Dear old Dad

I followed a link from Twitter the other day to an evocative blog by a young woman who had recently lost her Mother to Alzheimers.You can tell from the way she writes that it has been an immensely painful process for her, and the admiration I feel for her, being able to blog about something so IMMENSELY horrible that it feels as though your soul has been nigh-on ripped in two, is almost unquantifiable.

As I suppose is natural, I began thinking back to my own actions when my Father was dying and after he died. It’s not something that I’ve tended to dwell on. In some respects, knowing the end was coming allowed me to do a bit of grieving before the moment came, and the rest has passed in a whirlwind of chaos, time and stoicism. Looking back to then hurts. I want my memories of my Father to be good – to be memories of the vivid, strong, effervescent man he was, not the husk of a man in the hospice bed, waiting for his daughter to say goodbye before he took his last breath. It’s hard to remember the man who turned to you the week before he died and said, ‘I’m tired of fighting now, darling. It’s time for me to give up’ and looking at me almost as if he’s asking my permission, and begging for me to understand. It’s hard remembering that, and harder still to remember myself running from pillar to post, trying to create some last happy moments and failing. It’s easier to say it gets better with time, than to know how important it is to look back at a devastating moment and forgive myself for being less than perfect, to forgive myself for being human and to forgive myself for being me.

Because the truth is, that no matter what happens, how it happens or who it’s with: it’s not pretty. It’s painful, it’s ugly and time seems to pass both too fast and too slow all at the same time. I made mistakes that seemed to take on epic proportions and everything seemed to have added weight or significance because time was short. I remember all too much how imperfect I’ve been as a daughter, all the times I said ‘I hate you’ in anger instead of ‘I love you’. It doesn’t matter how many times I said I love you since those teenage days, they hang back and haunt  me and added to some kind of pressure in my head that wanted to make the last weeks and months perfect. I feel guilty because I wanted the whole thing to be over, because it’s so long and drawn out and the suffering is immense. I feel selfish because I wonder how much of that wanting it to be over is wanting him to be free of the pain, and how much is me wanting the horror of the hours, days and weeks to be over. I feel guilty because I desperately didn’t want him to die, because I was afraid that the pain of losing him would be too much to bear. I felt guilty because despite having so long to say goodbye, I never told him all the reasons I  loved him, and never even realised them all until he was gone.

And then it happened. And I felt numb. It just didn’t process that one minute he could be in there (just, but just was enough) and the next minute, not. And people wanted to go and be with him after he’d gone and it freaked me out and I couldn’t bear it.

And they expected me to get up and do things and be practical and worry about fucking death certificates while there was a yearning hole inside me that threatened to engulf my entire being. I still don’t know if I can forgive myself for smiling and being practical and doing what needed to be done, when I wanted to be standing on the side of a wild hillside, screaming at the top of my lungs just how bloody unfair this was, and HOW WAS I GOING TO COPE WITHOUT HIM?I still don’t know if I can forgive myself for soothing others when they rang up the house and burst into tears whilst offering their condolences instead of shouting ‘how the hell do you think I feel?’

I wanted to punch every last living soul who quoted me platitutes and told me it would get better, and brain the woman who told me at his funeral that she couldn’t bear to look at me because it reminded me too much of him. I was angry at everyone who didn’t know how to respond and ignored me instead, I was furious with the people who thought that because I was okay on the surface, I wasn’t bleeding underneath. Perhaps I need to forgive them for not knowing how to be, when they haven’t experienced devastation and loss like that, and perhaps I don’t really want to because it reminds me of just how raw it still is three years on, and how vulnerable and lonely everything still is without him.

Time doesn’t really make it okay, no matter what anyone says. All time does is teach me how to function without him. It doesn’t make the sharp stab of loss any less when I hear the busker singing A Modern Major General in Oxford Street, or I hear the London Irish fans raising a chrous of Fields of Athen Rye in support of the team. It doesn’t stop the lump in my throat when I hear someone say ‘stupid boy’ in the tones of Captain Mainwaring from Dad’s Army or a cheerful ‘my dear boy’. It doesn’t make it any less devastating to see the Father of a friend lead her up the aisle on her wedding day. Everything is slightly bittersweet, because it’s always slightly coloured with the memory of a man who is no longer here.

I can forgive myself for feeling that, because to forget too quickly would be worse, and if time someday eases how it feels to be without him, then perhaps I can learn to forgive myself for that too.

/

I downloaded the Glee Album last night (I’m an unashamed Gleek. Don’t judge me), and have been playing it incessantly since and is often the way with songs and lyrics, there was one particular song that mentally attached itself to my subconscious and found me identifying hugely with the lyrics: Defying Gravity from the musical Wicked. Strangely enough, it’s not one of the songs I liked the first time I heard it and yet it’s the one that seems to really have stuck in my head.

It has a wonderful line in it that goes like this:

“I’m through accepting limits ’cause someone says they’re so. Some things I cannot change but till I try, I’ll never know”

When you take it out of context, it’s  a sentiment I can really identify with. There are defining moments in our lives. Moments when we come to a crossroads, when our choices don’t necessarily just choose our path but define it and by extension, define us. One of those moments is the one where we choose to follow the established paths and boundaries or forge our own path.

Sometimes, it’s more than a case of pushing against established beliefs and boundaries but about pushing the limits of your mind. It’s defying the parts of your mind that tell you that it’s not reasonable or rational to want what you do and finding a way to make it real. It’s stepping away from playing it safe and finding and following the deepest desires of your heart, no matter how mad or strange or nonsensical they are. It’s letting go of the fears that hold you where you are. The fears that you’re not clever enough, pretty enough, determined enough, loveable enough to get what you want and saying to hell with it and doing it anyway.

