Tuesday, January 28, 2025

Ramblings

I have just seen the newspaper headlines about the important ceremonies remembering the victims of the Holocaust, and wondered if the Israeli far right see any comparisons with the genocide in Gaza.

Do you read the news headlines and despair at the state of the world?

If yes, what happens next? Do you snuggle back into your life while trying to blank out the bleakness and the threat? Or do you think “I should be doing something to help, something to make things better.”

Then what? Are you then distracted by immediate everyday demands and forget your weltschmertz?

Do you have a purpose in life? Or do you just get on with the day to day and don’t worry about stuff like that?


On Sunday Wendy (my daughter in law) said - amongst other complimentary things about my painting - something about my painting being a way to cope with January, and bad weather, and what a good idea it was. (This was the gist of it, and apologies to Wendy if it’s not accurate.) And I heard myself say to her “My painting is my job.”

I used to say the same about my writing. 

I find it interesting that at the age of 75 ( 75! Me!) I frame my life like this.

Dave says I have serial obsessions. It used to be writing. Now it’s painting. He says “I wonder what will be next.”

Today’s question in my five year diary is  If you could have a conversation with someone (dead or alive) who would it be and why?

I chose Mary, my Anam Cara. She died ten years ago next month. I have some lovely and dear friends, but I still miss talking to Mary.







Friday, January 24, 2025

Untitled

I have a five year diary and on each day there is a question to be answered. 

This is yesterday’s page…




The persecution of the Palestinians continues, despite the fragile ceasefire in Gaza.

Settlers have renewed their violent attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, and the IDF are also conducting a major assault on the Jenin refugee camp.

 Look at these headlines from the Guardian:






We can’t stop the violence but we can give money to humanitarian charities working in Gaza and the West Bank.

Medical Aid for Palestinians    here

The UNICEF appeal for Gaza   here

The Disasters Energency Committee Middle East appeal   here


 

Monday, January 20, 2025

Relief

am relieved that the ceasefire has begun, but there is so sense of elation. It’s like watching a bully beating someone to a pulp and eventually the bully stops and you know that the victim will take years to recover. But they might not get the chance to recover because the bully might start again.

And anyway, the victim’s family has been killed and their home destroyed and there is no notion of what the future holds.


You can donate by following this link

And now we have Trump.

But I’m going to leave all of the above because you can read the bad news as well as I can, and I’ll tell you what’s been going on here…

Chrissie and I and a friend went to see the new film about Bob Dylan - A Complete Unknown - and it was wonderful! It was so good to hear all those early songs again, and there were so many, and Timothy Chalamet - who played a delightful Laurie in the latest version of Little Women - was brilliant as Dylan. I give the film 5 stars, and if you don’t believe me, check out Rotten Tomatoes, and then go and see the film!

After the film I went back to Chrissie’s house and we had a great evening with too many margaritas (i.e. two) and a Mexican take away, and I stayed the night. What a treat. It’s so good to get away from the countryside in winter for an occasional blast of city lights. I am so starved of the latter, that just walking into the cafe at the cinema and seeing the lights behind the bar and ordering a coffee felt like a treat.

And the next day, because I was in Sheffield, I had coffee with my daughter and then went to see the family member who declines to be named, the lovely Jaine, and 2 year old MsX, who now talks in sentences, such as “Stop it, Daddy, you’re just being silly now.” This time next year she’ll be writing her first novel. 

It’s cold and grey here and after a week that contained several sunny days, it’s back to forcing myself outside for exercise.

Meanwhile I have finished another painting, 95% of which I painted without using a brush, which was easier than it sounds, much more fun, and I think very effective. For the record, I used a palette knife, a sponge, my fingers, cotton buds and cocktail sticks.




I know one shouldn’t rejoice at the passing of time, when one should savour every moment of life, but yippee! We’re three quarters of the way through January, which has replaced February as my most dreaded month.

Wishing you all a good week.

And if you are finding January as difficult as I am, read this, which is the best thing I’ve read in the Guardian in months.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/20/january-nine-wellness-free-survival-tips



Friday, January 17, 2025

Still here

 Yes I’m still here, waiting for the ceasefire.








Saturday, January 11, 2025

Grumpiness

I’ve been very grumpy this week on account of the snow and ice, and being cooped up with just one other unfortunate person, who is unfortunate because they are cooped up with me.

