Transitional

As I write, a car with three brightly-coloured canoes on its roof rack, red, orange and blue, is parking in the little car park beyond our garden and our lane. Rain is falling like it never means to stop, so it may yet be that the canoes are needed. We don't like this weather round here after the summer we had, and I have the environment agency website open to check for flood alerts, none as yet. Well, on our river yes, but not in our part of the valley.

In between now. Two weeks' holiday, slightly more, before I start the new job. And oh, I do need it. Tired. Yesterday I left my job with the HIV charity and shared Christmas lunch with my colleagues and Secret Santa (oh no not another scented candle), the whole bit. And a very kind farewell gift of a  voucher for a wonderful jewellery shop in town, only recently reopened after the floods in June and July. I shall have a lovely time choosing something which will remind me of this time of transition (turquoise?)

Enjoying home right now more than I can quite express. It feels like a kind of heaven to me. The twinkling Christmas tree lights, the glow of lamp light, the wood burner, good food and drink, being quietly with L, reading, listening to music. There are even a few presents under the tree though I am not sure how they got there...

Now And Then

Now and then a meme - but not for ages, so thanks Zhoen for sharing.


1. Do you have a favorite blanket, or other bit of fabric? Please describe.

No but I have a blankety bunny. She's a grey felt bunny around five inches tall, sewn with blanket stitch, and with pink wool whiskers, one of a 'blanketeers' series the Manhattan Toy Company did years ago and L gave her to me in my Christmas stocking. I know you're going to want me to post a photograph.


2. Do you take good care of your feet? In what way, or not as the case may be?

Hmm. L sometimes rubs foot lotion into them or heel cream. And she sometimes paints my toenails in the summer. Me, I just wash them in the bath, cut their nails, and put socks and shoes on them. And most importantly slippers.


3. What is your comfort food? Just something easy when you are tired or not feeling well?

Boiled egg and toast 'soldiers' or 'people waiting at the bus-stop' as L and I dubbed them years ago. That's for feeling poorly. Spaghetti bolognese is and always was the ultimate comfort food when I'm well.


4. What is your favorite aggregate website? Or, news, or webcomic?

What's an aggregate website?


5. Do you have any small skill, like braiding or pen flipping or whistling?

Flipping beer mats. Learned it as a student. You never forget. Mind you I used to do nine at a time...


6. What is the most beautiful sort of dog or cat to you? Please describe.

My brother's lurcher, Jet, now deceased. Black. Fast. Sweet, with one ear that crumpled while the other stood up.


7. Are your hands generally cold or warm?

Cool.


8. If you see someone at work (or in public) napping, do you want to cover them with a blanket, or tie their shoe laces together?

Check they are not dead.


9. Name a tv show, movie or book that you love, that most people you know have never heard of. Have you recommended it to anyone who then wasn't interested?

Black Books, Orlando, The Beet Queen, for one of each. Surprised when people haven't heard of them, but interested as far as I remember (or making a good show of it).


10. You can have the original of any piece of art, what would you want on your wall?

Howard Hodgkin's Rain.


11. You are getting a good massage from a therapist you trust, what is the best bit?

God it's years since I had a massage. It's the trust that's hard.


Tagging Signs and Lucy if you're in the mood.

Phoenix Rising

All the summer sunshine we never had arrives now to make the frost sparkle and show us exactly how dirty our windows are. Except now it's low in the sky, making driving a squinty challenge, the sun itself in your eyes, its reflection bouncing up at you from the wet dark road surface, and it only lets you feel its warmth in very still, very sheltered situations. And it only rises over Cock Hill after eight o'clock and disappears away behind Mitchell Brothers' Mill before half past four.

It is a difficult time of the year. Ice and darkness, the cold, the possibility of snow and the chaos it can bring. And then all the seasonal illnesses that are coursing about the valley, one landing in the usually healthy body of L, now in bed knitting and listening to the radio for the fourth day. Nameless virus, making her cough and feel weary, making her brain mushy and her spirits low. I make cups of tea, hot water bottles and hot meals (she hasn't lost her appetite).

