the bend and caught sight of the sea, how much I love living near the coast in the northern hemisphere. Everything changes every day - today the sun sets a few minutes earlier, and the tide rises a few minutes later - this walk at exactly the same time tomorrow will be different - and that's just the topography! I can't imagine living in a static landscape - where it is always sunny and the days are always a similar length. Although a bit of me is aghast that it is already dark at 530 - and that after the clocks go back on Sunday it will be an hour earlier than that, I'm glad it shifts and changes. Maybe I can too then.  

Half a sock, part-way up

Last week I decided I needed to pull my socks up. Try harder. Be more disciplined. Little steps. Etcetera etcetera. 

You know where this is going, don't you?

I made a list. (of course I did. that's - like - practically doing it, right?). Not only did I write a list, I made a system where I can check things off ! How could this possibly fail? It's even got a theme (bonus points!). It's my 10 things list. It goes like this:

In a week I will aim to complete 4 trombone practices, 3 runs, 2 non-drinking days, 1 online course chapter.

Last week I scored 5. It was harder than it looked.

This week so far I've scored 2 and frankly, my friends, between you and me, unless all of my paid work requirements magically vanish tomorrow and the house finally figures out how to clean itself, I'll be lucky to match last week.

And this doesn't seem like that high a bar. Maybe I need to get up earlier.

On the other hand, I knit a pair of mittens, met a friend for a celebratory drink, cooked some mighty fine food, and generally had a lovely week. 

Ah balance - why is it so difficult? How far do you push? Where do you pull? How much is enough?

I saw this which seems to sum it up:

        I'm torn between two thoughts:

        1/ Eat the mac and cheese! Life is short!

        2/ Life will be bloody short if all you eat is mac and cheese!

Autumn

 Yesterday morning's run..... considerably extended by stopping every 30 seconds to take yet another foggy spiderweb picture, none of which turned out.

But this did - 

I love the marsh always but especially in Autumn. When I showed this to Neal, he just looked at me over his spectacles and said "..............werewolves."

And although I laughed, I feel that thought may resurface...

Let there be music

I'm sitting outside, with a good book and a glass of wine, listening to the long-absent sounds of a band rehearsal coming out of the oast for the first time in so so long. It's the folk/barn dance band Neal drums with - they have gigs next week for Broadstairs Folk Week and they are trying to remember songs. There are a lot of starts and stops as they piece it back together - a lot of laughter - "who wrote this song anyways?" someone shouts. And then, almost out of the blue, they are all singing in harmony and Gemma's violin is dancing over the top and it is so beautiful and joyful and pure that it almost hurts. Time stops, just for a moment. "Argh! in D!" somebody yells, someone else swears and the spell is broken. Everyone laughs again and I smile, out here in the garden.

A Funny Story

Seasalter this afternoon

I have a funny story for you. It starts off with a not-so-funny bit - I fell off my bike day-before-yesterday. I was trying to avoid a patch of stinging nettles, and I caught my wheel on some gravel and went over, predictably right into the nettles. They duly stung. There's probably a life lesson in there somewhere about the futility of avoiding the unpleasant or something. Other than the welts from the nettles, and a bruise on my arse, I'm fine - just a bit stiff.

Today, my morning meeting ended early and I decided to hop on my bike and head up to Seasalter for a cheeky lunchtime swim. You can only swim there when the tide is high and today was a perfect alignment of sunshine and tide tables. My next meeting wasn't until 130 so I had two hours if I put a wiggle on. I threw my towel in my basket, made a quick lunch to take with me, and off I went. I was halfway there when I realised I forgot my bike helmet. There's just one stretch of road leading to the beach where traffic can be a bit close and I usually put on my helmet for that bit. If I went back I wouldn't have enough time so I shrugged and promised to my self to be careful. As it turned out, I followed a slow moving highway engineering lorry all the way up the road so we were a convoy and there was no passing anyways. 

I had my swim (bliss), ate my sandwich and watermelon slices, and reluctantly went back to my bike to come home for my meeting. Another woman was unlocking her bike and we said hi and had a quick chat - we were both cycling back to Faversham. I told her I would have stayed all day but I had a meeting to get back for. She laughed and we agreed working from home was great. We pulled onto the road and the highway truck stopped us - they were resurfacing the road and we couldn't use it. It's the only road to Faversham. 

