Things and Thoughts

In Life

• We have been in our new house for four weeks now and I love it. We are nowhere near unpacked because there's nowhere to unpack anything to and I'm haunted by the ever present knowledge that we have to pack up and move out again for two weeks in July (don't ask) but I am hoping we can find some semblance of order and homeliness before then and in the meantime the view from the front doorstep has earned itself its own hashtag. 

• I have ground to a halt with almost all work-related things since we moved. No writing, no working on my etsy shop. Boxes of terribly expensive postcards sit looking at me accusingly and likely will until the easter holidays are finally, finally over.  Then I'm going to take on the world. Probably. Maybe. If this cold ever fucks off. On the upside I have got myself an actual job as a remote PA a couple of mornings a week. Turns out I'm better at answering other people's emails than my own. 

• I am leaving the island in nine days and I am beyond excited. I am excited about four planes, two 7am trains, a multitude of TFL connections at the weekend (LOLZ), relying on the Brighton - London train running on time (double LOLZ) and juggling the baggage allowances of two different airlines on four different journeys, I'm excited about ALL of it. Most of all I'm excited about seeing my friends and photographing two lovely families and seeing how their little have grown and eating foreign food and being responsible for no lives but my own for five whole days. Bliss.

• I am half way through Big Magic, which is pretty good. And Breaking Clean - which is mostly great, and A Clash of Kings - which is unfailingly terrible, but I can't stop. I'm aware that if I don't grow some self-control this is going to be a long term deal, what with there being 74 fucking books. It's far too big for the loaf of bread sized suitcase I have to fit a camera kit and five days worth of clothes into when I go away so maybe I can use all of that travel time to finish some real books. (Further reasons to get a kindle - I can take every GOT book with me everywhere I go. Hmmm...) 

Online

• I loved this piece by Ruth Whippman - she of the quote in my side bar, she of the 'despair and faeces' comment. Stop fetishing parenting, she says, you're sucking all the joy out of it. She writes about the increasing pressure among parents (mothers) to subscribe to a philosophy, to have a mission statement in raising your kids other than 'get everyone to the end of the day in one(ish) piece,' She writes about the extremes of attachment parenting vs routine parenting and sums them up pretty wonderfully;

'The philosophies themselves may be opposing, but what they share is a kind of absolutism, a high stakes alarmist tone, in which the consequences of not sticking to the script can be lifelong and dire.   

In reality, whichever method you choose, your kids are overwhelmingly likely to turn out just fine. There is little evidence to suggest that any one loving parenting style has any particular advantage over any other, but still both of these basic parenting worldviews are firmly rooted in a kind of underlying terror.   

 For the routine-lovers it’s the fear that without a firm hand, a child will become coddled and dependent, lacking in resilience and unable to function in the real world. At the more cuddly end of the spectrum, it’s the heart-chilling anxiety that children are so psychologically fragile that without near constant attention they will suffer long-term emotional damage.' Ruth Whippman, The Guardian. 

I have added her book to my ever growing list. Not because I'm in pursuit of 'happiness' (Oliver Burkeman's incredible book saw to that a few years ago) but because I find Whippman brilliant and wise and hilarious.

• These photos of Paris' Museum of Natural History during the 25 years it lay abandoned and its renovations in the early 90s are fascinating. As are these behind the scene's pictures of the Smithsonian's Natural History collection. I particularly love how straight this army of little dead mice are holding their tails. 

• I've had a hard time following British politics for a while, since about the point where Scotland looked at the open door it was offered and said No, freedom isn't really for us. Ta though.' My denial that this happened is strong. I am loving Sam Gore's facebook page I See You and in particular this post about David Cameron, which should by all rights be the front page of this Sunday's Observer.

''But it's not illegal', they'll cry, as if the boundaries of the law are the issue, rather than the toxic hypocrisy of the idea that we're all in this together. 'Anyone could do it if they wanted', they'll cry, despite the fact it's a logical impossibility for the millions of us on PAYE. 'It's no different to using an ISA', they'll insist, as if putting away the few pence extra you've deigned to bless those on the minimum wage with is in any way comparable to setting up a company in a tax haven in a foreign territory. A few pence for a house they'll never be able to afford in the face of a broken rental market is somehow comparable to squirrelling away the excess millions your terrible friends couldn't spend even if they ate nothing but gold bullion and Fabergé eggs for a year.'

