Another day

 Autumn is definitely here.

I am currently sitting in bed with a thick jumper over my pyjamas, and Dave is at his desk wearing a hat and a scarf.

The trees  are looking lovely.

On the Monsal Trail - spot my bike.

And MsX is wearing her coat when we go outside in the garden to play.

Photo by the lovely Jaine

This is us looking at the cows over our garden wall. She stood for a good ten minutes looking at them. She likes animals. That’s why she’s a vegetarian, she told me yesterday. You can just spot her Bluey ears she was wearing. I always have so much fun when she comes. My head was buzzing when she and her mum went home for tea.

Today it’s a trip to Aldi, my flu jab, painting, bringing the pelarginiums inside for the winter, and the first time I make soup for lunch since the spring.

Letter from home

Dave has always hated being away from home, and has had to be dragged on holiday. 

Now he never goes anywhere, so I have to make my own fun. That’s fine. I can do that. But this year it feels as though I’ve overdone it. I have had a lot of short trips, more than I’ve ever done before. 

I went to London in January

with our daughter to see two wonderful exhibitions and The Mousetrap;

To Wensleydale with my sibs;

To Wensleydale with Liz;

To Pembrokeshire with Liz;

To Cornwall to visit Het;

To Winchester on another short sibs get-together;

and lastly to Scarborough with Chrissie.

It’s been a bit mad. And a bit much. 

And it’s a weird and huge relief to know I’m not going anywhere for the next two months, and nothing is planned beyond that. You’ll have to watch this space to see if I am climbing the walls by January, because winter here can get a bit much.

Anyway, today I am going to see an art demo and take part in a workshop. I’m slightly nervous because I don’t like painting in the company of other people. And I don’t like painting in a hurry. I am a very slow painter. And very messy. They will be horrified when they see my protective gear. (Ignore the pyjama trousers - it’s still early!)

Oh well. It will be challenging. And that’s a good thing when you’re ancient (77), isn’t it?

The cold

The autumn and winter catalogues have been arriving in our postbox and as usual the colours are drab and dingy. I know I’ve said it before but if I was in charge of the fashion world I’d make the winter colours bright and vivid in winter to make up for the grey skies and the khaki fields and the lack of flowers. Dave sees the catalogues (e.g. Poetry, Wrap, Baukjen and NRBY) and  says “Why have you got these? They’re for young people,” and I correct him. Vociferously.

This year, however, I looked at the trousers and found nothing I wanted to buy, because they’re either weird unflattering shapes - barrel, carrot, balloon - or they’re too wide for everyday country life, or they are cropped. Who wants cropped trousers in the winter? I want warm ankles! When I said this to Chrissie, I realised that it shows I am officially old. On Everwood all the women wear cropped tops and low slung trousers, exposing three inches of abdomen, even in a Colorado winter. If my gran were alive she’d be worrying about them getting chills in their kidneys, and now I’m the same. Hey ho.

Talking of cold, my big sister just texted to ask if we have enough heating oil. We didn’t stock up on the heating oil before the (unexpected) war on Iran began in February, and the price of it now is literally double what it was in January. Imagine if your gas or electricity bill doubled. And the price is not regulated, as electricity and gas prices are. The price of heating oil seems to be a blind spot for this government and yet 1.5 million families depend on it because, like us, they are off the gas grid. The government has been talking about regulating it for months, and they are still talking. They offer a small amount of financial help right now to people on very low incomes, but we are not in that category. 

So we plan not to have the heating on until it becomes absolutely necessary. We have enough wood, thanks to Dave, 

and I just have to remember to light the stove before I get to the stage of feeling miserable.

But we are lucky. We’re not living in a tent in Gaza with no food and at daily risk of being killed. 

Here is a link to Gaza Soup Kitchen 

https://gazasoupkitchen.lonelyorphans.org/

Lastly, I just reread The Correspondent and enjoyed it all over again. It’s one of my favourite books from the last few years.

I am now reading Helen Garner‘s collected diaries. The book is called How to End a Story. It is 800 pages long! It’s gripping. Also very unusual. I can imagine some people not liking it at all.

What are you reading?

Places and moods

It’s been a good week.

