Merry Christmas...I think

 Review of the Year…..

I mean, really…. If I was to do this in the style of one of those round robin, Christmas letters that American people write, referring to themselves in the third person, I might say something like:

Shyama put on quite a lot of weight this year, meaning that every time she saw a photo of herself she was drenched in self loathing

Or

All our energies, as a family, were concentrated in trying to remain sane and not kill each other.

All very negative though, in’t it? It is very hard to remain positive at the moment and 2020 has been an absolute bastard of a year.  But there have still been high points and I do realise how lucky I am. 

You know those memes that go around saying - ‘even though you feel like shit, get up and put lipstick on’ and that sort of thing? 

Very much not me with red lipstick on

I don’t wear lipstick but it was in that kind of spirit that I bleached the hair on my upper lip this morning. My daughter came into the bathroom as I was doing it so she could do a poo (of course she did!) and said to me:

“If that white stuff’s to get rid of the hair on your face, why don’t you put it on your chin?”

“I don’t have hair on my chin, you cheeky mare!” I said, in the style of a 1950s cockney, while thinking - I don’t, do I? Have hair on my chin?

She said;

“You don’t have hair on your upper lip either.” 

So perhaps she was trying to make some kind of profound comment on the nature of the standards we inflict on ourselves in the endeavour of fitting into societally imposed beauty ideals, I’m not sure.

By the way, I really like lipstick and appreciate the vampish red lips of other women but sadly it doesn’t seem to suit me. I watched a couple of episodes of 'Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries' and promptly bought a bright red lipstick and a cheap kimono from a well known, online retailer. The lipstick felt as alien to my face as some people report the wearing of contact lenses to be. I’d love to swish around, flicking my scarf over my shoulder and pouting vampishly but it was not to be. 

The reality

That’s quite enough about me, how about you? You need to give yourself a massive pat on the back for withstanding the pressures that have been thrown at you this year! You really do. And if you’ve binged, cried, shouted, indulged in a lot more ‘me’ time, got welded to your sofa, that’s all perfectly understandable. 

A psychologist on the radio said that when we do video calls the brain doesn’t differentiate between seeing somebody irl and seeing somebody on the screen so it is actually a good thing to do if you’re feeling lonely. In all honesty I can sometimes find big group video calls a little tiring and sometimes stressful. But I’ve realised that on screen, as in real life, I prefer smaller gatherings - there’s more space to talk, less chance of inadvertently interrupting someone just as they are about to tell a killer anecdote and it just feels more friendly and intimate. I am an introvert though so you might prefer your zoom call to look like the opening scene of The Muppet Show, it’s up to you.

Zoom call

I’d been toying with the idea of sponsoring a child for quite a while, had the tab open on my computer for months but it was reading about the work that Marcus Rashford had done this year, to try and make sure that school kids didn’t have to skip meals during the holidays, that finally pushed me to do something and set up the sponsor. I know this might sound sanctimonious and self congratulatory but, at this point, I don’t really care. I think that witnessing compassion has a positive effect and can inspire you to be a bit kinder in your own life. Not that my direct debit and letter to my sponsored child is on the same level of Marcus Rashford’s work, but they do say that any act of kindness, however small, is never wasted. 

I hope you manage to have a good Christmas, whatever you do and that, even though calendar years are a completely arbitrary measurement of time passing, 2021 holds some hope and warmth for us all. 

Music Maps

Music was my first love….

Actually I don’t think that’s true, I think my first love was books, or probably food, but just bear with me here while I take you on an odyssey of sound and sensations…. (you’ll have to provide your own sensations).

 

Ain’t no doubt it’s all so fucking depressing at the moment - incompetent, blundering and dangerous leadership, a terrifying global pandemic and dickheads panic buying toilet roll as soon as there’s a sniff of a second lockdown. Yep, it’s all very grim and added to that you’ve watched everything Netflix, iPlayer and all the others have to offer, twice! So let’s all join metaphorical, non germ carrying hands, sit around an imaginary fire and listen to some soothing tunes.