There is, however, a track, through the fields and bird reserve. Never mind, chirped the woman, we can go the path way. I'll get you back for your meeting!

Let me take a moment to describe her. I think she was around my age, maybe older, very slim and trim. Her bike looked just as svelte -  I imagine it had the word "carbon" in the description somewhere - and she was wearing padded bicycle shorts. She looked, in short, like a proper sporty cyclist. I am guessing she swims sea lengths.

I was wearing a pair of cut-off jeans and a rash vest to fend off sunburn, and I ride a dutch touring bike with a milk crate cable-tied to the back. We are not built for speed. In the sea, I splash about like a labrador. 

But necessity makes strange bedfellows. I gamely followed her and thus commenced one of the most terrifyingly quick, reckless rides of my life. All the way I was laughing in spite of my fear and - soon - exhaustion - at the sheer incongruity of it all. There were fences and turnstiles that needed to be clambered over, bikes and all, and at one point (oh the horror) cows. It was so bumpy I nearly flew off more than once. I had to keep up with her because I couldn't lift my bike over the fences by myself. She was like a whippet speeding off into the horizon while I held on for dear life and tried not to crash my bike on the gravelly, pot-holed, grassed over, sometimes barely visible path. Every so often she would call back - "We''ll make it!" and I thought - I am not so sure.

We did make it. Technically. I did not, however make my meeting as I was in urgent need of a cold shower and a lie-down. Now, several hours later, I am slightly concerned that my poor bruised bottom will actually just give up and fall off. The irony of having worried about not having a bike helmet on the busy road is still making me laugh. My dad was right - you never worry about the right things.

Why I did not just ask the highway guys how long it would be and go back to the beach to wait in the sun I have no idea - I guess I was so focused on getting back in time it didn't occur to me. Amanda (for that was her name) was so matter of fact and confident I didn't really stop and think at all.

Just goes to show you never know what will happen in a day! Also that sneaking off to the beach at lunchtime may have unintended consequences. And you should probably pay more attention to what the highway engineering lorries are up to...

 

closing the circle

I went to work today, in London, for the first time since 16 March 2020. 

wow.

a year and 4 months, nearly.

And i loved every minute of it. Just about, anyways. (minus the busy station at St Pancras and the teenagers on the train too-cool-for-masks). 

I'm a bit overwhelmed really. It's given me a different view of the last year - from my London life instead of my Faversham life. I forgot how much I love my London life. It's exhilarating, full of people and interesting buildings, and some damn fine sushi. I flew through the day. 

It's not ok though - I'm only one vaccine jab in so I have to be careful. And cases are rising here like crazy again and the government is making the same noises they did last time this happened and we all know how that turned out :( 

But it was so nice to meet this me again. It will be months yet before I'm going in regularly, but it was a great taster.

gig!

I'm just home from the first gig I've had in 15 months. It was a big band jazz gig - socially distanced, table service, masks etc... We sold out (of course a much smaller number - 80 or so I think) but still! Music-wise, there were bits that were a little messy but not bad for a 4-week rehearsal block. Everybody was happy - the band, the audience, everyone smiling and looking at each other - checking in - as if to say - is this really happening? There is no dancing allowed yet which is really too bad - I missed the dancers. We piled into the pub after and it was like it was before - almost - closest yet though.

I haven't had this feeling in so long - this buzz of alertness and fun and relief and energy and friendship and music - the hot lights and cold beer and one-two-one-two-three-four. The companionship of knowing someone you play with in such a personal way even though you may not know much else about them at all. The nest of belonging to something. 

I did have to laugh this morning though - I pulled on my skinny black gig jeans, and it turns out one of us is no longer skinny. Ahem.  Luckily I found a pair a size up in a charity shop this afternoon. Lockdown has clearly been good for me.

I'm tired but my head is full of music. It's hard to sleep when it's like this. Apparently I wiggle my toes to whatever is playing in my head. Guess tonight will be a showdown between Neal's snoring and my toe-wiggling. Who will emerge with a decent night's sleep? Da da DAH!!!!

Robin Taming

 

This is Jacques. We've been feeding him in a special dish for a few months now. He will land on the dish even if I am holding it. The weight of his tiny body is surprising. 