Tuesday was a perfect early autumn day at Hepworth Towers. Warm sunshine, no wind at all. Completely still days are rare where we live. We are on the edge of the village and our garden is exposed to the prevailing westerly wind, so when there is no wind, it feels magical and serene. Perfect for table tennis, perfect for gardening. I took down the sweet peas and planted the wallflowers and enjoyed it just because of the climate, because I was in a place I love, because…

…the feeling was akin to the one described in that paragraph from The Shadow of the Rock (Willa Cather) that I’ve quoted before

On Wednesday I travelled by train to join Chrissie in Scarborough 

where she’s been renting a holiday cottage. 

In the Chesterfield station waiting room a woman in her thirties was having a FaceTime conversation with a work colleague so unreservedly that the whole waiting room could hear the details…unit prices, engaging a solicitor, what to say to a client, etc, etc. It went on and on. I turned to the woman next to me and said “Isn’t that person annoying?” And she said: “Yes, I put away my mobile phone and have been listening to her instead.”

It was a strange day for rail travel in the north of England. There were serious incidents on three different lines in different directions, which meant the transport police were called in and the lines were closed. If you were hoping to travel due north, or southwest of York, you were screwed.  Fortunately for me, the line to Scarborough was open.

Since I got here there has been much talking, much walking, excellent fish and chips, margaritas, and a paddle (of course)

A steep climb up to the castle

Where the views were terrific

The south bay

The north bay

And for some reason I have fallen in love with the Grand Hotel. I’ve not been inside,  but the building looks so impressive from the outside:

Of course, Scarborough does have other stately buildings, because in earlier times it was a favourite resort of the well-to-do. 

Home today, back to Hepworth Towers…not stately, but much loved.

Bits and bats

 In the light of the Green Party's vote on Zionism, I commend to you this article by Jonathan Freedman. It’s well worth reading. It made me think.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/oct/02/green-party-anti-zionism-motion-attempt-tell-jews-how-to-think

On the home front, the news is that I picked the last of the sweet peas yesterday,

 

and the frame is coming down today to make way for a holding bed for some wallflowers I bought from the market. Many of my perennials have been punished by the heat and the lack of rain this summer, but the cosmos and Japanese anemones are still flourishing, and that’s where I usually plant my wallflowers for next spring.

MsX and the lovely Jaine came yesterday and we walked through the village to find autumn treasures, and when we got back, the three of us made an autumn crown with them for MsX. She looks a peach in it. You’ll have to take my word for it, because I can’t share photos of her on here. She still looks like a Mabel Lucie Atwell girl with blue eyes, pink cheeks and a round face, but she has very long hair and a cheeky grin. She is physically fearless, rarely runs out of energy, and is a hoot.

Meanwhile, the Colorado girls define the word teenager but in very different ways from each other. It would not be right to say more. Watching children grow up when you’re not in hands-on everyday contact is so interesting, isn’t it?

Finally, as this is the third post on returning to the blog, after my unequivocal “final”signing off at the end of July…I ought to say something. 

Yes, I have decided I’m back. I wasn’t well from June onwards but in an ill-defined way it was hard to explain to the doctor. Everything got too much, and the quality of blog was ailing in consequence, and that was upsetting. Also it became a pressure when I was feeling so discombobulated. Thankfully, I feel so much better now. So…I have learned my lesson. Next time I need to lay the blog down I will tell you I am taking a break, not ending it for good.

When I told Isaac I was writing the blog again, he called me a blogaholic. Maybe I am.

P.s. a note about comments: when you comment, I am sent an email and then I publish the comment. That’s why you might have to wait to see your comment posted. 

Ever-dreadful

Have you ever been hooked on a television series you wish you could stop watching? I turned to a gentle small town drama called ‘Everwood’ - which has an excellent score on Rotten Tomatoes - when I couldn’t find anything else. I enjoyed the first series, but now it’s irritating the hell out of me. And yet I am still watching it. 

I turn to it when I am too tired to do anything else. I suppose it’s taken the place of the defunct ‘Neighbours’ in my lexicon of slumping television. The main character is conceited, annoying, a terrible father, and unattractive (though I get the impression he is supposed to be appealing on all counts except fatherhood.)

Admittedly he doesn’t look bad in this photo, but trust me, he’s a turn off. The main female lead (a 16 year old) started off well but has become beyond tiresome. The small town values are irritating, and there is a folksy intro at the start of every episode. It is also repetitive. Aargh. Why on earth am I still watching it? 

AI describes it as “a heartwarming and emotional family drama which won strong critical praise for its realistic writing and small town charm.” Perhaps one problem is that I don’t find Amercian small town charm charming. I find it small minded. 