There used to be a T.V programme called ‘Comedy Connections’ which I loved, it would plot the genesis of a particular funny programme - what the writers and actors/performers had worked on before, what brought them together to produce this and where they progressed from there. If we’re going to pretend that music was my first love, let’s just continue the fantasy that comedy was my second. Music docs and ‘rock-umentaries’ might do the same thing in plotting the genesis of songs, bands and albums but sometimes in a leaden and heavy handed way. We could do with a similar thing, to the Comedy Connections programme, for songs.

Quincy Jones Wikimedia Commons

For instance, I only learned recently that two songs I really liked had sampled Summer in the City by Quincy Jones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q7IJOYxAMo

If you don’t know the song it has a wonderful catchy, gently thrilling sort of refrain at the beginning and throughout. The two songs that I’d been enjoying, without knowing that they were leaning on Quincy Jones, were:

Passin' Me By by The Pharcyde (1992)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-mAK3uB2_0

And

Les Nuits by Nightmares on Wax (1999)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q7IJOYxAMo

By the way, if you want to pass some time in an entertaining manner, look up Quincy Jones’ comments and insights on other musicians, he's brutally honest and hilarious. Here is just one quote from an interview in Vulture, link below.

“It’s Trump and uneducated rednecks. Trump is just telling them what they want to hear. I used to hang out with him. He’s a crazy motherfucker. Limited mentally — a megalomaniac, narcissistic. I can’t stand him. I used to date Ivanka, you know.”

https://www.vulture.com/2018/02/quincy-jones-in-conversation.html

Massive Attack ft Tricky

Another connection. I’d heard Black Steel by Tricky for years without knowing who it was by or what it was called, only that I loved it. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZJTM03UByU

It was only when they had withdrawn some music cassettes from the public library I worked at and we were invited to help ourselves to the stash that I snagged Maxinquaye and loved it, especially Black Steel, that song gave me the feels. A few years later I learned that it was a cover of a song by Public Enemy, originally called Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZM5_6js19eM

I still prefer the Tricky version...

Green from Scritti Politi
Stock image

So many bands and artists have covered Beatles songs but some of the, arguably, more obscure ones can pass you by. It wasn’t that long ago that I found out that She’s a Woman had been done by the Fab Four years before Scritti Politi had covered it (or before Scritti Politi with Shabba Ranks had covered it!). I always liked Scritti Politi there was something unsettling sexual about the way the lead singer’s androgonous tones breathed out the lyrics, or perhaps that was just me….

Urgh, this is dreadful, I can’t find a Scritti version without Shabba Ranks - does it exist or did I imagine it?

Now this one isn’t a connection, just someone I’ve come across lately. Arlo Parks and her beautiful, mellifluous voice - perfect for these uncertain times and with a song called Black Dog, in which she says in the first line that she wants to lick the grief away from your lips, or somesuch! (I'm paraphrasing here) I started off alluding to the depressing state of the world but if you are in need of some comfort you could do a lot worse than listen to Arlo Parks. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZM5_6js19eM

I get a bit evangelical about music and want other people to listen to stuff I'm enjoying (until too many people do it and ruin it for me…) In all honesty I never click on music videos that people share on social media which is why I rarely post them myself, but in the spirit of our campfire sing along let's all have a collective listen and try and take a break from reality for a bit.

As Arlo Parks sings in Hurt: 

“Just know that it won’t hurt so, won’t hurt so much forever.

Won’t hurt so much forever.”

Breeding Season

I was going to call this post  - ‘When Covid comes to call’ but thought that would be misleading as I'm pretty sure we don't have it. I also worried that calling it that might drive away any potential readers - as if saying the word or reading some words about it would instantly transmit the virus. 

I’m not trying to make light of a life threatening condition but I do feel that if I so much as sniff these days, I’m a modern day leper who should be ringing a bell and calling ‘unclean’!