Lauren from A Typical Atypical did exactly this in starting Basse Mode, just as Kasia did in starting HumAnima and more people I know are doing their thing of pushing accepted limits and creating  new perspectives that are beautiful, new and awe-inspiring in their boldness and truth. In thinking back at the people I have admired in my life, they are all people who’ve defied limitations, who’ve found new approaches to things we take for granted, people who challenge perceptions and defy the judgement of others to do something they believe in, who’ve known what they wanted and refused to let circumstances define their success or failure.

To borrow one of my favourite quotes (Thanks, Walt Disney) … If you can dream it, you can do it …

As I’ve begun stepping away from the parts of my mind that hold me back, good things have begun to happen. Taken me entirely by surprise, and snowballed and given me a sense of adventure about life once again. I find sponteneity resurfacing in my decisions and a willingness to take risks, because, let’s face it, what’s the worst that can happen?It’s a time for personal transformation, a time to evolve from a catapillar to a butterfly

There is a time for listening to your heart and a time for listening to your head. I might not be marching to the sound of my own drum but I am marching to the sound of my own heartbeat. I might not know where I’m marching to but I have that tingly feeling that precedes an adventure …

Unless you’ve had your head buried in the sand recently, you couldn’t have missed the fact that it’s Mothering Sunday this coming Sunday.

The history of Mothering Sunday is believed to have religious roots.  Most Sundays in the year churchgoers would worship at their nearest parish or “daughter church”. In Victorian times it was considered important for people to return to their home or “mother” church at least once a year, which was commonly thought to be the nearest Cathedral. So each year on the fourth Sunday of Lent, everyone would visit their “mother” church. The return to the “mother” church became an occasion for family reunions when children who were in service away from home returned. The majority of historians think that it was this return to the “Mother” church which led to the tradition of children, particularly those working as domestic servants, or as apprentices, being given the day off to visit their mother and family.

Of course, nowadays, much like Valentine’s day, it’s largely a commercial holiday with retailers telling us to buy everything from hand sanitising lotion (thanks for the heads up on that one Amber) to fossils and every last thing in between as a token of our appreciation for our parents. Turn into the local stationers and you’re bombarded with saccharine sweet cards declaring our love for our Mothers. And most people I know will be buying one with a gift for their mothers and doing something special this Sunday.

I won’t be.

You see, while most of the people I know are pretend moaning about buying cards and presents for their Mums but secretly thinking it’s kind of sweet, I can’t do that. And every time I hear someone talking about what they’ll be doing with their Mums, my heart lurches a little bit, because I know it’s unlikely that I will be able to do that, and that Mothers day, for me, is likely to be the same non-event that it has been for a decade or so.

You see, my Mum suffers from a mental disability. An addiction that led her to make a choice between me and another big love in her life and in my youthful, hot-headed way a number of years ago I decided that I couldn’t spend my life playing second fiddle to her addictions. It’s not a choice I regret but it makes me feel a little sad and a little wistful knowing that while other sons and daughters are celebrating what their parents have done and have sacrificed to give them a decent start in life, my Mum wouldn’t do that. That I wasn’t reason enough to battle for and  to know I will never be able to celebrate her in that way. While it was my choice to walk away from it and chose to live my own life, it’s a twist of the knife to know that I had to make that choice, to know that I couldn’t have my own life and a loving mother, and to know that I will never be able to join in the celebrations.

I won’t rant about how wrong it is to celebrate Mother’s day just because a minority of us can’t do so. It’s a day to celebrate your Mother (and historically your family) and that’s a joyful thing. So I say go wild. Remember every damned thing your Mother has ever done to make you happy and then mutiply it by 10, because that’s probably closer to the truth. Forget the arguments, the niggles and the tiny things that annoy you about your Mum … because they don’t matter. Imagine what it would be like to spend every single day for the rest of your life without her … and the emotional devatation you can imagine is the the mirror to how much you really love her. Hold onto those thoughts and when you see your Mum on Sunday, don’t just give her a bunch of flowers and a hug … TELL HER how much you lover her, how much you appreciate her and how much she’s one of the best things in your life. Don’t let her go without knowing all the things you love about her from the way she smells to the way she dances when she thinks no-one’s watching .

But being in the situation I am, makes me consider other people, who through no choice of their own don’t have a Mother with whom they can celebrate either. People who’ve lost their family through any kind of tragedy. Being subjected to the endless barage of advertising is going to hurt  as much as the knowledge that the day is one that we are now and will forever be excluded from that special relationship and celebration. So as you consider your maternal relationships on Sunday and spend a little time with the ones you love, just spare a little thought for those of us who won’t be.

Looking at our table of laughing, joking, gesticulating you wouldn’t have seen anything out of the ordinary, just a group of fun, happy, well balanced people. And so they were but also SO very much more. They are people whose spirit not only has triumphed against adversity but people who work hard daily to ensure that EVERY DAY they continue to triumph.

They are inspirational by virtue of no more than who they are. Their triumphs daily inspire my own and they themselves are such lovely people that they inspire help and support from the rest of us whenever they are in need of it.

They are the sorts of people who walk into a room full of strangers and SHINE. They can’t help it. They believe in life taking it by the horns and giving it a smacking kiss on the forehead. They make the world a brighter and more interesting place just by being in it.

While many of us get stuck in our ways: they are an education. They make a lifestyle out of constantly growing, changing, learning and consciously evolving. As their perspectives change, they challenge my beliefs and perspectives and I grow with them.

I know plenty of people who try too hard to be exceptional or extraordinary and by trying so hard, they miss the focus they were aiming for. Extraordinary comes when you know the ordinary intimately. Exceptional comes once you’ve embraced and appreciated the mundane. It comes when you stop trying to be who and what you’re not and be who you ARE to the best of your ability. It comes from having experienced both pain and hardship so that you can truly offer compassion.

They find joy in the smallest things and find wonder in everyday spaces. They know who they are and they know where they come from. They might not know where they’re headed but they make the journey a hell of a lot more interesting.