So, the upshot of this is that I am looking for something else (fictional) to take its place. No whodunnits please, as when I am tired I don’t want to be trying to work out who the culprit is. Any suggestions? 

Friends

I’ve had a quiet day on my own after a very busy few weeks, and during those weeks I have thought from time to time that it might have been a mistake to give up the blog. I am still considering it.

Today I have written in my journal, mended the pocket of a pair of Dave’s shorts while listening to a fascinating and erudite discussion about Casablanca (the film) on In Our Time (BBC Sounds), started two new paintings, done my Italian session on Duolingo, practised my saxophone, visited my neighbour to give her probably the last bunch of sweet peas this year, and lain on the sofa exhausted.

And while I was lying here I have been thinking about friends, and how I have made friends through the blog, and blog readers I haven’t made friends with have still been friends of some kind, and how it’s a mistake to cut oneself off from friends of any kind. And that friends become more and more precious the older you get.

So I thought I’d say hello.

Het came to visit this week,

and she said I should drop a Christmas message here, but I couldn’t wait. So here I am, saying hello.

I hope you’re well. Say hello in the comments if you see this. 

Sx

Ps. These are my two latest paintings…

The end of the road

   

The blog is becoming sad and bedraggled, and spoiling its noble record. It’s not surprising…I’ve done it for twenty years. 

I first began in June 2006. Admittedly it was originally only a web presence, a blog in name only, hatched because PLOTTING FOR BEGINNERS had just been published. It only became a recognisable blog in the late summer of 2008, with posts like this: 

Wednesday August 27, 2008

DREAMING

Last night I dreamed I was in the kitchen with Dave, and he was prodding me with a fork. I said “Don’t! That’s not nice!” And he stopped. Then I woke up with a horrendous stomach ache.

I could hear from Dave’s breathing that he wasn’t asleep, so I said “I have this awful pain,” and he was full of sympathy, as he always is, and we discussed what might be the cause of the pain, and then I told him my dream.

“Was it a big fork?’ he said.

I pictured a devil’s fork, and couldn’t speak for the giggles. Then, when I calmed down, I said, “It was a kitchen fork, fool. But you had a look of malice on your face when you were poking me.”

“It’s so unfair to hold me responsible for my behaviour in your dreams,” he said. “And you know I’m not a malicious person. Scientific exploration is different. I could hold up my hand to prodding you with a fork to find out your core temperature.”

posted by Sue Hepworth at 5.49 a.m.

But now things feel different. We live in a dystopian world. Mad men are in charge of large countries, fascism is rising everywhere, disastrous climate change is upon us, and Israel is continuing its obscene violence on Palestinians both inside the West Bank and also in Gaza. And it is blatant now; but the issue has vanished from the headlines, the E.U. still counts Israel as an ally and trading partner, and Spain is the only European country to call them out. 

And then there is the universal war-mongering, the loud call from every side for the investment in armaments. “There’s going to be a war! X is going to attack us! We need to be ready!” 

As someone wrote to the paper a couple of years ago…

The world is too dark for me to cope with. But I can’t go on and on, telling you this on the blog.

This is not me in the picture, but I feel the same way:

This IS me:

And there is another problem. My mind is no longer tuned to writing about domestic happenings, making mental notes of funny things to tell you, or issues I want to explore. There are still times when I make a mental note that something is worth blogging about, but then my short term memory is so poor that the idea gets lost.

Other things have changed. I used to feel able to talk about my extended family and to share photographs of them. Now the internet feels like the Wild West, I don’t want to do that. Isaac and family have just left after a lovely, lovely visit. And our  whole family came for tea and outdoor games on Thursday - all three of our “children”, partners and grandchildren, and how I would love to show you pictures, but it’s not OK these days. All I can say is that I went to sleep happy on Thursday night, and I woke up happy, and all that is left is too much fruit juice, and a Dungeons and Dragons character sheet that Cece has made for me, with some dice. There was no time to play this week, so we plan to play on FaceTime. 

But back to the blog: the party’s over. I know I’ve said I’m stopping blogging before, but this really is it. Finito benito.

My view is that the blog had a heyday between autumn 2008 and autumn 2023. Then the latest war on Gaza began, in October 2023. There have been good posts since then, but not so many.

In early 2020, I chose the best posts of the years from 2010 - 2019 and they are available in my book DAYS ARE WHERE WE LIVE.

I have enjoyed writing the blog, and loved the interactions with readers. And it’s been amazing to make friends across the world, through the blog. It will still be online, so you can read it all. But there won’t be any new posts. You can follow me on Instagram @sue.hepworth where I post my paintings.

