Happy Monday! I was up at 7am today because my back hurt and I did extra yoga to try and relax it, the yoga every day is not working, and my back and hip just hurt all the time and more when I walk and allotment. Which is not idea.
That aside everything is much as it was last Monday, except I’m not eating cakes, sweets, crisps or biscuits and being vegetarian Monday to Friday, which I’ve been doing for February anyway.
It’s been fish because it’s not been a week but it does require a change of mindset, yesterday I bought some ham and mortadella to have as a snack with my apple as I can’t have sweet stuff. Clearly, I didn’t think that through!
Just in case anyone was wondering, there are two ways to do Lent, it’s 40 days if you take out the Sundays, so the first option is to ‘fast’ Monday to Saturday and then ‘feast’ on Sunday. The second is that you fast all the was through from Ash Wednesday and finish on Palm Sunday.
I don’t do either of those things because I’m an idiot because breaking it every Sunday isn’t something I feel good doing, (that exception was designed for people who were really fasting and not eating much at all, I’m just giving up cakes, sweets, crisps and biscuits). I could do it the other way and finish on Palm Sunday but if I’ve chosen to give this stuff up for Lent, then celebrating the end of my resolutions in Holy Week (Palm to Easter Sunday) feels very wrong…..so 46 days of Lent it is.
This week I will try to get out a bit more, as it’s warmer and lighter. Have a good week!
I didn’t celebrate Valentine’s Day way back when I was in a relationship, so I pretty much ignore it now, I’m happy for the people who get what they need from the day and that works fine.
However, any problem I might have with Valentine’s Day is about the idea that human beings are not worthy of respect unless they are in a relationship. I’ve talked about this before, as a single and childless woman (it’s bad for men but it is infinitely worse for women), I come up against this a lot.
Look, romantic love is not the be all and end all of existence. Ironically, I re-read Cyrano by Geraldine McCaughrean over the weekend and that is all about romantic and unrequited love (although I will never understand Cyrano’s love for Roxanne because she’s an airhead!) and this always strikes me as perfect for people who don’t have or don’t want a romantic partner
There are other things besides Love. It does not occupy every corner of every minute. It does not perch on the door to every room. It does not hang on every coat-hook in the hall. It is not an ingredient of every meal. There are the realms of Nature, Politics, Mathematics, Science. There are other things besides Love.
For a Man with an enquiring mind and any kind of genius there is always plenty to do.
Cyrano – Geraldine McCaughrean
This is the thing, no one’s life is worthless if we use it well. No-one is incomplete without a partner, in fact studies have shown that single people are more altruistic than people in couples and often happier. I’ve linked to in before but Bella DePaulo did a whole TED talk on it.
Guys being single is not the worst thing that can happen to you, if you are, please don’t think you are lesser, because one is a whole number….
The week before last, my hoover died. I think actually it died way before that as it wasn’t working before that as it didn’t do a great job of taking up the pine needles after Christmas but such is my aversion to hoovering (look, I come by it honestly, my mum hates hoovering too!) that I finally had to admit when I tried to hoover again the week before last.
So it was time to buy a new hoover and I did and it was the cheapest one I could get away with and would do double duty as a dust buster (because that also died this year!), apparently all hoovers in my house (however infrequently used) have a 10 year shelf life. It’s gone up in price since last week but and I have to say this, it’s very impressive and because I’ve been indoors a lot this week, it was freezing and there was snow, so my lunchtime walk was housework, there was loads of hoovering this week. Lockdown has turned me into a person I don’t recognise anymore…
Also this Saturday we did the family Champions League draw via Zoom, it’s weird, we now have a WhatsApp group for all five of us, that Oli set up (called CL Rivals!) it’s lovely but slightly weird that he’s grown enough to be in a WhatsApp group with us and to set it up! Ben and I are close to Mum but we aren’t at all close with our aunts and uncles and our parents weren’t close with their siblings, it’s nice to think that we still are and that we’re finding ways to include Oli (and eventually Joe). Ben also has this theory that in order to stop an emu attacking you, you have to put your hands above its head. That sounds to me like a ‘Dad fact’ and in particular, a Noel Dempsey special – this was the man that told me that ‘Hey Jude’ was written for my Aunt Jude! Anyway, my Champions League draw was Porto, PSG and Chelsea. Wish me luck, I’m going to need it!
My plans for this week are to spend some time on the plot, to take advantage of half term and some key people being out of the office to do some longer term work, instead of the fire fighting I’ve been doing so far this year! We had a really good year in 2020 and considering 9 months of it was mostly us all at home, it was a stellar year. Unfortunately, or fortunately for our long term job prospects, there is always more to do and every day is (or should be) a learning day!
Lent starts on Wednesday, so Tuesday is all about pancakes and excess because after that, I’m not eating sweets, crisps, cake, ice cream, biscuits or chocolate (we’re no fun until Easter, I’m allowing myself sugar free jelly and tinned fruit). I’m doing other stuff for Lent too, I’m bedding in my no meat or fish eating Monday to Friday, upping my food bank donations, and adding 30 minutes of prayer and meditation to my days. This Lent feels a little different, last year I leaned into it because we were in lockdown and it seemed to fit. This year, it feels like it’ll be easier or harder to do. After the first lockdown, the only change in my life was that I was working from home every day and I didn’t get to see my nephews, I’m not madly social, I still got to see my mum and while I didn’t see everyone as much as usual, there hadn’t been a huge change. Our third lockdown, feels like a massive change, I’ve seen Sue every week for a walk, I’ve seen the godchildren (Ryan and Miss T excepted) for walks, but I haven’t seen Ma and everything seems to be dragging. To say nothing of doing Spring on the plot solo again, I guess it’s just going to be a case of do it and see what happens..