Jacques (so named because of the white racing stripes on each side of his wing - after Jacques Villeneuve) and his partner (we sometimes call her Dianne but mostly we call her Mrs Jacques. Very backward of us) nested in the ivy above the patio. Two little chicks fledged on Monday. Jacques is a good dad and is constantly on the go. The food is a mix of suet pellets, soaked meal worms, and robin mix (grain and fruit, presumably not made of robins). Jacques is not impressed by the robin mix but I feel we need to keep adding it anyways. Balanced diet and all that.

I've grown very fond of Jacques - the whirr of his wings as he swoops in to greet us, and the way he cocks his head. He flew in through the upstairs window last week, (luckily found his way back out again quickly) - I think he heard our voices. He has spied his dish just inside the door and flown in there as well. I even touch mealworms with my bare hands because they are for Jacques. Context is everything. 

Can you spot baby Jacques?

Things are slowly starting back up here. Neal has had both his vaccine jabs, I have had my first one. I have not one but two band rehearsals today - both the brass band and the big band. It is almost overwhelming having things to go to. I will have to start writing things down again. I think it will be a good while before we feel comfortable for many things, but it is nice to be with people again.

Brass Band rehearsal in a field...

It's very much a wait-and-see scenario in the UK, sometimes things sound very much like they did just before all hell broke loose around Christmas time last year, so it seems unwise to get too excited. Ours is not a government that learns from its mistakes. Hopefully the vaccine roll out will help mitigate against that. 

We are coming in on a wing and a prayer...

Faversham 365 Pictures!

 OK so clearly I did not post as I went along. Apologies. The whole thing ended up being slightly more complicated than I had envisioned. We were still in lockdown that week and frankly there are only so many pictures of the creek one wants to look at. To come up with 14 varied pictures that tell a story of Faversham was - slightly intimidating, especially with nothing open and no activities. I did my best. Here you go!

Monday 5 April

...and pigs may fly...

The Gunpowder WI Easter Chicks

Tuesday 6 April

Big Sky, Faversham Rec

(still) empty bandstand, Faversham Rec

Wednesday 7 April

Graham, the Postie with the Mostie!

Horsey Cut-through

Thursday 8 April

(still) working from home

Paper route

Friday 9 April

Cloud marsh, Ham Farm

Hollowshore

Saturday 10 April

Soon...

There's a new butcher in town...

Sunday 11 April

1st Faversham Junior Park Run

Dog Club, Faversham Rec

Faversham 365

Our town is doing another 365 project this year - where anyone can submit photos and one is chosen for each day of the year. There's an exhibition and usually a book if funds are forthcoming. You can read all about it here - http://kentcreative.org/project-365/a-year-in-the-life-of-faversham-2021/

To make sure that there is a photo for every day, volunteers take it in turns to commit to submitting two photos a day for one week. This is my week. 

Here's my short list for today:

This is a reflection through the shop window of Andrew's card shop.

The Faversham branch of the Women's Institute made these yarn bombs and post box toppers - they're all through town and they are fabulous. 

I'm leaning towards the first and last ones - the first is an unusual perspective of something we see all the time, and the last one makes me laugh. What do you think?

I'll try to post them up as I go.

In other news - it actually snowed today for a wee bit. Sigh. But yesterday was beautiful, and we spent all afternoon in Lorenden woods. I could hear woodpeckers everywhere - I could just about see them - but as soon as I got the binoculars anywhere near my eyes they were gone - just an almost-seen flash of dip and wing. 

Otherwise life continues as usual - we are still in lockdown, but all being well, this time next week non-essential shops will be able to open, including HAIRDRESSERS! and PUB GARDENS! (outside only - please hope the sun comes out for us or the entire nation will freeze to death).

Stay safe my friends - I miss you x

Bunny shirt FTW!

 

Next up - pants! UK pants - knickers - underpants - "panties" (why is that word so awful?!)

Birds birds birds (and a squirrel)

This weekend was the RSPB's Great British Bird Count - you sit in your garden, or look out the window, and count how many birds of what species you see in an hour. We did it this morning. You need to count how many you see at any one time in order not to double count - which adds a degree of complication to things. "Was that a blue tit?" I ask Neal. "Which one?" he responds. "That one," I say, unhelpfully. "That one?" he replies. We have no idea what we are taking about. It was fun though - sitting outside for an hour, wrapped up in woollies, drinking steaming coffee, and re-remembering how alive the world is, outside.