When I was a kid, I could not wait to grow up: All that freedom, all that space to grow into, to travel through, to make a mark on. The world would be mine for the taking.

The little village where I spent my youth with its small minded inhabitants and endless gossip wouldn’t hold me. The villagers weren’t big enough. They didn’t see big, think big, feel big. They weren’t like me. We were different sides of a line that none of us knew how to cross.

When I grew up, I was going to be free. I wouldn’t be the sort of woman to be held back by a partner’s ambition or to be used for another’s gain. I wouldn’t be stereotyped, pigeonholed or belittled by people who were smaller, petty and jealous. None of that shit would touch me. There would be nothing that would hold my dreams in check. I was bursting to be unleashed on the world and shine like no-one ever had before. I was going to shine, I was going to love and living was going to be my art form.

We passed from year to year, being faced with choices that defined and limited our paths: Which GCSE? Which A-level? Which University? I fought against the restriction. I wanted something bigger, something broader: A single focus was too narrow and I fought against it like a caged animal.

I didn’t fit a model of success. I didn’t have a particular aim, a particular ambition, a single direction. I dipped a toe in every puddle, retraced my steps, fell down and got back up again only to discover that what I had was endless possibilities and a depth of feeling I didn’t know what to do with.

I wrote. I photographed. I read voraciously. I walked outside the lines. Until I realised that what I was searching for couldn’t be satisfied with separate, compartmentalised things: a job, a career, a hobby, religion. No. It was too bold, too wild, too yearning.

My direction had to tie together the thoughts and emotions that lay deep within me. I had to find a way of making what was inside me a physical reality, with all the challenges that demands. My direction is spiritual, emotional and physical. It’s multi-faceted, sparkling, impossible to define and MINE.

I don’t know how I’m going to find it, how I’m going to make it or where the hell it’s going to take me. It’s going to be a wild journey, with some money, some  poverty, some love and some loneliness but I know that wherever I end up, I’ll be looking at the stars and thinking that my wild adventure begins and ends with me. My happiness and my destination doesn’t rely on promotions or shiny shoes, whether I travel first class or stuffed in a cargo plane with a herd of llamas but it relies wholeheartedly on my perceptions and my willingness to take whatever life throws at me and make something bloody awesome out of it.

In my world, now that I’m grown up, I know that nobody has it better than I do. There is not one single person I’m jealous of … because those other people, they’re off doing their thing and I’m doing mine … and no matter how small my steps, every single one I take is taking me that much closer to that incredible destination I dreamed of when I was a kid and the journey’s a patchwork kaleidescope of wonderful things and desperate disappointments that make up a wonderful life.

Post snow, Somerset decided that a nice winter storm was clearly the way to blow out the cobwebs and provided us with an enchanting performance on Friday night around midnight as I huddled in bed listening to (and feeling) the howling wind and listening to the rain splatter against the windows. It really opened my eyes to the draughts in older houses. After draught proofing the gaps in the doors and windows, I decided the gaps at the bottom of the door needed serious tackling and a draught excluder was called for.

Being a thrifty sort, I was loath to pay for one, so I looked up ideas on the internet, and decided that it looked so painfully simple that even I could tackle it without hesitation. I had a hunt through my fabric chest and noticed a couple of old pillowcases that didn’t match anything and decided that it was the perfect lazy woman’s solution. I took the pillow case, turned it inside out and sewed a line stright down the middle. Since I was using gingham, I already had a straight line mapped out for me so it really couldn’t have been easier. After stuffing it with old bits of unused fabric, I sewed up the end et voila:

Blue Gingham Draught Excluder

Since I was in a sewing mood, anyway, I decided that it was about time I got around to making cushion covers for some more of the cushion inserts that were lurking in my trunk so I picked out a few choice scraps (see if you can guess which one used to be a pair of curtains) and made up a couple, using the envelope technique from Kirsty’s homemade home, which is much quicker and easier than bothering with zips and the like.

Handmade Cushions

After all the hauling around of furniture that occurred on Friday, I have a serious yen to get my bedroom finally finished so tomorrow will be a mad whirling experience of smartwear buying (ick), painting and general creativity but I promise to post some pics as soon as we’re all done.

I’ve also finally sanded back and waxed the windowframe I’ll be using for my headboard and am just waiting to hear from a friend with a handy drill and wire locating device to give me a hand putting it up (it’s big, okay?). Hang fire, the end result is a secret until it’s up and finished but seriously, it looks FABULOUS. I’m so proud.

Somehow rearranging the furniture never fails to soothe me. I don’t know why exactly. It might be the order of it, or the process of organising and clearing that I find therapeutic but I can guarantee that if I need to think or to settle, you’ll either find me out walking or inside hauling furniture. Old trunks and chests found new uses and new homes, chests of drawers moved as did their contents and as the contents of my bedroom changed, the very shape, atmosphere and nature of it also changed and there it was, the peace and tranquility that I’d lost in the turbulence of evil ‘everything sucks’ Tuesday came flooding back as I watched my space take shape around me.

But my general dissatifaction with things got me thinking about other things too, and one of those things was friends (once again). I’m the sort of person who really likes their own company. I have so much to do that I am rarely bored and in those relatively short spaces of time when I’m not doing things, I like being able to kick back and enjoy my space, quietly and without interruption. Generally speaking, I’m happy with that.

And then I fell across Caroline’s 21st Century girl post and combined with my sartorial requirements for next Tuesday, I think it must have flipped a switch, because it got me thinking about my different groups of friends. I’m not short of friends, despite the fact that I don’t always make them easily thanks to a combination of shyness and slight overcompensation but I have relatively few that are local, being as I’m new to the area and all.

