procrastination

goal of weekend: to get organised - put all that paper away, check accounts, find receipts for expenses, file work stuff, put away alarmingly swaying tower of clothing in bedroom, dig out drycleaning from aforementioned tower etc etc.

time spent avoiding the above: 48 hours

time organisation actually took: 45 minutes

i know. i know.

sometimes you gotta laugh

ah - it has been one of those days - (still is - i just had to retype that as my caps lock was on). the ones where you wake up tired, grab what you thought was a clean shirt only to realise on the train that is the shirt you hung back up because you decided it was no longer good enough to be a work shirt once you dropped a beet on one shoulder (what? this hasn't happened to you??) so you have to keep on your cardigan all day and it's muggy and hot in the office. and it's the day where you find out that "lots of furniture in storage" means "no furniture in storage" so your whole move programme needs to be altered and you have a packed day cause you have to leave early to get to an appointment near home.

you get on the wrong northern line tube because you forgot you were getting on at king's cross and not euston and have to get off at angel and switch and you almost miss the train you left early to catch but you run and just make it and get to your appointment only to realise you have left just enough time - maybe - to catch your train home from your appointment and if you miss it the next one is in an hour not half an hour like you thought because you always forget that. and the thought of an hour before you get home is frankly unbearable. so you power walk like a madwoman and it starts to rain and you get there and the train is delayed anyways and you are muggy and sweaty and just plain exhausted and you no longer care that your shoulder is beet-pink.

and you get home and feel snappy then apologise then say fuck it, i know it is wedensday and we are not drinking during the week (which is going very well and is improving life to no end generally) but sometimes you just need a beer. and then you whack your elbow - right on the funny bone - really really hard when you reach down to get the beer, and then , really, you just have to laugh.

swishy dress

yay for friends who pick up fabulous clothes at charity shops just in case. the case in question turned out to be a wedding we're going to in lisbon in august. and the dress is truly fab - black with white polka dots (about the size of a ten pence piece - the polka dots, not the dress - are you kidding? i am 35 and - if you're being kind - rounded. no flesh exposure here.) it's empire line, so i can eat like the piglet i am and best of all there is absolutely no danger of any bits falling out of said dress - not that this has ever actually happened to me, but the fear of it is always near when you are wearing strapless stuff.

i swore i wouldn't wear a dress to this wedding, not being overly fond of them and flat out (ha ha) refusing to wear heels. but a chic trouser ensemble will involve some sort of cash transaction, which is untenable in the CEC (current economic climate :) ) and best of all, this dress will ball up in the bottom of my backpack and not need ironing. no checked luggage on this trip - just the dress, a swimsuit, a pair of shorts and maybe 2 tshirts. we'll buy towels there.

i can't wait - i feel like i haven't been away in forever - not without an agenda anyways. i loved going home to canada this spring - no doubt about it - but i really really miss these long weekends in a new city. i've never been to lisbon and it looks like so much fun. and of course, the wedding itself will be lovely - i'm not into the wedding thing personally, but hey - if it's what you want, why not? these two are a great pair and i have every hope of happiness for them. anyways i'm getting ahead of myself - i just didn't want to sound like i only cared about ease of dress and wedding banquets! ok you can stop snickering now.

yarn fetishes

on tues, my friend k is going to attempt to teach me how to knit. in preparation, i went to the yarn shop in town and bought a brightly coloured soft ball of wool that the wise knitting woman assured me would be perfect for a beginner. I figured if the wool was pretty i'd have an easier time refraining from stabbing my own eyes out with the knitting needles in complete frustration at my inability to keep anything vaguely resembling a consistent stitch. (poor k has no idea what she has let herself in for.) i left the wool on the table and went to put away the groceries.

now humphrey, our greyhound, loves all things woolen. you cannot leave out knitted slippers, or scarves, and especially not mittens or gloves as they will rapidly be transported to the depths of his bed to be chewed/sucked/slurped over at his leisure. my fabulous mother crochets afghans and we learned early in our post-humph life to put them away if we wanted to keep them. if we forget and leave them on the couch, he is there like a shot, nesting away. have you ever tried to get dog hair out of an afghan? disgusting. this also explains why sometimes in the winter when people come over they see blankets on the table- left there to keep them out of humph's clutches and then forgotten about until blushes at table-setting time. last christmas mom solved the problem by crocheting humph an afghan of his own, bless her. he does love it but i think the lure of the forbidden plays a part in this as he'll still go for ours, given half a chance.

i'm sure you can work out what happened next.