“After returning for two years to Tel Aviv, and many visits to the occupied Palestinian territories, I understood that Israel doesn’t live up to its professed high moral standards. The lesson learned from the Holocaust was ‘Never again!’ But is it intended only to protect us Jews? For me ‘Never again!’ must include ‘never again to racism, oppression, ethnic cleansing anywhere – as well as never again to antisemitism’.”
I am so sick of being asked if I regret not having children. Mum sent this to me, I think she might also be tired of being asked if I have a partner and why I don’t have children. I don’t think she’s been asked if I’m gay yet though but it’s only a matter of time!
Happy Friday! I’ve been staying away from social media for a while, I’m just tapped out and working on my kindle paperwhite being the only screen I go near.
A Reader’s Guide to the Novels Behind ‘Bridgerton’. This is worth reading but there is one thing about the ‘Duke and I’ and the issues around consent. Daphne doesn’t get Simon’s in one instance but Simon has spent their entire marriage lying to Daphne and using her ignorance against her, she hasn’t thinks, and Simon knows this, that he couldn’t have children, her is ignorant of everything to do with sex, apart from what he choses to tell her. What Daphne does is wrong, but (and I except that I’m in a minority here) it’s understandable. Simon’s behaviour is also appalling, he’s supposed to be in love with Daphne and he takes shameless advantage of her. So in issues of consent, true consent, they both do wrong.
It’s February and my back is a mess. Well technically, it’s not my back, it’s my piriformis which is a form of sciatica. Joy, I know that if I don’t get to it now, I’m going to end up really throwing my back out and it won’t be pretty. I’m doing the stretches and releasing the muscle (and trying not to swear really loudly because there is a newborn living downstairs).
This is the downside of middle age, however, I know what works is yoga. So for February, I’m going to do it every day, I won’t like it but my back will!
Hopefully, by the end of the month, I’ll be as bendy as the little nephew…
January has been a slog, and honestly I think February is likely to be a slog too but it’ll be March in four weeks time!
Good news for the last day of January, is that Ma has had her first vaccination, which is a relief! There are also new babies, Tom had a girl and my downstairs neighbours had a boy. Whether I’m able to leave the house or not, the world carries on and I’m really grateful for the people who do the work that makes it continue.
But I’m finding this wearing, I miss my family, I miss the pub and going out for dinner and yes I know that I didn’t often do those things, I miss having the option. There are babies I cannot cuddle and parents I can’t hug. This generally sucks. I know that I’m lucky to be employed, housed and healthy. I’m grateful for those things, I’m just also very tired of not having options.
This week, I need to get a grip. I need to do yoga in the evening, I really need to tidy my flat and get my act together…
Happy Friday! Well the USA has a new President so I guess that’s one good thing in the world. The daily death rate in the UK is appallingly high, and I just heard a member of Radiohead say that it feels as though we are being governed like an essay crisis. Which seems about right…
It’s Blue Monday today, which is basically the worst day of the year. It’s three weeks into the New Year and no-one has any money, there isn’t another Bank Holiday until April and Christmas feels like a distant memory. That’s in normal times, but we are in the middle of a global pandemic and in the UK, in our third lockdown. So added to the usual misery we are sitting in our houses all alone trying to summon up the will to live and some enthusiasm for work without any actual human contact or trying to homeschool disregulated children and keep all the work/home things in balance. That’s bad, but worse that that is that the situations above are best case scenarios. Other people are having to go out and work in shops (not exactly safe) or have no work and are quietly panicking about how to feed children/pay bills.
I say all this not to make you feel worse but to share a tiny flash that has illuminated all this gloom. My brother send me flowers on Friday and I won the office quiz!
My brother never ceases to surprise me!
Other things I did to cheer myself up over the weekend. I made marmalade, I changed my bed*, I broke open the sour cherry compote (which was truly the best thing I preserved last year) and I did some other preserving, marmalade (which didn’t set properly – I’ll sort that out tonight!), chicken stock and chickpeas. I also read two books and watched ‘A History of Swearing’ on Netflix. I also reached out for some human connection and called my brother, my mother and some friends. I wrote postcards. I had therapy and did yoga.
This morning, I’m not the most cheerful person in the world (I never am and it’s January!) but I’m more balanced than expected. That’s really my trick, I don’t reach for perfect, I reach for balance. It’s much more achievable than perfect and ultimately better for you!
So that’s what I’m thinking about this week. Balance. Working out what small things will make me more cheerful and doing them. Today that means cherry compote and yoghurt for breakfast, an afternoon walk, doing the ironing tonight and having a bath before bedtime.
That’s all I’ve got. I hope you all have a great week and can think of some small, cheerful things that will give you balance!
*the best housekeeping habit you can ever get into is that of changing your bed weekly. Clean beds are the best thing in the world for comforting troubled minds and bodies and it’s a treat you can give yourself every week. If you can, I really recommend it.
Schools in England told not to provide free school meals at half-term. What is wrong with the government? I’m not expecting them to be brilliant or even good but they don’t have the brains God gave a fucking sheep. We’ve been over this, as a general rule everyone objects to children going hungry. We did this in the summer, we did it before Christmas, we did it last fucking week. Just accept that people think it’s important and sort it out, implement a system that ensures that the 1.4 million children entitled to free school meals get fed in the holidays or when schools aren’t open. It’s not fucking rocket science….