It reminded me of my University days, where for the first real time in my life, I was part of a group. I could wander up a floor and hook up with people for a cup of tea or wander down for a bit of my own space, if I had a sucky day, someone would roll up and either hear me out, tell me to snap out of my mood or drag me out somewhere to take my mind off it. It was the first time I’d known the comfort of real friendship. Real friends are the ones you never expect yourself to be friends with but seem to end up being friends with despite that, they’re the ones that you can go without seeing for years at a time and conversation still flows like time never passed. They’re the ones you remember having one vodka too many with and being hopelessly indiscreet and they’r the ones you know won’t let your secrets out on pain of death. Real friends turn up without being asked. They know you well enough to know whether to push or leave it alone. When you’re excited about something, they don’t just support you but join in.

We all keep in touch with phone calls, letters, emails and sometimes facebook and twitter but there are some days when you an email doesn’t cut the mustard. Sometimes you need friends around you, be they living down the hall, down the road or a half hour drive away.

I miss having that instant support network on my doorstep, and feel slightly ashamed that when I had it, I took it slightly for granted. I assumed that we’d always be there, always be close, and that things would always be easy. But none of our lives are ever easy, they’re fraught with difficulties, obstacles, diversions and endless demands on our time. It means more to me than I should probbaly admit that these people I care for, admire and love see enough in me to want to carve out the time to spend it with me.

Goes to show, that despite it all … as long as there are people in your life who love you … Happy Days.

January

I took a big step and moved away from the area I had grown up in and what had once been my family home and moved several hundred miles away to a place I had no friends and no job on no more than a whim that it was the right place for me. I took a trip to the USA and went roadtripping through California with my friend Dragonboy, where we had fun and played with pirates and had earth shattering revelations about Life, The Universe and Everything. 42 may or may not be part of it. I’m not telling.

February

The Great Renovation project got started, thanks to Martin and Sue at GECCO and I spent several weeks in a state of slight panic as I watched things get sawed up, chopped up, people falling through floors and walls coming down until a miracle occurred and all of a sudden I had a house that resembled a house. Clearly, I didn’t have enough on my plate at the time so I adopted my second dog, Sascha from the Dogs Trust. She caused all manner of chaos but it made life interesting.

March

I got myself a kitchen finally, after a couple of months of not having a cooker and my relief at finally being able to turn on the hob was palpable, and after a wealth of swearing, frustration and cursing of the Misrosoft team who created IE6, my freelancing web design website went live

April

I got myself a part time job, doing something I could have guaranteed would magnify my freak beacon to a point beyond any kind of help. I was right. On a more decorative and creative front, I started trying to decide on what colours to paint the cottage, and entered a mad panic about whether painting the insides of cottages interesting colours was considered in poor taste. Meanwhile maniac demon bought the house next door, moved in and attempted to make my life a misery.

May

Having decided that since it wasn’t a listed building, I didn’t care what other people thought, I started to paint the kitchen and add flourishes and finishing touches around the house. There seemed to be a lot of painting and getting whimsical with flower fairies and not feeling any need to restrain myself or be grown up about things. Being a grown up doesn’t mean killing of the child inside you.

June

I finally started to be able to take some time to take it easy and kick back and relax, until I realised that my lazy assed bum of a surveyor cocked up my survey and it was going to cost me a small fortune to repair the roof. Several heated letters later … no response. You really have to love England sometimes, but this was not one of those times!

July

My patience came to a head over a lack of personal responsibility (what could be worse?) in my soon to be ex-flatmate and inspired by Lauren at A Typical Atypical, I mused over attitudes to drinking.

August

Went falconing for my sister’s birthday. Discovered halfway through said birthday that due to a burst pipe, the house was flooding and it was raining through the kitchen ceiling. Crisis ensued.

September

Spent a lot of time without a kitchen ceiling and a permeating smell of damp as the house dried out from the flooding incident, and it finally got through to me that no matter the cost, you have to follow your dreams. Invariably caused uproar at work by leaving a cup in the sink and my blog went wibbly wobbly and disappeared for a fair while due to an incident with my hosting provider.

October

I got rather domestic and had some time to spend indulging some of my hobbies, and went and caught a lot of shows at the local theatres, before reacquainting myself with a paintbrush and attacking the front room.

November

Had a whirlwind of friends visiting and house makeover-itis before my 30th un-birthday weekend, a month before my real birthday weekend, which seemed to result in a lot of general fun and hilarity and mortifying embarassment when people kept singing to me in my favourite local restaurant.

December

A lot of things happened very suddenly around the following a dream issue, which ultimately collapsed a couple of days before Christmas leaving me very disappointed. Christmas itself perked me up a little and here I am ready to bounce my way into 2010.

So, Happy New Year to You All. Here’s hoping all your dreams come true ….

I’m trying very hard to remind myself that it’s a time to prepare for a new year and a new start and a time to be very positive. 2010 is potentially a very exciting time for me and will hopefully be filled with the opportunities I have been dreaming of and am hoping to put into action this year.

It’s not a time for me to be staring at myself, complete with chipped teal toenail polish, untamed frizzy hair, empty house, comfort clothes that would give Gok Wan nightmares, and a pile of dishes and think, well darling, what the fuck happened there then? Nor is it a time for thinking that I’ve just turned 30 and work in a shop doing something I’m not passionate about while I watch my finances demand that I live less on a budget and more of a shoestring.

This is a time for PRIORITIES, woman! Appearances can be tidied as can houses and it’s not outsides which are to be remedied but dreams that need to be bolstered. It’s a time to remember that every disappointment that was visited upon me in 2009 may well have happened for a reason and can only serve to drive me closer to actually achieving my dreams. It is NOT a time to lose heart, to stop dreaming, wishing and hoping.