Yes it’s beautiful…


My favourite tree 

The field opposite our house

The main street of our village

…but it is also treacherous. It’s OK walking across the fields, but you need to walk on the lanes to get to the fields, and the lanes are too icy to tackle without a walking stick, eyes looking down all the time and not at the view, patience, and twice as much time as usual. Actually they are really too icy to go on at all, except for short stretches. To cap it all, the Trail is closed on weekdays for the whole of January because the rangers are cutting down ash trees with die-back. 

So…it might be bright, as well as minus 9 degrees Centigrade, but going out for exercise as I usually do on a daily basis has been severely restricted. I think that’s why I’ve been so grouchy. 

So this morning, sitting in bed, I am starting afresh and playing the glad game. Here are some reasons to be cheerful:

I have a warm cosy bed.

We have so many logs (collected by Dave) that we never have to worry about lighting a stove. 

I have a stove in my studio.

I have a studio! Which is all my own and has a sofa in it. When I was writing, it was my study. Now it has a huge bit of old carpet down under my table and easel to catch all the flicks and drops of paint. I am a very messy painter.



I have a lovely family and sometimes they populate my dreams, like last night when the adorable 2 year old MsX came to visit.

Dave just brought me a mug of tea AND it is in one of my favourite mugs.




My current painting is going well.

I’m going to see A Complete Unknown on Friday and staying over in Sheffield with Chrissie (who has moved there) and we’re going to have margaritas, because it’s the only safe way to have margaritas, because neither of us has to drive home afterwards. (Phew, long sentence.)

There is a new series of Call the Midwife.

I’m going to see Ballet Shoes with my daughter at the National Theatre in London in February. A vital prop to getting through the dark winter months out in the sticks when so much of normal life is restricted, is to have things to look forward to, and hooray, I do. I am thankful.

I was going to share this poem with you…


From Good Poems For Hard Times, selected by Garrison Keillor


But while I was looking for it, I also found this which I love:




And now I’m going to make pancakes for breakfast - my early morning version of baking a cake.

This is what it looks like outside - and these are full colour photos - taken through an upstairs window.














 



Thursday, January 09, 2025

Bridges not walls

Is this what it felt like in 1939?

Did the world feel this scary? This dark?

Was society as fractured as it feels right now?

At least the world was not on fire.

I couldn’t get to sleep last night for worrying about Trump and Musk and all their acolytes, and AI, and the rise of the far right and everything else. Was there ever this much nastiness at large in the world?

I remember when Trump was inaugurated eight years ago and the Bridges not Walls demonstrations that were held - including our vigil in Bakewell. I’ve just found the photos. 

That was a good day. There are millions of people who want a world of equality, justice, and kindness, and I’d do well to remember that.

















Our Bakewell banner 


And our vigil














Tuesday, January 07, 2025

Grey days

I’ve been trying to write an entertaining post about my week so far but it’s been tough going.

Dave insisted it was too icy to go out for a walk on Sunday, and yesterday we woke again to leaden skies and three inches of wet snow with underlying ice and I felt mega fed up.  Now I am officially old (75) I really do not want to “have a fall” and end up in A&E for three weeks. (Tell me…why do young people fall over and old people “have falls”?)

I felt sorry for all those people facing the snow/ice/floods on their journey to work, and I felt sorry for all those people who can’t afford heating, and I was pleased I didn’t fall into either group, but playing the glad game only took me so far, until I got in the shower, which always makes me feel thankful. And while I was in there I remembered my mantra for Covid lockdowns - “Stay healthy, stay cheerful and try to be kind.”

There was nothing on the agenda, so I decided to tackle a job on my winter to-do list, which was to clear out my stash of scrap fabrics in the cupboard on the landing. A week or so ago I had cleared out my knitting wool drawers 





Finished exhibit


and felt so much better for it (!) so maybe I’d cheer up if I pared down and ordered my collection of fabrics (kept for craft and mending and patchwork, the last of which, btw, I have sworn off forever.)

So I switched on Carrie Hope Fletcher reading The Secret Garden on Audible, and got to work. (Footnote - I often reread The Secret Garden in January because it cheers me up, and this audio rendition of it is particularly wonderful.)

Meanwhile Dave, yes, despite the conditions, set off on his bike to go to Bakewell on an errand. You can’t tell Dave anything.

I had reached this point




when he returned and said it was even too slippery to cycle on the Trail so he’d given up the plan. “And,” he said, “the lane is awash with melting snow and all the drains are blocked.”