You see, me and the kids have had a cold this week, the first one of the year. Because I mentioned the word ‘cough’ when I rang the school to report their absence on Monday, I was instantly informed that they would have to be tested for Covid-19 and found to be clear before they were allowed to return to school. As it’s been reported in the news it has proved impossible to obtain a Covid test so we’ve been trapped in the house with two hyperactive kids. They are now almost fine, I feel better - unless *self pity is one of the recognised symptoms of the virus…

*Yes, I realise there are healthcare professionals, teachers and other key workers who are currently unable to go to work because they can’t get tested - I know there are people worse off than me, thanks!

I understand the school's stance - they have to be extra vigilent. But we are still trapped in limbo. Can they go back to school when they couldn't be tested but have passed the quarantine period? Is this situation going to keep recurring throughout the term? What if it's not just a cold?

It made me eat my breakfast very mindfully the other day. I interrogated my taste buds - could I taste my banana, yogurt, honey and granola combo? I could and it was delicious! The roasted almond in Tesco Finest** granola is one of the nicest things in the world, so nice that I added it to the gratitude journal the other day when I was scrabbling around for things to be grateful for.

**Other brands of granola are available.

A friend has recommended vitamin drops for the kids to protect them against the inevitable barrage of coughs and colds that will assail them at school from now until next April. It was no different when I was at school. My Mum used to break a Karvol capsule onto a tissue for me and I’d dab my red, chafed nose against it at various points during the day.  We went into school with coughs and colds just to keep up the merry proliferation of that virus, obviously nowhere near as dangerous, in its many strains, as Covid-19. The Guardian helpfully reproduced this NHS chart: 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/18/coronavirus-symptoms-common-cold-covid-19-flu-nhs-guide

Onto cheerier things, ever since I read of Agatha Christie's writing routine I've been longing to go to the same hotel on Dartmoor and write! And take solitary walks on the moor after lunch and act out my dialogue! This is what I need to do! I mean, I’m not saying that it is my constant fantasy to run away at the moment or that any harsh word that gets thrown at me this week is making me want to weep but….you know. 

We stopped off at Dartmoor on our way to Cornwall in August and tramped across the misty Moors. It was a wonderful feeling to traverse the expanse with only the sheep and cows for company. 

One day I will go to a hotel there and be comfortable in my own company and take solitary lunches and write, one day...

Camping Revisited

View from the bottom of our pitch

Nobody wants to be ‘that’ guy, do they? That fussy, prissy, joyless idiot. Too neurotic to enjoy the simple things in life, squawking theatrically when they see an insect. Shuddering at the slightest inconvenience. The worst character in a film or a sitcom; uptight and unable to let go. 

However, this, unfortunately, seems to be the character I seem to adopt when I go camping. This character is always there - in a less amplified state, worrying about where she is sitting in a pub or a restaurant, but she becomes a bit of a monster when tents are involved.
I’ve written about my feelings about festivals before and my feelings about camping are very much wrapped up in that. https://msmuddles.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-disparity-between-real-and-ideal.html

Glamping seemed to offer a whole different outlook - the tents, yurts or teepees are already put up for you, the campsites aren’t as crowded and you bathe under a wondrous waterfall of mountain spring water, warmed by the tropical, British sun. (I may have made that last bit up). The toilets and waterfall have mute men servants, ready to dispense Egyptian cotton towels, wrapped in sprigs of lavender. After your shower they pummel the city tension from your shoulders on a massage table…

Our bell tent

O.K, so I might have had unrealistic expectations of glamping, a genuine one was that our campsite would be comprised of four other families and we’d all be spaced at least two miles apart so we never saw or heard each other. I was also expecting our tent to be perched atop a hill, overlooking a beautiful valley... Although I saw those valleys on the drive there, Reader, I really did, the reality wasn’t quite like that. 