Read the whole thing, it's spectacular. I especially love the description of Cameron as a greased ferret slipping free from the ... well, you read it. I can't type those words where I know my Gran will read them. 

• The wisest words I've ever heard spoken about peanut butter. I still eat it because it's fast and easy protein, but yes, I slather it in jam and no, I don't enjoy it. 

'Look at it. It looks like the contents of a nappy. It looks this repulsive to tell you that it’s bad for you, which it is. It tastes exactly how it looks, too, which is somewhere along the spectrum between awful and so vibrantly foul its flavour makes your entire tract, from top to bottom, twitch like a petrified whippet. Some people try to disguise the odious taste of peanut butter with jam. But these people are Americans. And if a nation that sees spray-on cheese as an acceptable repast thinks peanut butter is only palatable when smeared in jam, it’s time to admit something’s very wrong.'

*photos courtesy of the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle via Messy Nessy Chic. 

Things.

Amy Judd

Yes, I'm already bored of and feeling trapped by the doing, reading, listening format - I really don't do well with blog series, as you can tell by the half a dozen that have fizzled out over the years and I can tell by the many many more that have never made it out of my head. 

So, instead, Things.

Things this week;



Life 

- we moved house. Almost a year to the day from leaving France. We now live 200ft down the road from the house my mum built (not by hand, because apparently that needs clarified for some people. My mum is pretty handy but she's not building a house handy) when I was 15. She sold it five or so years later and every time I walk past I'm all 'who the fuck are you and what are you doing in my house? By the way your daffodils look great.' at the people sitting in the kitchen window. Silently and inwardly, because I'm not a total lunatic.

- I'm maybe in the midst of applying to go back to college. Maybe. Shhh, let's say nothing more of it for now.

- I went to work last week, to take photos of a 3D printing workshop. I'm going to write more about it when the photos are done but hell, was it good to spend a day taking pictures again. I miss that.

- I'm considering spending £60 on a hairbrush (BIRTHDAY MONEY, I'm not spunking half of our weekly food budget on fripperies, much as the urge takes me sometimes). I don't know if this is a sign that I'm losing my mind or that I'm creeping ever closer to living my best life.


Writing

- Last week I came extremely close to throwing out everything I've written over the last three months. I haven't been working on it much because of the aforementioned moving and when I came back to it it looked terrible, awful, horrible. But a very wise friend said to me - when I was screaming into my fist and questioning what the point was -

'THE POINT. The point is to practise, The point is to get to a point where your writing aligns with your standards for good writing. The point is to write enough that you can revise it down to something you don't hate. The point is to show up and think the thoughts and do the work. That is the point.  

The point is not to be magically good. The point is to scrub your step until it shines.  

You CAN write. But the point isn't whether you can write. The POINT is to DO IT. You weren't good at marriage at first or pooping in the pot at first or being a grown up at first or drawing at first either, I bet. It took time. It takes time.  

Scrub your step, gal.  

Scrub it good.' 

I love that friend.  And the apps that allow friends who live far apart and in different time zones and in areas without mobile phone reception to exchange words sharp and fast and in real time. And internets that allow them to meet in the first place.

Books 


I bought a whole load of books this week. I don't have any money, but. None of them were the poetry books I mentioned last week which I feel a bit ashamed of. The books in question were;

For me

- Big Magic, by Elizabeth Gilbert. Because I realised that I listened to one of the podcasts and completely loved it and felt invigorated and inspired by it and then forgot to listen to the rest. I'm not saying that I don't do the exact same thing with books but I'm more likely (I think, I hope) to stick with something that I can hold and read and see and feel. Also, the cover is gorgeous.

- Help, Thanks, Wow and Stitches, by Anne Lamott. Because I'm feeling a bit lost, and few books have ever un-lost me like hers.

- Breaking Clean, by Judy Blunt. I can't remember where I read about this but the passage that was quoted in it was desperately beautiful. It's a memoir (so research, innit?) about a woman taking her three children and leaving the homesteading community that her and her husband grew up and were deeply entrenched in. I've only read 20 pages but it's beautiful.

- The Art of Memoir and Lit, by Mary Karr. I found these via Laura's Pinterest page and I had to have them, for the same parenthesised reason mentioned above - research. Not because spending money I don't have comforts me when I'm feeling the aforementioned lost, no sir, not at all.

