The Monsal Trail in autumn

Oh the joy of a warm, damp October morning when the forecast says there's a 65% chance of rain and tourists stay away from the Monsal Trail.

Oh the joy of cycling up it and meeting just a handful of other people. I love the quiet Trail.

My Covid life in Tier 1

Every few days I think to myself 'I really ought to write another blog post' and then I sigh. What is there to say in the situation I'm in - that many of us are in - right now?

I lead such a small life because of Covid, in the attempt to stay safe and not bring the virus home. It's not objectively an unpleasant life - I live in a lovely place with a garden where there is always a job calling out to be done; I have a good stock of art materials; I have my sax; I have books; I am fit enough to walk and cycle, and the surrounding countryside is beautiful; my three 'children' and their families keep in touch by phone; Dave is here.

Yes, Dave is here, sending me emails like this:

I think these are pretty good. I’d definitely like one of these. They are not cheap, but at near the bottom end of the scale. I don’t think they are extravagant, and it would go on the roof-rack if it isn’t raining. You’d need help to get it up there.

Despite all his Carpe Diem-ing, Dave's obsession with preparing us for death is ever present. Do you remember Richard in Plotting for Beginners? Yes, of course he was based on Dave.

Exhibit A:

Richard’s mind is still on funerals.

This morning he said: “I thought it would save money if I built coffins for you and me and Gus. It could be my next project.”

“We’re in our fifties, Richard, not our eighties.”

“Forward planning.”

“Where would we store them? In the shed?”

“Yes, but it would be even better to design them with a dual purpose. I could make them double as bookcases until we needed them.”

“Mmmm,” I said, munching on my toast and wanting him to shut up so I could get back to reading Janina Lemon’s column.

“Or better still,” he said, “have them on castors under the bed, use them as storage for blankets or whatever, and then when the person dies you could pull out the coffin, empty it and then just roll the corpse off the side of the bed—plop—into the coffin.”

Dave is wonderful company, but you could be excused for thinking I would like someone else to talk to as well as Dave. But I go nowhere except occasionally to sit in a friend's garden for coffee or - thank you, Chrissie - a long lunch, and then every two weeks to a weird version of Quaker Meeting in which only twelve of us can attend because of social distancing, and we all wear masks, and the rest of the Meeting joins us on zoom.

This lack of social stimulation is not good for a Sue. 

I have not seen my local grandchildren since the start of school term. I was going to go for fish and chips in their garden last week but then Zoë rang to say she thought she was coming down with something and we decided to cancel, just in case.

As I was in town to drop off a birthday present for a friend, I swung by Zoë's house and talked to them all on the doorstep briefly, from 6 feet away. That was nice, but strangely, not enough...

Last night the Colorado family called on Facetime. Cece played me a tune on her ukelele. She was bubbling with excitement. She was literally jumping up and down (and yes I mean literally...I ask you, what is a writer supposed to say now that the  word literally has been debased?) as she told me that she's going back to school in person this week!!!!!!!!! 

(and that is the only time ever you will see a superfluity of exclamation marks in anything I have written.)

(Blimey, this post is becoming way too self-referential.)

And then I had an intimate, quarter-of-an-hour conversation with 10 year old Lux. That was the highlight of my day, probably of my week.

The grandchildren lift my heart when no-one else can. 

I am, I realise, very lucky.

Make good art

It's a whole week since I posted. I'm sorry my posts are so few and far between these days.

This was the lovely light through the bedroom window when Dave drew the blind this morning.

I haven't been too miserable to post, and I haven't been writing, I've been trying to make 'good art.'

I know I've shared this quote from Neil Gaiman before, but it still holds good.

I've been attempting to make a perfect copy of a design because I want to have it printed on greetings cards - multi purpose greetings cards - and then sell them in aid of one of my favourite charities - HELP REFUGEES.

This is the latest draft:

Hugs       © Sue Hepworth

I am happy with the design itself, it's the getting-it-perfect-enough-to-print bit that I'm struggling with. Onward and upward: I'll get there.