Every dream has a rough path and the sleepless nights and moments of wondering if you’re crazy for wanting this instead of a more traditional ‘normal’ path, but overcoming these things is what makes the achievements all the sweeter. I suppose to an extent, it makes me feel like a heroine upon a quest, proving myself worthy of the prize by succeeding at the challenges I’ve been set. Since I rather like the idea of being a heroine in a story of my own devising, I’ll be carrying on with my quest in search of my treasure … but I’ll be buggered if I’ll be doing it without RUM!

There are few things in life more invigorating and refreshing than wandering outside in the wild winter weather, with dogs that get excited at every small thing you see. I consider it one of nature’s greatest natural highs. And the cup of tea that inevitably follows a good walk: I would swear that there is nothing on earth that tastes sweeter.

The weather had a threatening air about it for much of Saturday afternoon, so we headed out to The Piano bar for a late lunch, where we cheerfully greeted by a very attractive and very pleasant waiter, before gulttonously indulging ourselves in the most gorgeous food. I had a prawn and smoked salmon medley to start, followed by the best steak baguette I have ever had the pleasure to ingest. My friend, the lovely Kasia, enjoyed a tagliatelle carbonara and looked very pleased over it. It was all helped along by a half of local cider and a couple of servings of dishy waiter

We headed down to West Bay, near Bridport on Sunday morning for a wander along the beach and along the coastal path. The winds were very high and gusty, and as a result so were the waves, which was wonderfully atmospheric. Although stunning to watch, it was as amusing to watch the dogs (and occasional person) caught out by the crashing waves and getting an unseasonal soaking!

Frothy waves and spray crashing onto the rocks.

Waves crashing on the shore. Exhilarating windy weather.

Dramatic waves crashing against the rocks

The dogs really seemed to enjoy the weekend (apart from the odd scuffle) and really seemed to enjoy the beach!

Sasha, enjoying a run on the beach. Pure happiness!

Flossie having a roll and a dig in the sand

Pluto and Flossie having some doggy lovin' time

Fun and games with a new spaniel friend

Hunting exciting new smells on the Beach

A doggy convention

Post-beach, we decided to take a drive through some stunning Dorset countryside towards Moonfleet Manor, the Inn referred to by John Meade Faulkner in Moonfleet, home of Dorset Smugglers, where we stopped off for some atmosphere, gorgeously warm fires, and a drink before braving the elements once more and heading off towards Weymouth beach for another romp on the beach and some seaside fish and chips.

Moonfleet manor (Image borrowed from www.sheridans-guides.com)

I can’t wait to do it all over again! :0)

Year after year, we’re told to strive for the ‘perfect Christmas’ with articles from various magazines on decorating and preparing puddings and organising your turkeys in October until we start planning from August for fear of getting something wrong or missing something out. It becomes a pressure cooker of expectation meets experience, which from my point of view is just impossible to meet. It seems to invariably lead to tears, tempers and rows and very rarely seems to engender that magical Christmas spirit that we so look forward to.

I took a day off today, and instead of sewing or painting and doing something useful and went to Bath for a day out with my sister. Since we both moved, we don’t see as much of each other, and it makes the chance to get together that bit more special. It was lovely, we had long lunches in Cafe Rouge drinking hot chocolate and eating steak baguettes before going shopping for beautiful boots in Duo (I resisted but it wasn’t easy) and looking at stunning homewares and interior decorating books in Vinegar Hill before ooh-ing and aah-ing over beautiful christmas decorations.

It’s the first time I’ve hosted a Christmas. I’ve always been somewhere else with family or friends and it’s the first time I’ve ever had my own home to decorate or my own Christmas to organise or be excited about. I was initially a little worried with it being the first proper Christmas since Dad passed away. But for the first time today, I started to think it might not be so scary after all.

Bath Spa

Walking around beautiful Bath today, and perusing home style magazines, I started to slowly realise that Christmas didn’t have to be a stressful affair and it didn’t have to be structured or formal either. It’s an opportunity for me to start shaping my own traditions, my own style and my own Christmases. I have a chance to make this my own, comforting, relaxed Christmas in a way that really reflects what I believe in and the way I want to live my life. It sounds silly, but that had never really occurred to me before.

For the first time, I’ve seen this coming Christmas as  a new start, and a chance to take the traditions that shaped my childhood Christmases and find a way of putting my own twist on them. With this new perspective, walking through Bath in the chilled wintery air, I started to feel that tingle of excitement that Caroline blogged about only the other day considering what I really wanted out of Christmas.

I’d been asked the other day what I wanted for my birthday and Christmas this year and my honest answer was very little. There is relatively little that I am desperate to own and after the last couple of years, it has really driven home to me how little material goods mean and how much more important it is to be happy with your life and your friends. After hours and hours of racking my brains, I came to the conclusion that the best gifts were the things that really meant something when they were being put together, that contained thought and effort. I love photos of my friends in handpainted frames, momentos of places we’ve all been together, things that remind me of the important things in life. That’s what I want out of Christmas. Just that and the time to spend with the people I love and don’t get nearly enough of a chance to is the best present a girl could have.

So here’s to building your own Christmases. I hope that wherever you are and whatever you do for it, it’s a time for something special for you too.

Walking Out

The farm opposite

God, the weather today has just been gorgeous. Genuinely, you could be mistaken, looking at the picture to the left of my road in thinking it was a summer’s day (yup, the gorgeous picturesque landscape in the photo … I live there! Never ceases to amaze me either.)

Wandered up past the farm opposite down to the Palace fields opposite the Bishops palace and let the dogs let their hair down and tear around like the carefree beasties they really are for a while this morning, stopping every few minutes to chat with other dog owners and simply enjoy the experience of being out in blazing autumn sunshine, feeling well and happy.

The day seemed to flash by in a swirl of laundry and domestic chores and before I knew it, it was mid-afternoon and things were taking an interesting swing.

In a bid to help out a friend, I rang my builder for some information. Whilst on the phone, he invited me over to his and his girlfriend’s new house to see how their building work was coming along.