I had to reckon with glamping within lockdown which meant that they’d closed the regular showers and you were only permitted to use bucket showers. Imagine what a bucket shower is, that’s what it is. It involves filling buckets, which in turn involves good upper body strength. I never used one, preferring instead to resort to the festival wash method of baby wipes in the tent. I took dry shampoo as well, another festival staple, but to be honest I barely looked in a mirror the whole weekend so that didn’t get used. 
My husband* had not one but two bucket showers over the course of the weekend, and was keen to highlight how great they were but it felt like he was trying to prank me into having one. 

*Note - if I’m the joyless, neurotic idiot, he’s the gung ho, Bear Grylls-esque, hero. He threw himself into wood chopping, fire lighting, even dish washing with enthusiastic gusto. His boyish ebullience rubbed off on the kids and they enjoyed burning things just as much as he did. They weren’t so keen on the composting toilets.

Oh, the composting toilets - sawdust, minimal lighting and the smell! The indescribable smell. My husband said that, after this weekend, we’d never get rid of the smell of wood fire from our nose, I’d say that the composting toilets provided a strong contender for this role. Still, to be fair to the campsite, they were always clean, they always had toilet roll and the sink outside, at which you washed your hands, was always stocked with hand soap and hand sanitiser. You were instructed to tip a cup of sawdust into the chamber of horrors if you’d done a poo and this made for an experience which was marginally nicer than a festival portaloo. You had to spray the seat with antibacterial spray after each use and while this made paying a visit more labour intensive than normal, it probably meant that the toilets were generally cleaner than your average public convenience. It’s just the smell, the sweet smell that nearly made me boke on my very last visit. My main problem with camping is not having a toilet nearby. That first night, kept awake by the sound of revelry and the demands of my bladder, I eventually made the journey to the toilets, on my own, in the pitch black, with a head torch lighting my way. It felt like a hero’s journey. 

Camping usually makes me want to cry and this trip was no different, however I have to give credit where it’s due and list the plus points of glamping versus regular camping.

1. Although we weren’t at the top of a hill, overlooking a lush, verdant valley, we did have a lot of space around us. You couldn’t really see anyone else and they couldn’t really see you. Thus we were able to caper around with unselfconscious vim. (You could hear other people - the forest resounded with the sound of strident, confident, middle class voices calling their children or the music coming from the large crowd of yoofs in the corner field but you couldn’t often see them.)
2. The tent is already put up, which cuts down on rows. You could stand up in our one, a bonus for when giving oneself a baby wipe shower.
3. The fires - the fire pit and the little stove we made tea on. I’m not as enthusiastic as Bear G the second about this but it was pleasant to sit around one of these with a glass of wine or cup of tea. No T.V, no P.C, no phone coverage, just the fire. 
   
4. Family Time. OK so this largely consisted of bonding over our shared disgust at the smell of the composting toilet BUT it was also time spent assembling halloumi kebabs and showing them the correct way to cut a pepper. On holiday they revelled in assisting us, fetching things and carrying logs, saying ‘Can I help’ or ‘I'll get it’. At home this ceased abruptly, it was nice while it lasted though….

Lovingly prepared kebabs

Am I now a convert to the whole camping thing? Not quite.

Swimming and the Body

One of the things that I love about swimming, particularly swimming in the sea, is that it is an activity which is not so much ‘how do I look doing this?’ as ‘Oh, I love this!’  If you’re someone who carries around a yoke of (probably mildly irrational) self consciousness with you, this is a very big deal. Not always imagining that constant, critical audience; ready to jeer at your every move. When swimming somewhere that’s not too crowded, looking out at the horizon, I cease worrying about how I look and merely focus on how I feel.

I’ve tried to evangelise about this down the pub; about not worrying how something makes you look - how sweaty you become or what it does to your hair, I’m sure I’ve sounded tiresomely bogus but I’m just trying to spread the good news. Swimming makes me feel marvellous; at one with the world and more at peace with myself, it could do the same for you! 