The Monsal Trail is looking lovely these days, with the leaves turning, and I really should have taken some photos for you yesterday when I was out on my bike ride. Instead I was thinking about the light at the end of the tunnel. 

It's there, even if we can't always see it. Or even imagine it. 

These difficult times won't last forever.

Wuss

I wrote this post in my notebook, at Monsal Head, in the same place where Sol and Frances sat on page 296 of BUT I TOLD YOU LAST YEAR THAT I LOVED YOU.

"They got mugs of coffee from the café, and walked away from the ice cream van and the benches full of tourists with their glasses of beer and their cameras, along the path below the car park between the waving grasses and delicate blue cranesbill and the tall creamy chervil. They sat on the wooden bench at the end, in amongst the nettles, under a rowan tree. They sat quietly and looked at the view. The river in the valley below was dark, but its surface glittered in the sunlight."

But the sun wasn't shining, the meadow cranesbill was long dead, and it was cold and damp. It suited my mood.

What do you do if you've had six months of a pandemic with its restrictions and losses, but you've not had a loved one die, or your wedding cancelled, or your job or house taken away, nor are you in imminent danger of either/both - basically, you're one of the lucky ones - and yet you're so fed up that when someone asks you why, you say 'I can give you twenty reasons, straight up, without even stopping to think'?

Do you write your blog? Or do you think it more seemly to shut up until you can write a more cheerful post?

Today a friend who had printed a piece of art for me called to deliver it, and we stood in the hall wearing masks for five minutes while I paid him and thanked him and he gave me some much needed advice on how to proceed with the art in question. Then after Dave and I had admired his new bike rack, he left.

In normal circumstances I would have invited him into the kitchen for a coffee and a piece of cake and a half hour chat about this and that.

Because of 'staying safe' I didn't, and after he'd gone I felt desperate. It is so unnatural not to be hospitable, not to invite people into your home. I hate this half-life, stripped of hugs and easy camaraderie, of variety, and trips, touching without thinking and events to look forward to.

There. I said it. And there was I, thinking that reading a memoir of the Blitz would toughen me up.

What is worse? Having to make do with one ounce of cheese a week, and being under constant air raids and the risk of losing your house and everything in it, which includes you and your family?

Or doing without easy socialising, physical closeness and hugs?

It's so obvious, isn't it?

Sue Hepworth > niminy piminy whinging wuss.

This video about Covid, however, always cheers me up

Cece made it all on her own with no advice or assistance or previous discussion.

When I texted her and told her I loved it and could we Facetime? She texted back 'Let's do Google meet. I will email you a link.' She is 8. 

It will pass

"Are you all right?" Dave said first thing.

"Yes, yes. I woke myself up too early to get out of an annoying dream. I was having a date with a science teacher from Macclesfield who I'd met online, and we were in the kitchen and I was offering him a drink, going through all the varieties I had and it made me sound as if I'm a heavy drinker, and the kids were there - but they were children - and you were in the sitting room, and-"

"Enough! Please don't tell me any more."

Later...

"Are you all right?" Dave said.

I had got up and dressed and gone downstairs and not found the motivation to play the sax or paint or draw or do anything useful and I was back in bed (with all my clothes on) reading the Blitz book.

"What's up?" he said.

"The news. This government. Their vile ideas for dealing with refugees and asylum seekers. It was the final straw."

Later...

"What's up?" Dave said.

"I've told you. I'm feeling low. It will pass. I've been fine for a few weeks and I've suddenly slumped. Lots of people are having mental health problems in the pandemic, you know."

"I'm not."

"I know. And I'm just feeling low.  And it will pass."

Dave went out on his bike and I dithered for twenty minutes as to whether to ride my bike or go for a walk. I decided to walk, and to do my favourite local one because it reminds me of Wensleydale. Sometimes when I'm on it, I pretend it IS Wensleydale. It was grey and blowy but wonderful anyway, and I took some photographs. 

I love this bit because the fact that the path runs between two walls shows how ancient it is.

Now I'm going to try to paint a dry stone wall with lichen on it.

I hope your spirits are up, and you have a great weekend.