The house is the very definition of cute. Genuinely, it’s an adorable victorian terraced cottage in Old Glastonbury with heaps of original features and they’re having a fine old time with paint and fittings and decorations. So I popped over to see what they’re doing, have a cup of tea and pass some time, as you do, and they surprised me with some very practical, handy presents. Knowing that my screwdrivers had gone missing in the course of recent weeks (things disappearing in my place is slightly par for the course) as had my set of alan keys, they had bought me a set of screwdrivers and a full set of alan keys to replace them. Such a sweet thing to do, and so typical of them both and that was before suprising me with the news that they think I might have overpaid them for repairing my kitchen and were quite happy to offer it back to me. I’m not convinced I did but golly, the honesty and generosity of some people is astonishing. I think I need to bake them a nice cake to say thank you. Don’t you?

It’s an easy thing to find yourself stuck in a rut, doing something that you’re not sure you want to do or doing something that you’re good at but have no real passion for. It’s easier still to settle in and convince yourself that it’s what you want really and it’s far too late to change now and float through life on a raft called Mediocrity, waiting for the tide to turn.

Sometimes, I think it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to float along and be average, but my life never seems to turn out that way. I’m no good at being submissive. Sometimes I can try to hold back, but in the end, it always just comes straight out like a big gushing waterfall … and you know that like a force of nature it’s just useless to try and hold it back. Putting a girl with strong opinions on mute – well it’s not going to last for long is it?

I’ve been trying damned hard to work for average recently. Quiet, normal, and even at times subservient (Yeah, those of you who know will be laughing yourselves silly already at the thought) and have come to the point where I realise it’s fruitless. I can’t be something I’m not and (God willing) everything in the Universe and beyond appears to be shoving me towards leaving the easy life behind me and taking the far more difficult but potentially much more fulfilling path. Sometimes it feels like being poked with a metaphorical pitchfork towards your ideals.

Sometimes, it’s comfortable just to have dreams, you know? That thought that sits at the back of your mind, saying “…someday I’ll … live in the Caribbean/ go diving with sharks / teach people to swim with dolphins…” or whatever. It’s probably never going to happen but it’s nice to have that little glow inside you that says there’s more to life than the girl you see shopping and painting her nails. But what happens when you have a chance to actually make the dream come true? Are you too afraid of messing up to take the chance, do you grab it with both hands, will you take a risk to get it or do you expect it to fall into your lap?

I’m somewhat inclined towards risk. Calculated risk, but still. I don’t think your achievements are worth as much to you if you’re not willing to take a risk for them, to put your belief in yourself and your talents and to work as hard as you possibly can to achieve them.

It’s a funny sort of thing, but every time she comes down for a visit, there’s a crisis in the house that results in the house looking like a disaster zone. The first time was moving day before we started knocking walls down, the second time, one of the kitchen cabinets fell off the wall, a day before she was due to arrive, and this time we had a burst pipe in the bathroom, which has resulted in my kitchen ceiling being pulled down and replaced. Oh well, no ceiling just adds to that rustic look, doesn’t it? *wibble*

The kitchen ceiling post-flood

Lots to be getting on with today. I’m baking her a belated birthday cake (the ceiling fell down on her birthday, and the dogs ate her birthday cake – resulting in a sister abandoned in the middle of the Cotswolds with no birthday cake) which will hopefully make it up to her, and other domestic chores.

I do have some exciting show and tells to follow though.

My new shoerack, which started off life as a £10 self assembly job from Argos

Every house needs an odds and ends bowl and I found this lovely rough wooden bowl for half price at a local furniture shop.

The beginnings of a picture frame I'm making from driftwood I collected on my US trip. I want to make a woven string backing and make a shell collage to decorate the centre but this is it in progress...

I’d better get on with it, hadn’t I? Have a good weekend all.

A while ago I found myself in a very difficult and quite long-lasting personal situation. Various friends and acquaintances commented on my strength of character at such a stressful and traumatic time but the truth was that I was already halfway through the situation before I realised how bad it was. If I could have seen exactly what it would have been like before I got into it, I’m not entirely convinced that I would have emerged the other side.While I like the admiration and the compliments on my character and actions, I know the rather unglamorous truth but rather than making me feel depressed that I don’t necessarily live up to what others think of me, I find quite inspiring.

An acquaintance recently told me that if people who knew the all the ins and outs of things they embarked on, they would probably never do them. His view is that when you know something inside out, with every possibility and ramification, you see too many possibilities for failure so you either never take the risk or you become so fixated on the possible failures that you end up failing. I could see his point.

Sometimes, it’s ok to jump in without knowing every last thing. To fire ahead with vision and determination and overcome problems as they appear rather than trying to analyse every blip on the horizon. Sometimes you have to just get your feet wet and say ‘why the hell not?’.

So here’s to sponenaity and here’s to taking a risk – because sometimes your attitude will get you further than the facts will.

I used to have another blog but it’s encountering possibly unsolvable technical difficulties and is skulking around in cyberspacelike a particularly defiant teenager, abandoned but not unloved. If I ever get my hands on it, I shall transfer some of it over here and this will no longer be the first post on my blog, even though it is. If you want to know a bit about me, have a look around the site, read my bio and see what you think.

This blog exists in part as a creative outlet for some of my perspectives that don’t necessarily have an outlet in my life right now. While I’d not consider myself an artist in a traditional sense, I consider life to be a continually evolving work of art, shaped by our interactions and experiences.

For now, though, it’s late, my kitchen appliances are not sounding especially happy and I need to formulate some kind of coherence to my thoughts, which are currently jumping about like a kangaroo on speed.

G’night all.

With credit-crunchitis in full swing, we have all felt the need to tighten our belts a notch or two, and most of the time we look at budgeting in much the same way as we do dieting: with a sense of obligation and doing what we must and very little enthusiasm for the task, which probably accounts for why, as with dieting, we tend to break after a while and have a little splurge.