Music to my ears! You know how I feel about clearing gullies. I togged up and went out for three quarters of an hour of fun. Yes, despite the ice.

When I got back (and actually I had seen no ice, just slush) I asked Dave to take a photo of me for the blog.

Dave refuses to entertain the idea of having a mobile phone and neither can he work them, and he takes crap photos even on a camera. (It is one of the few practical tasks at which he does not excel.) (I’m getting rather concerned about the proliferation of parentheses on this post.)

For some reason I can’t fathom, no matter how many times i explain that you don’t hear a click, and all you have to do is gently touch the “button” for a second, he ends up with multiple shots, and also shots that look like this:





Thankfully he did get one of those multiple shots of the right thing and I chose this one.




After that, I grabbed a coffee and returned to the fabric clearing.

I finished cutting buttons off stained/worn shirts and completed the sorting and storing by noon, by which time I had decision maker’s burnout with all the micro decisions I’d had to make …did I want to keep this bit of fabric? If not, was it nice enough to offer to someone else and if so, to whom? Or should it go to some fabric recycling bin if I could find one?

The rest of the day went like this…

Force myself out for a cold and joyless 45 minute walk round the block with Dave, just for exercise

Have lunch 

Watch Neighbours, which had returned from its Christmas break - hooray!

Start a new painting because I am having a break from this one, 


Reading Ted Krasinky’s manifesto on Christmas Eve



because it is not right, and I am fed up with it, and I hope to be able to improve it in a couple of weeks time.

FaceTime with Chrissie.

Have tea 

Watch Pretty Woman again

Do a crossword with Dave

Bed

And today we have another grey day but I am feeling more chipper. If I get fed up, I can tackle the attic. 



Wednesday, January 01, 2025

On New Year wishes and celebrations

I never used to have much time for Tracey Emin (now Dame Tracey Emin.)  I liked one or two of her early pieces - such as her bed 



and I like her neon signs, such as this one at St Pancras station




but I don’t “get” her paintings, not really.

But my attitude to her personally changed a couple of years ago when I listened to her being interviewed on the BBC Radio 4 programme, This Cultural Life. 

You can find the interview here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0011467?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

I highly recommend it.

Half way through the interview she talks about her experience of having bladder cancer that was so aggressive and fast moving that only radical surgery could deal with it. Chemotherapy and radiotherapy would have been too slow. She had several major organs removed and now has a stoma.

She said that accepting the likelihood of death liberated her to live, and she approached her life and her work from then on with new verve. I hope I have given an accurate summation of what she said - I do recommend the interview to you.

Anyway, it reminded me of an excerpt from Quaker Faith and Practice that reads

Are you able to contemplate your death and the death of those closest to you? Accepting the fact of death we are freed to live more fully.

Until about ten years ago I didn’t understand this. Now I do. 

Dame Tracey Emin is an impressive person with her Foundation in Margate supporting artists. 

Why am I writing about Tracey Emin on New Year’s Day?

Because last night Dave and I went to bed as per normal (we ignore the whole midnight thing) but I couldn’t get to sleep and after fighting the bedclothes for a couple of hours I switched on the light and completely rearranged the bedding, sprayed my pillow with lavender, read Samuel West’s loving obituary of his father Timothy in the Guardian, and then turned to Instagram (which I am on for paintings and nothing else- well OK, also the occasional Victoria Wood sketch*) and I saw this entry from Tracey Emin.




She sums it up for me. 

Am I downcast this morning? No.

Best foot forward as on every morning. Dave and I are going to walk through wind and rain to Hassop Station for breakfast, and we’ll take the New Year from there. It will be more of the same for both of us. You know what we’re about by now.

Oh, you know how I said Dave spent Christmas Eve reading Ted Krasinsky’s manifesto? Well…I have been wanting to paint some interiors, so I tried to paint him reading. It’s not turning out how I wanted it to. I wanted something like a Dutch interior with strong light and shade, but this is where it is at at the moment:




I’m not happy with it. That whole end of the room with the Christmas tree should be in deep shade. The walls are white and the curtains are cream in real life and I thought I had made them “shady” enough, but not so. It needs so much more work, and is rather daunting, but…onward and upward. I need to keep trying.

That will be my motto for 2025 in the face of all the darkness out there…keep trying.


*if you need cheering up, watch this sketch. I watched it three times in quick succession and laughed every time.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DENBPGYtv1T/?igsh=dmc4cGt2ZDRlMWRm