Marazion Beach

From a young age I waged war against my body; I cruelly seized bits of it between my fingers and wished it away, I pinched it and hurt it. I starved and berated it, ignored it and tried to pretend it wasn’t there and still it served me as all of our bodies do. My body served me well - carrying me around, healing wounds and nurturing the human beings who grew within it. Why are we taught to hate our bodies so much? To try and mould them into some kind of impossible faux Platonic ideal, when the goalposts keep moving anyway? When I was young the ‘fashionable’ body shape for women was a flat chested, half starved ‘waif’, at this moment it seems to be a cartoon, Jessica Rabbit, hourglass figure.
I read somewhere that wanting to lose weight was very rarely about wanting to be thinner, it was about being acceptable to other people. And that is probably true of anything we want to change about our appearance - the wish to be acceptable to others - that invisible audience again.  At the heart of this is wanting to be lovable. 

I recently entered a micro story competition, the challenge was to write a 100 word story based on a picture. The picture was of a lighthouse, with the sun setting on the sea. It was a peaceful image filled with soothing colours. The sea was calm and still. I tried to banish the prosaic reality of the function of a lighthouse being to warn sailors away from the rocky shore and write about swimming instead! The image reminded me of an evening swim I’d had at Marazion Beach in Cornwall, near St. Michael’s Mount. The water had been wonderfully cool and silky - not bracingly cold and I’d managed to get to that happy state of Zen-like contentment. We were all sticky from our visit to a tropical garden that day and a swim was a perfect way to end the day. 

Light on the Water

Nowhere to park in the whole of Southport. Trapped like wasps in our hot car. We get to the rocky beach at five and unpeel ourselves from sticky clothes. I wrestle with the shame of my bulging outline. 

Picking over the painful pebbles we run into the sea. I plough through the oily shallows; gentle waves tugging playfully.  The kids splash behind me and I pretend we're a family of seals. 

Cool water. I send a silent prayer to my body - I’ve been so busy absorbing the disapproval of others that I’ve forgotten to appreciate the pleasure it can bring.

I didn’t win the competition - maybe mine’s not a story at all and more of a poem or a vignette but I enjoyed writing it and I’m grateful to it for reminding me of how much I love swimming!

First attempt at capturing the scene in pencils

Solstice-mas

Good morning to you. Who’d have thought we’d still be living like this, three months on. I hope you’re keeping well.

I’ve started writing this week and it feels brilliant to be writing.  The writing has been only moderately painful, as opposed to feeling like every word was being dragged out of me with a rusty, steel rope. If you are somebody who writes you will probably know what I mean, if you are not then I don’t really know what to compare it to - the performance of a task which feels difficult, troubling, arduous, but at the same time immensely satisfying. Maybe it’s like running uphill, then coming to the summit and looking out at a stunning view. Not that I’m saying that anything I’m producing is stunning, just that maybe things feel more gratifying when we have to work at them.

What else? Yesterday we had a Summer Solstice picnic.  Sadly this didn’t involve running around naked and jumping into a lake but we did have a lovely, socially distanced picnic with some friends. The kids ran off and made a den in the trees. I’d got the five kids (our children and their pals) a little present to unwrap, to give the whole thing a sense of occasion. This gift was a hot chocolate kit, consisting of a large chocolate ‘spoon’ with a packet of marshmallows, and some novelty sticky notes. The children seemed pleased and promptly ate the chocolate spoons and marshmallows - the kit never made it to the hot drink stage.
For years we’ve been talking about having some kind of solstice celebration, not because we are particularly spiritual or close to nature but because all our birthdays are in Autumn/Winter so the celebrations are always indoor affairs. I used to gaze wistfully at the families having parties in the park, with cake and balloons and think 'that looks like fun'. The lockdown situation has forced our hands - let's really do it this year, we said, let's mark Midsummer's Eve in some way.

We didn’t have cake or balloons. (The Old Man had made a cake but it wasn’t ready in time). But we did have Prosecco and Pimms and strawberries and posh crisps and samosas and some homemade fish cakes, the recipe having been passed down along the generations in my family. The fish cakes are even spherical so, at a stretch, could be said to be representative of the sun. 