Learning about hardship

"I've decided to read some eye witness accounts of life in the UK during the war and see if I can absorb some wisdom and stoicism and learn how to get on with it and stop moaning."

That was me writing on the blog in August. Well I have finally got round to it: I'm  reading a war memoir to inject some mettle into my soul. I've started with A Chelsea Concerto, a vividly written memoir of living through the Blitz. I've never read much about WW2 and this is illuminating. It was written by an artist who lived in Chelsea. She was well enough off to have her own housekeeper but when war was declared she seems to have spent most of her time volunteering -  in nursing, communications, teaching English, and translating for refugees.

She describes the huge influx of refugees from the continent, and her work with them. Locals were asked to donate unwanted clothes and household items, and the results reminded me of the first drive for clothes for refugees in 2016-17. In 1940, people donated evening gowns and top hats, just as in our time, unthinking people donated wedding dresses.

But the thing that has challenged me most so far is the willingness of parents to send their children off to unknown destinations on evacuation trains. I have never been able to imagine myself doing that with my three children. I was discussing it with an old friend in the garden the other day and she said her mother's East End house had been bombed in the Blitz, and maybe if mine had been too, I would have been happy to send my kids to safety.

Personal experience is so powerful isn't it?

I wonder if all those people complaining about 'restrictions to their civil liberties' in being asked to wear masks have had friends or relatives who have died of Covid, or who are suffering from long Covid, or who, like Michael Rosen, have had their health permanently damaged by the virus.

The quiet life

I live such a quiet life these days, that I worry about premature aging and also having nothing to talk about.

But I am learning to take the days one at a time, and wringing as much enjoyment out of them as I possibly can.

On Friday I had tea (evening meal to you southerners) with Chrissie in her garden. My garden is always windy and last time she came here, Dave upended the table tennis table to see if it would work as a windbreak. It didn't. 

Chrissie's garden is sheltered, but it was cold on Friday, so I wore two jumpers, jeans, a scarf and my winter coat. I also took a blanket to drape over my knees. We were warm, and we had an excellent evening. We had such a good time we didn't even notice it getting dark. 

We can do it again, and as Chrissie said, after the clocks change and it's dark at 6, we can do lunch instead.

Nothing much has changed for Dave and me since April - the last six months have been spent at home and I've had a tiny social circle.

I've not been away, 

I've had solo bike rides and walks,

walks with Dave, 

walks with one friend at a time, 

I've sat and chatted in friends' and families gardens (no more than two friends at a time),

I've not been in other peoples' houses, supermarkets, cinemas, pubs, cafes, restaurants, or anywhere crowded.

And this is a tally of the shops I've been to:

once to art supplies, the post office, and the jeweller to get a new watch battery; 

twice to the village shop; three times to the petrol station. 

I've been to Quaker Meeting three times, where there were less than 12 people (because that's all we can fit in with social distancing) and everyone was wearing masks.

We've been getting deliveries from the milkman, the greengrocer and latterly from Sainsbury's and it's worked OK, but I have got sick of not being able to choose my own fruit and veg. 

And when this month the new Cox apple season arrived I was desperate to sink my gnashers into a cox. Eating the first cox of the season is almost orgasmic. Two weeks ago the greengrocer assured me he had coxes in stock but the delivery guy brought Worcester Permains. Oh the disappointment!

Last week he raised my hopes again but no coxes arrived, and the village shop had only red delicious and golden delicious. Why growers are still bothering with golden delicious baffles me. You'd think that with all the extinct species there are these days that golden delicious apples could be one of them. I'd rather eat a raw potato.

I was so gutted I went online and found a fruit farm in Essex selling new season coxes. I ordered two boxes and with delivery, the price of each apple works out at about 40 pence. Three days later the apples arrived and they are beyond my imaginings in terms of taste, juiciness and crunchiness. 