I'm busy leaving one job and anticipating starting another. A meeting at the school tomorrow. Fog forecast, yet another seasonal driving hazard. I shall be glad to return to make the whole thing more real, meet my manager and new colleagues properly away from the tension of the interview. And get some initial questions answered. Then another three weeks til I actually start. What this job means after three years living hand to mouth, slowly building back my confidence, slowly rising from the ashes of the horrible-corporate-style-charity job and what those fools did to me, what it means is gradually sinking in at all levels. Has not been lost on the small and frightened child inside me, who has been back-flipping into freak-out and fury at the prospect of taking so much responsibility, of growth and challenge and change, and going further away (literally and metaphorically) from the safety of home. Yes there are still hot embers amongst the ashes. Gradually managing to soothe her, and to let her know that though she was frightened once, she does not need to be frightened now. Though she felt the world could never be good again, in fact I mean to show her that it can, and will hold her in my heart, while I do the grown-up stuff, the driving and the working and the being responsible and bring her out to have fun together when I can.

Sub-Zero

It isn't as if there are many options in the end... but today I set out on my walk the opposite way round from usual... because of the presence of ice, and my preference for ascending rather than descending an icy slope. I set out with my walking pole, up the lane in the wind, snow moving stealthily into the valley all the while. No one in the field, not the mole catcher and his dog, not the bent old man in the sack-coloured overcoat, who always seems to be burying something. Cows and calves, black and white, pigs in the mud, horses in the top fields. In the icy wind I wonder again how they stay warm, how they keep from perishing in sub-zero temperatures. What is the secret of their hide, their hair that they don't need a vest, a t shirt, a jumper, a cardigan, a quilted jacket, a scarf, a hat, gloves, socks and boots? Ice is thick and doesn't yield to the tapping of my stick. I edge around the treacherous tongue of ice that lolls down the wet part of the lane, so carefully surfaced to prevent it once again being washed out by flood waters, surfaced black, shiny and smooth, the perfect setting for an ice slick. No dog at the farm at the top to frighten me but the wind is howling as if to portend the end of the world, and I tell myself I've seen too many films, wonder how my experience of the world would be different had I never been to the cinema...

What

What if today's not easy? What if I cry? What if it's sleeting? What if I don't feel like working? What if I climb back into bed, inside a cocoon of duvet, and sleep? What if I can't function from an adult part of myself? What if I act out, rebel, behave irresponsibly? What if I hate the person I love? What if next door's dog is barking? What if all I ever want to do is light the fire and wear pyjamas? What if there's no rescue party, no compensation, no allowances made, no acknowledgement ever that I was once a little girl spinning in an abyss?

Lost Weekend

Found myself in the miasma of vertigo on waking yesterday morning, and have spent much of the weekend asleep or sitting in front of the wood burner. I still can't lie on my back, and bending down isn't much fun either, but generally easing and enough energy returned for a gentle walk round the village green this afternoon. Weird experience to sleep most of the day and most of the night yesterday, in little sections, peppered with fragments of dream.

I am now wearing 'proper' clothes instead of pyjamas and dressing gown, though the comfiest kind, track pants and my cosy cardigan that's almost a cut-off dressing gown, accompanied by my favourite cowl knitted by L.

We went out to dinner on Friday night to celebrate the new job, at our favourite restaurant, Gimbal's in Sowerby Bridge. The taxi driver who took us and brought us home was the very same one who took us to the pub in town the night of the floods, so we swapped some interesting tales with him. All other plans have been cancelled, including friends coming to dinner last night (the braising steak's in the freezer), visiting open studios locally, and going to my monthly sacred song group. I feel no regret for any of these. I have had no appetite for anything but sitting by the fire with a good pile of logs, the sudoku, and an occasional bowl of soup.