"what? this wool? honestly, i have no idea how it got here - no siree. leading into my bed you say? lady i don't know what you're talking about..."

i hope k knows how to get it back to a usable ball again.

summertime

peace

this time last week, i was madly prepping potatoes and salads, sweeping up the garden, setting up garden furniture and trying (mostly successfully) not to panic. everyone arrived, and we had a lovely day. n's family are a charming and entertaining bunch, and this was the first time they had all seen each other in one place for 35 years.

n's sister and family left yesterday for france, and suddenly the house is quiet again.

and, in all of this chaos, i also had a job interview in london and got the job! i start tomorrow. it's for one of the london councils, so public sector, and it looks pretty straight-forward - managing the moves for several large projects. it's just down the road from my university which will make my life easier come autumn. the people seem very friendly, and i think i'll enjoy working in a less corporate environment. y'know, instead of working my arse off every day for corporations i actively oppose within a system i am ambivalent about at best.

so all change again. it certainly keeps life interesting :)

the onslaught

we are being inundated with family this weekend, and i can't tell you how delighted i am about it! n's sister, brother-in-law and niece arrive from canada tomorrow, and then on sunday almost all of n's british family will be joining us for a bbq. please, please don't let it rain. they won't all fit in the house. because i'm not working at the moment, i've had time to plot and plan and it has been fun, and probably a good distraction. i love planning parties. i love planning anything, truth be told.

the house has not looked this good (aka clean) since my parents visited in december. it scrubs up well, actually. and n and i are absolutely knackered. we are doingthat thing where you yawn and look at the clock and ask each other if it is too early to go to bed (8:27 - he says yes, i say no).

sweet dreams

a difficult decision

for the past 2 1/2 years, on and off, i've been a volunteer on a rape crisis helpline. on and off, because when projects got too crazy at work, and i had classes and papers too, i couldn't do the line as well. when i first started, i knew i wanted to do something, but i was really scared by the idea of answering calls on the helpline. the training was excellent, though, and i got over my fear, and for the most part i enjoyed volunteering. lots of our callers ring regularly, and you get to know them. sometimes i knew i was able to give information that people needed, and that felt right. and i believe women (this line is women-only - staff, counselors, volunteers are all women) need all the support they can get, especially in dealing with issues like sexual abuse and rape, where open dialogue is often not possible for a number of reasons.

a lot of our more recent volunteers are trained, or training as counselors themselves. hearing them on the line, it seems like they know just what to say. they are a different breed. i'm not all together sure i actually like them sometimes - there's a coldness somewhere i can't quite put my finger on. i never saw myself as a counselor type - in fact, when i found out that was what the helpline was, i thought, uh oh - not for me. maybe i was right.

for the last few months, i've been feeling increasingly uncomfortable on the line. i feel, at the core of it, that i can't offer anything. helpless. i have nothing in me to draw upon - and i can't pretend that i have any idea of anything - a futility of knowledge. a plaster (band-aid) on a sawed-off limb. one of the things that helped me overcome my fear at the beginning was knowing that we were not trained counselors, we were volunteers, and our job was to listen. this now feels really inadequate. i feel like i may have come to the end of my psychic availability, if that makes any sense.

i explained this to my friend j, who is a psychologist. she said people burn out, and that 2 1/2 years is a long time. she's subtle, isn't she?!

so i decided to quit, and that tonight would be my last time. and i felt relieved, which i took as a sign that it was the right thing to do. but then tonight, on the line, i just felt really guilty. all the empty spaces in the "july" rota, the nights that the line hasn't been open because a volunteer couldn't make it, or we just didn't have enough volunteers to fill the rota. am i being selfish? is an incompetent volunteer better than no volunteer at all?

i thought maybe i could offer to do something else - like write a monthly newsletter for all of the volunteers so we/they would feel more connected and up to date on issues, law, etc.

i really don't want to do it anymore. and i feel really bad and really guilty about not wanting to do it anymore.

gates and fences

before:



after:



two and a half years ago, when humphrey, our greyhound, came to live with us, we put up a temporary barrier to keep him out of our neighbour's garden. it was an amalgamation of an old trellis, several reclaimed fence posts, and an industrial amount of gardening wire. it was not pretty, but it did the trick, kept humph from eating the neighbour's three (3!!!) cats, and anyways we were going to put a proper gate there soon.

in one and a half weeks we are hosting a gathering of n's family, both canadian and british. this has put the fire under us, so to speak, and we are getting things done

oh yes

and we built it ourselves

what do you do with 20 kilos of cherries?

you make wine, of course!! what a silly question!

we were planning on making a large batch of cherry wine this year, as cherry wine is one of our favourites, and last year's gallon seemed to evaporate in a most unseemly manner. so imagine our delight, when we found small flats of cherries on sale in our local farm shop! spanish cherries, which is not ideal, but this is wine, not eating, and at this price, spanish will be just fine. in a few days/weeks the british cherries will be out and we will feast on those.

when you have 20 kilos of cherries in your kitchen, your options for what to do with the afternoon become startlingly limited. it took about three hours to de-stem, squeeze, bag and prepare these beauties for their first ferment. in radio four talk, that was all the way from the afternoon play till after the six o'clock news. phew.

this should make about 25 litres of wine, about 30 - 35 bottles. they'll be ready for the new year and will be a welcome reminder of summer in the dark days of january.