I chose to give up a well paid job, work fewer hours for a lower wage and I’m happy with my choice because it’s given me freedom to do the things that I’ve wanted to do and so my choice to budget is equally my choice and I’m enjoying what I’m doing. Then, it occurred to me that there was something perhaps a little unusual in ENJOYING budgeting and I began to consider why it was that I find budgeting and being thrifty enjoyable.

Largely, I find the experience particularly creative. That sounds unusual, but it is without question the right word. I couldn’t deny that it’s occasionally difficult and juggling bills can be an issue but the thought and creativity that goes into finding alternatives to purchasing the expensive things you want can be a very exciting and creative process, and very often, the sense of pride that comes with the solution outstrips any retail thrill and your pride and delight in it is renewed every time you see it.

My current example would be my curtains. I searched high and low for a relatively cheap pair of curtains from somewhere like John Lewis or Next that suited what I wanted for the cottage but nowhere could I find exactly what I wanted. So I looked at getting curtains custom made and realised that I couldn’t afford that as an option either as 3 sets of curtains would set me back well over a £1,000.

So I was left with the options  saved over a thousand pounds by making them myself just adds to that.of buying curtains that I didn’t really like and customising them or buying some fabric, overcoming my fear of sewing something so vast and unwieldy and trying to make them myself. Being foolhardy and a little creative, I decided that I wanted the perfect curtains and I was going to make them myself if it killed me.

So I bought the fabric and lining for a fraction of the cost of a pair of curtains, looked up instructions on the web and got cracking. It has been, in turn, terrifying and vastly rewarding. I’ll happily admit that the first time I picked up my fabric and sewing machine, I was absolutely petrified:

• What if I got it all wrong?
• What if it looked awful?
• How the hell did you use a sewing machine properly?

Memories of tangled lumps of fabric and an irate sewing mistress at school lurked at the back of my mind as I considered my new project, so I sat down with a cup of tea and considered my reservations. What if I got it all wrong? Well, what if I did? It wasn’t going to be the end of the world, it was just a pair of curtains! Step by step – what I was doing was essentially sewing two rectanles of fabric together – not so difficult. To make it easier, I was using striped fabric, so essentially I had built in rulers (woo). So far so good. I was breathing a bit easier. So, I didn’t have to start sewing straight away, I could mock it all up first: iron the creases, pin and tack where I would later stitch and it looked alright.

So, what if I got it all wrong once I started stitching and it ended up looking all lumpy like my stitchwork at school? I was introduced by a friend to the magic of the quicker unpicker and I decided that if worst came to worst and my first attempt looked awful, I could always unpick it and start again. Reassuring. So far so good and here comes the scary bit. The sewing maching was looming in front of me, looking scary and complicated, with  seemingly infinite number of stitches and tightness. How was I supposed to know what to use? I decided to stick with the default settings until I was more sure of myself, which turned out pretty well and step by step the curtains started to take shape. I checked them at every stage to monitor my progress (and see if I needed to redo anyof them but each stage seemed to yield positive results, which boosted my confidence no end.

My first pair of curtains are now lying over the kitchen door, waiting for the header tape (the bit you stick the hooks in) to be applied before I give them a final iron and hang them for the very first time. Nothing I ever buy will rival the sense of pride I have in that one set of curtains, and knowing that I have saved hundreds of pounds in the making just adds to the pleasure.

After trying to train myself into a more frugal mindset for the last few months, I surprised myself on a meander around town this morning. I’d lost my makeup case and wanted a new one. Just a little thing to cart the bare essentials around with me. It was one of those shopping trips where nothing quite fit the bill. The affordable ones were generally a bit tacky and the nicer ones were waaaayy out of my price range. In my previous mindset, I’d probably  have settled for one I wasn’t mad about and paid the extra but today I had the make-do-and-mend angel on my shoulder, reminding me that it wouldn’t take more than an hour or so to make one myself using some of the lovely fabrics I have at home for a fraction of the price and yet again end up with something unique and perfect. So that’s what I shall do.

I have the same reaction to my clothes now. When I am bored of an old v neck top, I sew a bit of coloured lace into the V, or decorate the V and sleeves in a  bit of lace, broderie anglaise or beading. Voila, a pretty much brand new top for next to nothing, and I know that nobody will be wearing the same as me!

It is a liberating realisation to know that I am not restricted to owning what I am told to buy at the shops, but that the only restriction on me is my imagination … and I haven’t even come close to plumbing the depths of that yet.

So I’m off to finish my curtains and have a cup of tea. I will be posting pictures of my new curtains as soon as I have hung them up. Wish me luck.

Contrary to its title, this post is less about drinking and more about abstinence, for I personally am not a big drinker. To those who knew me at University, this may trigger a moment or two of hilarity but it is nonetheless the truth. I don’t have a personal problem with alcohol, the drinking of it doesn’t upset me and I’m happy enough to have a glass if one is plonked in front of me, but truthfully, I’d probably rather have a cup of tea.

During my formative years, as we have all done, I experimented with alcohol, found my limits and occasionally exceeded them with less than desirable results. Somehow, over the years, it just stopped being a part of my life. I’m not a solitary drinker so I have always tended to keep the drink for presents or when I have guests and as someone who lives alone (well to all intents and purposes until I get my new lodger) I simply got into a habit of drinking fruit juice, tea or whatever else when I fancied something to drink, rather than reaching for the plonk.

That has its upsides. Drinking, for me, doesn’t have the associations it has for many of my age group – of relaxation and recreation, or of solace after a hard day and so I tend to enjoy what I do drink, however occasionally, on its own merits.