In squirrel news, the window baffles seem to be doing the job - even though we have put up two new feeders on that window, it remains un-molested. Not so the other window. Mid-morning, the distinctive sound of squirrel belly hitting glass caught our attention. There he was - balancing - just-so. He moved back and forth, reaching up, tapping on the glass as if he was testing for surface density. We came right up to him on the inside of the window, but he just looked back at us evenly, un-fussed, and continued his calculations. After a while, he paused a moment, then jumped decidedly back onto the fence. I looked up later and saw him sitting on a tree branch, staring at the window, plotting, You could practically see equations floating over his head. We may need more baffles.

I sewed the collar into the bunny shirt yesterday. It was tricky. Let's just be grateful that collars fold outwards and leave it at that.

bunnies a go-go

The bunny shirt is going well so far - as long as you don't require any anatomically correct bunnies. I only even attempted to pattern match on the front, and left the rest to fate. So far one shoulder seam has given us a rather startled looking 4-eyed, 4-eared bunny head, perhaps to make up for the (at least) 2 headless wonders elsewhere. I've been following a generic tutorial youtube video as well as the pattern instructions - thank goodness - I don't think I could have managed at all from only the instructions. Sewing patterns are like the old Mennonite cookbooks I get from my Mom where they consider "mix and bake" to be perfectly ample, reasonable, and thorough instructions at the end of a list of ingredients. The pattern in the videos is a little different so I've been trying to figure out how and why and if I need to do anything about it. I've done the sleeves and sides and am just heading into the collar and I just can't figure it out and it's driving me crazy. I mean I can understand the basic construction, but I can't get my head around how the centre seam can be the same on both the right and left pattern pieces when one overlaps - that can't be right can it? I must have missed something. I'm concerned that my bunnies won't match even where I was trying to.  Well, to be honest, I don't really care about the bunnies, I'm just annoyed that I have probably not understood something, and that I don't even understand what I haven't understood. I think I also may be deficient in the whole spacial imaging thing. I have been assessing, folding, glaring, and swearing at the collar pieces for an unimaginable part of the afternoon  (as in all of it)  and I still can't figure out which way it needs to go in order to have the bunny ears on the right side.

IT CAN'T BE THAT DIFFICULT.

can it?

insert bunny joke here

 

I've cut out my very first shirt today - is that fabric not the best ever? I have attempted to pattern match the bunnies in the front - we'll see how that goes. Could be.... interesting. I've been sewing quite a bit - it's a good mix of challenging and interesting. I made Neal a pair of boxer shorts last week (fly construction - WTF??? It took me a good two days of puzzling and confusion to work that one out).

Lockdown continues - I am quite content for the most part as long as I don't think too far ahead or, to be honest, think too much at all. It looks like it will be many more weeks of this before we are allowed to be out with people again so we just get on with it. We can go out once a day for exercise, so we make the most of that. Yesterday we went on a long 3 hour morning ramble through fields and orchards, and were treated to an amazing close up view of a very large hen harrier - (or a marsh harrier - I'm not exactly sure) These things go a long way. So did the mud. 

We did rather lose our minds last night and ordered another completely unnecessary batch of bird window feeders. We are going to have the fattest birds in Kent. When we opened the door yesterday morning, Jacques the robin was waiting impatiently on the doormat - just sitting there right outside the door as if he was getting ready to complain about the service. He is pretty comfortable around us (!!) so I've ordered some suet pellets and I'll see if I can get him to hand feed this spring.

Stay safe everyone - be careful out there x

 

Tenacity

 Well, squirrel fans, the squirrels have upped their game. 

warning: squirrel nuts

Shortly after this, he (and there is no doubt that he is a "he" now is there?!) succeeded, swinging off the feeder by one paw for a very long drawn-out  second before squirrel and feeder crashed to the ground. Neal and I were to busy watching and laughing incredulously to capture the inglorious moment.

So steps have been taken.

Behold my Beautiful Baffles

Wait - I can hear you say - aren't those just page protectors with cardboard inside, thumb-tacked to the window-sill? Why yes they are. Only the best here, I assure you. They do flap up in the wind which is unnerving for birds, squirrels, and humans alike, but so far they seem to be doing the trick.

Over to you squirrel.