They are disappearing at an indecent rate because they're fabulous. They are so fabulous I'm going to tell you the name of the fruit farm: 

G.E.Elsworth and Son, Park Fruit Farm, Pork Lane, Great Holland, Frinton-on-Sea, Essex, CO13 0ES  www.parkfruitfarm.co.uk 

The only other news I have is that I have just finished reading All the Light We Cannot See and it's been wonderful - beautifully written, serious, gripping and moving, and I will probably read it again. 

What have you been reading that you'd recommend?

Oh yes, and here's my latest painting. It's called Margaritas.

On the brink

Did you ever see the 1980s Anne of Green Gables adaptation with Megan Follows in the title role? I loved it so much I haven't been able to warm to the Netflix Anne with an E. Anyway...there's a scene near the end, where Gil and Anne meet near a bridge in the late afternoon and Gil (I think) asks Anne if she'd like to go for a walk, saying it could be the last sunny evening there is. I love that scene. It's so evocative of a lovely September evening.

Here on Wednesday, the weather was forecast to change, so Tuesday afternoon felt like the last warm sunny day we'd have until 2021. It also coincided with the official recognition of a second wave of Covid, so the last day of summer felt even sadder than usual, bearing in mind the lack of socialising there'll be in the coming months.

I felt I needed to do something to mark the occasion, so I made myself a large margarita and got Dave (a non-drinker) to come and sit in the garden with me for company. And I have to tell you that margaritas are so magical that even if you have a teetotaller companion, you can still have fun. 

I asked Dave to take a photo with my phone to mark the occasion, though he has still not mastered the art of taking photos on a phone. No matter how many times I explain to him that the lightest, shortest touch is required, he keeps his finger on the 'button' so long it sounds as if the paparazzi are there, and we get a burst of eighteen photos instead of one. I explain again, but he never gets it and it always creases me up. 

The man has a brain the size of a planet, and skills to match, so his photo-taking-disability is a mystery. (Even with a camera he's a doofus. And I'm not being cruel: he would agree with me.)

But as I said, his skills are legion, and he is still carving mottos and injunctions and scattering them around the house. I showed you the first ones, didn't I?

and yet more:

Although they are lovely carvings, they drive me nuts because I already try to squeeze as much into my days as I can, and Dave's mottoes just add to my self-imposed pressure. 

I told him this, but it hasn't stopped him.

Here are the latest two to arrive on the dresser.

First this one:

and then the baldest:

Aaaargh! The pressure, the pressure!

I complained about it to my sax teacher, a woman who is ridiculously fond of Dave, and she said: "You should make your own sign - 'Eff off!' "

He laughed.

We were chatting in the garden about how lucky we are in the current situation (pensions, house, etc) - how there are so many people with jobs and homes at risk, and people under all kinds of other pressures. 

So on the brink of six months of short days, dark nights, and long periods between seeing loved ones, I've decided my remit is to stay healthy and cheerful and to try to be kind. 

(I could add 'not become an alcoholic' to that, but as I only have one glass of wine a day and a margarita, on average, once every two months, I don't think I need to worry.)

I am also working on an art project with which I'm hoping to raise money for the charity Help Refugees.

This is the work in progress:

I'll tell you more about it when I am past the next stage.

In the meantime, here's something to think about - a video I've lifted from the charity's website:

Three generations

Last week, my 10 year old granddaughter Lux 

did an exercise at school where she was given a list of sentences to complete, each beginning with an 'I' and a verb.

Isaac (her dad and my son) shared it with Dave and me (and the world, too, actually.)

I said to Isaac (47) 

that it would be interesting to think what he might have written when he was 10, and what he'd write now. So he sent me his own completion of the sentences:

I am a father, husband, and provider.

I wonder what's going to happen with everything.

I hear the news and it's awful everywhere.

I see the world and it looks like end times.

I want respite. Long for it.

I am a father, husband, and provider.

 

I imagine a great future for my kids.

I feel optimistic, in spite of everything.

I touch the world through a screen.

I worry that humans aren't equipped to be connected like this.

I cry very rarely indeed.

I am a father, husband, and provider.

 

I understand people only barely.

I say one should do one's best.

I dream fretfully.

I try always to remember how fortunate I am.