So, as the lady at the end of the Morecambe and Wise show used to say:

“Thank you everybody, thank you. I’d like to thank all of you for watching me and my little show here tonight. If you’ve enjoyed it, then it’s all been worthwhile. So until we meet again, good night and I love you all.”

On our bi-annual Bakewell Peace Vigil

Blogging in bed

One of my paintings 

Cycling in Boulder 

On holiday with Liz

On a gallery trip with Het

Having a margarita with Wendy 

Early morning sweet peas

Guess who

The news from here

 Hello.

What to talk about? Andy Burnham and his refreshing approach? The fact that he knows how to connect, and he seems to care about ordinary people? Or Andy Burnham and the fact he voted for the Iraq war, against the Chilcot report, and the fact that there has been a US bombing mission started from a U.K. airbase? OMG.

None of these.

Here is the official selfie from my fabulous holiday at Het’s house:

And here are my three latest paintings

Midday sunshine

Evening sunshine

Lying down in a buttercup field

I just read something in the Instagram feed of an artist I follow - Sally Puddifoot - that I really liked. It made immediate sense to me:

“When my paintings come together the feeling is very sweet and those paintings have an energy and honesty that I can see in the visual language. They have determination and passion in the layers of paint.”

Not everyone will like my paintings and that’s OK. I like them. And some others do too. That’s enough.

I have been able to paint this week, but not able to cook, knit, garden, push the gear lever on my bike or use the handbrake in the car. Why? Because I wounded my left thumb in a bike accident on the Trail. It wasn’t my fault. Someone pulled out without checking and I braked suddenly and skidded on the loose gravel and came off full frontal. I got away with impressive bruises that don’t hurt but had to go to the minor injuries unit to have my thumb dressed, and to get a tetanus shot. It doesn’t hurt now and is healing nicely and in a week I hope to be fully functional again. The NHS was wonderful. And Dave has been pretty wonderful too.

Next week the Americans - Isaac, Wendy, Lux and Cece - are coming for a few days. Yippee! 

That’s my news.

A change

 I am staying with my dear friend Het in Cornwall. It’s heaven.

Dave is at home, watering the plants.

This is the view from my bed last evening.

How lucky am I?
I don’t feel like writing any more, but I heartily recommend this piece on Garrison Keillor’s blog.

https://www.garrisonkeillor.com/a-long-night-on-the-east-side/

Dr Hussam Abu Safiya

 

I refer you to this article in Middle East Eye:

https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/gaza-west-must-act-save-hussam-abu-safiya-risk-killed-captivity

And to this one in the Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/06/detained-gaza-doctor-almost-unrecognisable-injuries-israeli-jail-hussam-abu-safiya

Please write to Yvette Cooper and insist that pressure is brought to bear on Israel to release Dr Safiya.

Untitled

 The headlines say the UK is investing £4.7 billion in defence. I call it warfare. Why aren’t we investing in diplomacy? Why aren’t we investing in STOPPING a war from happening?

In Gaza, horrors continue. This is an excerpt from the Refuser Solidarity Network’s latest bulletin (RFN is an organisation that supports conscientious objectors in Israel):

In Colorado, there is good news. Jewish Voice for Peace reports the success of their support for a Democratic candidate who cares about what is happening to Palestinians. (For your info, AIPAC is a very powerful pro-Israel lobbying group)

Here at Hepworth Towers, we call a genocide a genocide and we don’t believe in war.

And our garden is taking over. I call it a garden, but it looks more like an abandoned park, or even a meadow. It is so untidy, with clumps of flowers flopping and draping everywhere. It’s a wonderful exuberant mess. But also a little disreputable. Imagine all my borders looking like this one. 

The sweet peas are flowering, and the wildflower patches I sowed are also starting to bloom. The gooseberries want picking - a job I hate because of the prickles - and the blackcurrants are ripening so soon it will be jam time.

On the painting front, I have four paintings in an exhibition in Ashbourne Town Hall.

Photo by Valerie Dalling

They are all for sale, but I won’t find out if any have sold until I go in Saturday for the last day of the exhibition, when I’m on duty as a steward. Fingers crossed.

The last thing I want to say is…I have just read a wonderful book, (well actually I listened to it on Audible while I was painting and I LOVED it) - The Correspondent, by Virginia Evans.

Do any of you have any book recommendations?