Month: January 2018

Springy things

If I was running a GP practice, I would set aside a reasonable budget for growbags, seeds and bulbs for my patients, because they are quite literally the equivalent of health insurance. I really don’t understand how anyone wouldn’t feel just a tad bouncy if they planted something and ‘ta da’, up pops something stunning, and living, and good for everyone and everything, and it’s really easy to do!?

These bobby dazzlers are out and making my bay window border a bit spesh, and I’ve got some irises and snowdrops on the way by the looks of things. Yay!

I’m getting a bit preachy, but the joy of writing to yourself is no one cares, and you don’t have to watch as the ‘real people’ glaze over. Genius.

Simon and Garfunkel

A generation apart, mi’ Mum and I both got to re-live the same period of our youth, simultaneously, whilst watching the same band. Would that be something paradoxical? I don’t know if that’s right, but it was cool anyway.

Growing up we only had two tapes in our car, ‘The Animals’ which was Dad’s jam, and Mum’s ageing copy of ‘The definitive Simon and Garfunkel’ which never had a case. The equitable nature of my parent’s marriage meant that Simon and Garfunkel was essentially the soundtrack of my youth, and certainly linked to every childhood memory I have of family holidays, sat in the back of Dad’s red Citreon BX, eating something Mum had packed for us in tin foil, trying not to touch the actual food having had to stop at another one of France’s unfathomable roadside long-drop loos, and trying to revive one’s nostrils afterwards by squirting coconut Soltan on them.

Good times.

Anyway, so I bought Mum tickets to see ‘The Simon and Garfunkel Story’ for Christmas because, well, it’s part of our history, and it was everything I hoped it would be – all the classics, top band with cracking blokes as ‘Arty’ and Paul, and the whole back story of how the duo came to be. Mum re-lived the music from the first time round, and I got the chance to get down with my bad ’60s self in a slightly ‘recycled’ kind of a way…

Unexpectedly, it also reawakened my occasionally reoccurring ‘militant repressed hippy’ tendency. I get this every once in a while when I slip into my philosophical ‘what’s this all about’ mode. I found myself saying things like ‘this was real music, about things that actually mattered’ and ‘music these days just doesn’t bring people together like it used to’, to random strangers in the ice cream queue. Which is pretty embarrassing. It probably isn’t that true either, my musical knowledge doesn’t greatly extend beyond ‘The wheels on the bus’ anymore, and I had had a couple of large glasses of wine by this point, but still – I was feeling it, and kinda stand by it.

I do however also have a bit of a romance with the 60’s and 70’s. It felt like lots was changing in the world, and that most people had a view about that – which I greatly respect, and everything seemed culturally less ego-centric, and more of the music was about ‘something’, and lyrics were heartbreakingly poetic, and didn’t rhyme with ‘booty’, and critically, ‘Adele’ hadn’t been dumped yet.

It was a classic night anyway, in the company of my lovely Mum, the show was fantastic, if you get the chance to, go see it, it will knock your socks off!

Ducks and mistakes

Do you ever buy someone else a present, for yourself? I do. I love these ducks.

Also loving Netflix. Of the TV I watch now, very little is live. The Netflix accounts in our house are markedly gender specific. You go into Neil’s and all the fonts are black and red and the programmes are called ‘Narcos’ or ‘Last Man Standing’, and mine are all pink and purple with happy looking people getting married, going shopping, or if the programme is worth my attention, both. I happily admit I love the bubble of crap TV.

I also have a certain fondness for the wildcard selection you get down at the bottom, and every now and then I choose anything without looking at the title or the description. This has mixed results, but occasionally you get the odd gem, and tonight I got one of those. It was mega cheesy (so totally my bag), about a woman who was trying to write her obituary before she died. She was a horrible woman, but with a good taste in music – she thought ‘The Kinks’ were one of the most underrated bands of all time – my Dad would agree. There was one line in the whole thing that particularly appealed; ‘you don’t make mistakes, mistakes make you’. I like that. I was once told ‘if you can’t change something, change how you think about it’, and that feels of a similar ilk. It’s about reframing.

Wow, and on that profound and cheesy note, fitting to my Netflix algorithm, it’s time for bed.

Still January

I am so aware of vanity, and I find it uncomfortable and cringeworthy (like many of the blogs I’ve written). I’ve stopped being ‘present’ on other social media for this very reason – I understand that no one really cares that I have visited the cinema (other than the person I was with, they could still use a lift home), and when I am lucky enough to do really, really fun stuff, I feel uneasy about what motivates me to present these as ‘ta da’ moments.

Watching ‘Snowden’ recently was also a bit of an eye opener. And then there is the small person to think about. A private person in her nature, she was rather freaked out when someone unknown to her (but my Facebook friend) asked her about a trip we’d been on. “How did she know I did that Mummy? It was just us”.

 Yes, it was.

So here I am, blogging. 

It’s a dilemma because I love writing, even if it’s entire nonsense. It’s my happy place. 

The desire to share this nonsense I have decided comes from the satisfaction of seeing something concrete ‘here’. It feels like a job done, an achievement. The days when life is consumed by washing and ironing, and wiping that manky bit behind the bin, it feels good to have made, not just maintained, something. 

So this is me trying to justify this weird blog. I don’t think it’s a showing off thing, and will hopefully be the most respectfully, least vainly written nonsense I can muster. Ish. With some possible exceptions. Like ‘Kilted Yoga’ book gifts.

Happy things (for personal, future reference):

1. Kilted Yoga.

2. Pretty umbrellas.

3. The ‘Cruel Intentions’ soundtrack and feeling 18 again.

January

Always a bit of a bleak month, but now softened with the build-up, excitement and organisation of the small one’s birthday celebrations. This 5th year involves wrangling the hundred pieces that will arrive as a cabin bed kit, alan key; weapon of choice. 

Bleak is actually a grower. The normal tromp around ‘my field’ and Sulham has inspired new loves in its naked form. And as I have little doubt what I write is a conversation with myself now, here, I can indulge my latest obsession with lichen, guilt free! It’s beautiful, and useful, and prolific, and it can tell you about what’s going on in the air, and you can eat some of it, and it doesn’t even give up when it doesn’t get much action. 

It’s like the Jennifer Aniston of fungus. 

Can’t quite believe I’m typing this. 

Started doing ‘happy things’ to be listed in groups of three at bath time. I’m bringing them here:

1. It has been outrageously sunny

2. I went on an walk with Foundation class, and one of the children’s ‘observations of winter’ was that a dog turd had frozen over.

3. Dawn French as an author.