I hope we can figure this out as a species.

I am a father, husband, and provider.

 

I am Isaac.

And then I sent him mine, which I wrote straight off, without prior thought. I am 70.

Here it is:

I am a grandmother and a little-known writer.

I wonder if I’ll ever get a publisher.

I hear too much awful news.

I see beauty all around me.

I want a kind, just and honest government.

I am a Quaker.

I imagine things will just get worse and worse.

I feel sad and outraged that people are not kinder to refugees.

I touch my cosmos and tell them how nice they are.

I worry I’ll never see my American grandchildren again.

I cry when people I love are suffering.

I am doing my best.

I understand what is important in life now I’m old.

I say I will never write another book and then I do.

I dream about my parents.

I try to be kind.

I hope things will get better soon.

I am tired of waking up and reading bad news.

I am Sue.

My cosmos

Connection

 

I had a wonderful day yesterday.

I cycled to the end of a quiet Monday morning Trail and took a video for you but although it is only 19 seconds long, it's apparently too large to upload without using YouTube. It consisted of sunlight on lovely trees and shimmering water. I'm afraid you'll have to imagine it.

Here is today's dawn instead:

And in the afternoon, I sat in the sunshine and drew.

One day I will fit a drawing onto the paper. You'd think A3 would be big enough.

The cat moved after I'd drawn in her outline, which is why she isn't completed.

This drawing took me one and a half hours and I had to stop to make tea before I could do the fringes on the blanket. I'm sure van Gogh never had this problem. (No, Sue. He had others.)

A friend sent me a video this morning which I want to share with you. It's on Facebook (which I don't have) but you can see it anyway. 

Here in red is the title and the link:

Four minutes of eye contact brings people together better than everything else. Arthur Aron, psychologist.

In case you cannot read French, refugees were paired with ordinary people in Berlin whom they had never met before: some Germans, Italians, Polish, British and Belgian.

I found it moving and heartwarming. After watching it and thinking about it, the psychologist in me pointed out that the Europeans engaged here must have already been sympathetic people in order to agree to join in. But still. It's a wonderful video. And they WERE strangers. Look at the connections. 

“Connection is why we're here; it is what gives purpose and meaning to our lives.”

Brene Brown

It's why I write this blog.

Not everything is pants

I don't know about you, but I feel as if I am on a train hurtling inexorably towards a cliff with a thousand foot drop. The train is 'manned' by incompetents with dubious motivations and everyone onboard is powerless to stop the drivers or the train. 

This could be why I had another deep dark blip a week ago and Dave had to give me a good talking to. This is why I haven't blogged for six days. I've been concentrating on the day to day, and soaking up every bit of September sunshine I can. 

Dawn on the bedroom wall

And it's been good. I've not been thinking about the dark days to come when the garden is too cold for entertaining. I've been living in the moment.

It's been especially good because I had some stonking bike rides, and three visitors to the garden on three subsequent days, drinking tea, eating plums, chatting, and looking at the view over the garden wall.

I had another helpful art lesson on Wednesday.

This is what I'm working on:

Acrylic and pastel

It's inspired by this photo I took in Boulder in March:

I'm enjoying drawing and painting but I don't think I'll ever be consumed by it, the way I have been by writing. It could be to do with confidence, though. 

On Thursday I came back to the real world and wrote to my MP twice, both times about refugees. The second letter was to ask her to support Lord Alf Dubs who has written to Priti Patel in the wake of the catastrophic fire on Lesbos. 

The refugee camp on Moria which housed more than 12,000 refugees (though it was built for a quarter of that number) burned down this week. The fire took everything: tents, bedding, clothing, photos, vital documents. 

Everyone is now sleeping out in the open, and this includes 4,000 children, 407 of whom are unaccompanied and vulnerable. Lord Alf Dubs has urged the Home Secretary to relocate and welcome some of these children to the UK. Other countries are doing their bit. We should do  too. Perhaps you'd like to write to Priti Patel and your MP about it? Or donate to the relief effort here?