Rustic cooking

It was one set of friends’ wedding anniversary that weekend so it felt like a double celebration. Our bladders held out admirably (the public toilets being closed), a good time was had by all and a bunny rabbit scampered away in the distance! 


When we got home we exchanged our main presents - something we had decided would be a part of our personal Solstice celebration. The kids were very pleased with their Harry Potter Lego and the Old Man was happy with his new bread knife and I was over the moon with my bound set of Jane Austen novels!

But Solstice isn’t just about the presents - the best thing about it was being able to meet up with friends and have a chat and share our food and relax a bit. Of course we talked about the situation but we also talked about many other things. And for once the kids didn’t moan about being dragged out for a walk because their friends were at the end of it!

Oh - we didn't watch the sunset because you can't really see it from our flat but we are going to be fine tuning this celebration so we'll definitely make a point of watching it next year.

Captain's log 5:1

I am a great admirer of people who ‘get things done’. Those folk who transform their living spaces into something that looks like it has come from the pages of a lifestyle magazine, almost as soon as they’ve unpacked their boxes. These people don’t put off unpacking their boxes in the first place, they get straight down to it. People who don’t feel defeated before they’ve even begun, people who totally have their shit together. Needless to say I am not one of those people.
I like to think that the reason I don’t make much physical, tangible progress is because I’m more of an internal person, living in my own head. Mine is a subterranean landscape, just as sparkling, colourful and well maintained as your living room, just not visible to the naked eye.

So, what have I done since lockdown began?

• Completed a third round of edits for my WIP (Work in progress).
• Written a short story based on the prompt from the Curtis Brown Creative - Weekly Writing Workout course. https://www.curtisbrowncreative.co.uk/the-weekly-writing-workout/
• I realise that you probably don’t care about the two things listed above, but writing felt like an agonising, almost insurmountable chore at one point, so anything that frees up the process is good.
• Read a bit of Wintering by Katherine May.  https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Katherine-May/Wintering--How-I-learned-to-flourish-when-life-became-frozen/24330069 The blurb on the cover is right - it is a beautiful book and one which makes you feel, fleetingly, closer to the natural world, which brings me to my next point:
• Got a lot of pleasure from observing the flora and fauna on our daily walk, particularly the mighty Mistle Thrush. 

  

  Mistle Thrush (we think) 

   I’ve mentioned it before but I’m really appreciating seeing the small changes around us, as the season turns, and it’s a real joy to see this bird on our walk, it’s status is 'Population decreasing' so I feel privileged to be able to spot it.
• Fed the fishes - the huge carp are like something out of a cartoon. You can imagine them having a full on war with the duck who keeps bullying the poor, pretty Mandarin ducks, chasing them away when you try to feed them. The duck pecked at the fish as they tussled for food but the fish are so big I can imagine them all getting together and fighting back. 

  

  BELEAGUERED MANDARINS

• 
  

• 

  CARP ARMY

  
  
• Put in quite a few hours at work. Work is a welcome diversion - who knew?
• Done quite a bit of Just Dance. I’ve finally found an exercise that makes you sweat, that I actually enjoy!
• Watched Deutschland 83 on All 4. Just when you think you'v exhausted all the box sets! I keep banging on to everyone I know about this series but it is sooooo good! I now only want to watch stylish thrillers that are set in the past! It is pacey, compelling and wry. https://www.channel4.com/programmes/deutschland-83      

  

  Martin/Morris in Deutschland 83

• Have learned how to do planks, thanks to Joe Wicks. (I’m still fat btw, don’t think all of this exercise has narrowed my silhouette, it hasn’t, maybe that has something to do with all the wine...or the Kit Kats….or the ersatz Frazzles)
• Done a visual diary - even if I can’t draw. My goodness you are in for a treat. If you thought Space Dorg was bad, etc, etc, but again, it’s often easier to express things in pictures rather than words, so (insert shrug emoji - my most overused emoji, here.

Hope you are well. See you on the other side! xx