I find the current culture of drinking for the end result (getting drunk) rather than for the taste and experience of what you’re drinking completely alien. If you’ve ever been the sober one amongst a seething mass of drunks, it really can alter your perceptions of the human race, or indeed a few episodes of Booze Britain tends to have the same effect. I have no problems with the occasionally tipsy, particularly the slightly shambling but always amenable type, but what I can’t fathom is how from it being acceptable to be occasionally tipsy but always civil, it has become the norm to be loud, lairy, falling all over the place, vomiting copiously and generally creating an unpleasant effect on those around you.

As I was pondering, I thought I’d have a meander through some articles on binge drinking and a thread of comments particularly caught my eye. After some discussion about the weekly limits for men and women, somebody commented that as a woman, that meant that you could only safely drink one standard (175ml) glass of wine a night and that was ridiculous. It particularly caught my attention because my initial reaction was to question why exactly it was ridiculous.

I have quite often found, if going out to dinner with friends (and most of my friends are not antisocial or big drinkers) or colleagues, I am by far and away the slowest drinker amongst them. I rarely accept a top up (because I’m that much slower a drinker) and upon occasion I get a gentle ribbing for ‘nursing’ a drink all night, and I always have a couple of glasses of water with it. It’s all in good humour and luckily for me, my friends know me and would never be the sort of people to pressure me into drinking more. They know my limits as well as I do and accept them as much as they accept me. It’s not a requirement for a good time.

That said even I, at times, feel a pressure to be more like other people and perhaps stretch to that extra glass. I felt ever so slightly guilty for being a bit of a stick in the mud but when you think about it, there’s nothing to feel guilty about. I drink in moderation, know and stick to my limits and enjoy what I drink. That doesn’t seem in the least ridiculous to me.

It has recently come to my attention, that I am at last becoming a grown up, or a least that is how I appear to my contemporaries and the public at large. We’ll perhaps adress my inner workings another time. There are certain characteristics that seem to have developed in my life since morphing from a ‘youth’ to an adult, and one of those characteristics is the one I’d like to talk about today: personal responsibility.

Personal responsibility seems, much like common sense, to be one of those things that you assume everyone has until you are rudely proven wrong; as the universe saw fit to inform me by blowing an exceedingly large rasperry at me recently. Ppppfffffttttttt!

For those unfamiliar with the concept, we’ll start at the beginning with the foundations of personal responsibility, the basic building blocks of it, if you prefer. The keystone, for me at least, is consideration. Indeed for some, we are already jumping the gun. Consideration involves thinking about other people. Yes indeed. A tricky and foreign concept to many but a skill necessary for a harmonious existence (although if you’re one of the people who seem to rub along fine without it, you probably don’t care and obliviously leave trails of angry and frustrated people in your wake. Jolly good for you.).

It is a small thing, reader, that takes a mere moment but it requires us to use our brains (however large or small) to consider that other people exist and also consider how our actions impact on them. It’s a tricky one I’ll grant you but one that ought to be mastered perhaps by … say … the age of five. If you’re a latecomer to the notion, however, you might want to apply yourself to a practical excercise such as monitoring your actions for a day and trying to think of how this might affect the people around you. The next step is to alter your actions so that you affect people in a positive way and not a negative way, so add an extra column to your list from the previous excercise and in it, write what you could do to minimise the impact of your actions on those around you.

Once we’ve mastered this, you may (being the intellectually and emotionally advanced sort) want to consider moving on to the next stage in the game, which we’ll call anticipation. Now this one really is complicated. It really requires psychic ability of staggering proportions but for you, we’ll try and simplify things down a little. Anticipation involves looking to the future (yup that psychic bit). For those of you who are sadly not psychic though, we have devised a canny shortcut, called hypothesising. So, the basic technique involves looking to the future and trying to work out what is likely to happen based on our actions and alter them accordingly. I could give you a real world example, if it would help.

1. I have 2 dogs
2. I ask you to keep the cupboard doors shut to stop the dogs reaching things they shouldn’t

So would it be considerate to ensure the cupboards were closed. Quite right, dear reader! Well done, my you’re catching on quick., and if we were to add a little hypothesising into the mix we could perhaps attain a number of possible scenarios based on this example. So, if we were to leave the cupboard open, wih food inside, is it likely that:

A) A dog would look at the easily accessible food and say to itself ‘oh no, better not, I should wait til someone tells me to’
B) A dog would look at a tin of biscuits and think ‘oh no, better resist, they’ll go straight to my belly’
C) A dog would look at a tin of biscuits and think ‘WHEEEEEEEE. FOOOOOOOOOOOD!!!!’

The answer there would be C folks. If you know dogs it was obvious, but if you don’t, here’s a  clue ‘I asked you to keep the cupboard shut’ so logically there would be a reason for that, making C the most probable answer.

So to put it all together, let’s assume for some reason (perhaps you just sliced off the tip of your finger and weren’t thinking straight, or perhaps you saw a yeti out of the kitchen window.) you completely ignored what I asked you to do. You then completely failed to anticipate the most likely outcome of your actions and take steps to avoid it. Well, fair enough it happens to us all (and this is where personal responsibility really kicks in) … so you just hold your hands up and say ‘Hey, you know what? I forgot. I’m sorry’. You actually take it upon yourself and figure, Hey, well, I could have stopped that small thing happening and I didn’t. Oops. My bad‘. It’s not the end of the world.

What you don’t do is to make up a lie like “Oh the dogs unlocked the cupboard and pulled the door open with their teeth and then ate the biscuits … AND I WATCHED THEM DO IT AND DIDN’T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT. Even though they’ve never done that before in their lives. No, really, they did. It totally had nothing to do with me“.

Why don’t you do that?? A number of small reasons:

• It’s transparent (you know you’re lying and I know you’re lying)
• Your excuse makes you seem like more of a jackass than simply admitting to a mistake
• It is just ever so slightly pathetic and childish
• … and finally you’re a grown-up so grow up!

Now go forth and share the joy.