In the afternoon I helped arrange a room at Bakewell Meeting House so the children at Meeting have a base there. All soft furnishings removed. Everything that could not be moved, covered up. So there are now just tables and chairs and nothing else. They will each have a tray with paper and felt tips and other stationery, but there won't be books, or the big colourful floor cushions they use to make dens while the adults are having coffee and chat after Meeting. Except of course, the adults won't be having coffee and chat after Meeting, because of COVID restrictions. 

I was telling a young person about it all later and she said: 'It's pants, isn't it?' I like that expression: it's such a neat, understated way of summing things up right now.

How are you keeping your spirits up? What are you reading? What are you watching?

I've just worked my way through all 9 series of Call the Midwife, watching an episode a night, last thing before I go to sleep. It's been perfect. Now I'm going to try A Suitable Boy, but after that I'm open to offers. Please, can someone suggest a series or serial that consists of story, that is serious but not dark?

I like Call the Midwife because it combines serious issues with comedy and whimsy and underneath it all is a bedrock of kindness and morality. Plus, of course, there are all those moving births. 

Enough. I'm going to stop bubling on and leave you with a lovely new review of EVEN WHEN THEY KNOW YOU

and also a link to a post on a blog called Clothes in Books, where the blogger reads and comments on my most recent book DAYS ARE WHERE WE LIVE.

Here is the link.

Have a good weekend, friends. Not everything is pants. 

Letter from home

Did you see those lifestyle articles in the papers early on in lockdown where women said that as they were never going out, they were giving up wearing bras because they wanted to be comfortable?

Well, six months of dealing with the pandemic has led me to cross my own line. For the first time ever I had a social engagement wearing my elephant trousers.

...by which I mean someone other than Dave saw me in them. On Thursday I had been in need of some self-cosseting (brought on by the dystopia out there I can do nothing to make any better)  and Liz came to sit in the garden for coffee and chat, and I did not change before she arrived. 

If the elephant trousers (bought circa 1983)  were in a clothing catalogue, they'd be described as soft grey fleecy track pants with drawstring waist and pale turquoise trim down the side, or in the case of a pair currently available from Wrap I've been wondering about: 

These relaxed and cool trousers are chic and comfortable. Trimmed with velvet on the outside leg, they're more luxe than lounge.

Enough of the descriptions, the point is that not only has my hair not been cut since February, but as I can go days without seeing anyone but Dave and the occasional delivery man, I have given up dressing for style. 

There is a long cold winter with little social contact ahead, and I am currently ogling another pair of fleecy track pants. I worry that when the world gets back to normal my standards will have slipped so far I'll even have ditched my dungarees, and I'll have nothing in the wardrobe apart from warm and cosy trousers with elasticated waists. 

The other line I crossed is that I read and enjoyed a Booker winner: Girl, Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo. I've read and enjoyed winners of the Orange Prize, the Pulitzer and the Costa before but never the Booker. What's going on? Did the judges make some mistake? It's SO ACCESSIBLE. It's very good. Have you read it?

In other news, I've been having some art lessons on zoom. They've been educative, interesting and stimulating. Unfortunately I've been hit by a hard truth.

I had thought that painting would be nothing but fun, unlike writing a novel, where although I might have in my head some appealing characters, entertaining dialogue and interesting themes, it needs a plot to bring it all together. And plotting for me is difficult.

It turns out that although I might be OK at drawing, have a good eye for colour, and be able to translate energy to the canvas, it needs prior hard thinking as to composition to make it all come together. Bugger. 

It's the same old lesson: apart from a minute number of incredibly talented and rare individuals, achieving creative success requires hours and hours of hard work.

But the highlight of the past week was going to Quaker meeting in our meeting house in Bakewell. It has been closed since the end of March and last Sunday we had our first Meeting under new restrictions: two metres apart and everyone wearing masks. Our Meeting room could only accommodate 12 under those conditions, with all other Friends joining us from home via zoom. But it worked for everyone. 

When I first went in and sat down I was so delighted to be there I was moved to tears, at the same time as wanting to stand up and shout 'Whoop-whoop!'

The river Wye in Bakewell