- A Clash of Kings, by George R.R. Martin. Um, well, yeah. I'm absolutely not going to leave all of those inspiring, life improving books deposited around the house like forgotten rabbit droppings as soon as this next GOT instalment arrives. Not one single bit.


For the Girls -

In My Heart, A Book of Feelings, by Jo Witek. Which isn't to say that the girls struggle with their feelings but SWEET JESUS, do five year olds struggle with their feelings. It's a beautiful book and we've only read it once but it taught us all some stuff about the things our hearts feel.


*Links do not generate me any cash. Not because I'm virtuous or not that into money, I just don't know how to do that 'earning' thing*


Online

- the couples who talk about their poo are the happiest couples of all. It's always nice when a perfectly unqualified stranger on the internet confirms that you and your husband are golden. Although, actually, my husband would like it to be known that I talk, he just listens, a lot. (Emphasis his.)

- period tracking, are you into it? do you do it? would you place a bluetooth enabled device up your fnuh? (the answers in my case are yes, yes, you must be kidding.)

- this article about Brewdog was really interesting to me. The desire to label anyone who comes up with something innovative and is exceptionally good at marketing it a 'pretentious hipster wanker' seems like a particularly British, and a particularly obnoxious British tendency to me. (For what it's worth; I've met the Brewdog guy, I have an extremely low pretension tolerance, I liked him.)

- Connor Stefanison's goat and sheep portraits are everything. This guy knows what I'm all about.

Doing, Reading, Listening

IT'S GODDAMN MARCH PEOPLE! Thank. The. Sweet. Baby. Jesus. 

I wrote that thing after Christmas about January and how great and restorative and blah blah blah it is and yeah, it was fine, but February, man February was a total downer. That it is the shortest month is literally all it has going for it and knocking back vitamin D tablets like they were tic tacs, counting down the days until friends visited at the end of the month and spending long (really long, interminable) evenings in the bath with the lights turned off was the only way through it.

But it's over! Yay! A weight, a 28 29 day weight has lifted and I am feeling sparklings of what's that? Optimism? Woo! 

Doing: this week in Doing I have been writing but not as rigidly as I was. I have worked on my big thing and I've worked on a few shorter things and for the first time it has been enjoyable. I have also been doing a lot of thinking about my What Next? and if that is getting a job or going back to college or throwing myself into starting a new business. None of those things are imminently achievable but neither are they petrifying, like they were a month ago.

Reading {paper}; still Game of Thrones, the first book. It's terrible, I can't stop. Also The Official DVSA Guide To Driving 2015 (the technique changes annually, who knew?). 

Reading {the internet}; Aside from the dresses I couldn't give two shits about the Oscars but I enjoyed this piece in  The Pool on Disney-esque dressing, whether would be be as interested in watching if the women involved didn't dress like celluloid princesses and if there a princess gene that makes some kids want to dress in mountains of pastel satin while others would rather go naked than wear a princess dress? From my small study group of two, I would say that she might be on to something there. 

Do I think Alicia Vikander and Cate Blanchett wanted to look like Disney characters? Do I think that two highly intelligent and accomplished women woke up and asked their stylists to make them into fairytale princesses for kicks? In terms of a brief, “just do whatever it takes for me to avoid the worst-dressed lists, so that I can block the sexist, racist farrago that is the Oscars out of my mind for another 364 days” is more likely. 

The Disney princess analogy, and our willingness to invoke it, says far more about us than it does about any individual actress. All they’re doing is playing the game. They know that if they dress up nicely, Hollywood will reward them for playing their part in a pageant which, let us not mince words, feels as dated as most things that originated in 1929. Laura Craik, The Pool.

Also on the Oscars and fashion and women and feminism, these pieces in the Guardian and again, The Pool about Jenny Beavan, the genius costume designer behind Mad Max who deigned, deigned to turn up to the Oscars in jeans and a leather jacket, with unbrushed hair and NO MAKE UP (how very dare she) and the frankly horrifying reactions of the fuckwits, I mean men, who she walked past to get to the stage.

Alejandro Iñárritu glowered as if a woman in a leather jacket was somehow more repulsive than DiCaprio chomping down a raw bison liver. One man, bless his heart, all but leapt into the arms of his companion as she sauntered past, in the same manner that a housewife in a 1950s cartoon would if a mouse suddenly crawled out from under the skirting board. Stuart Heritage, The Guardian. 

c. VW Golf advert

Reading {the internets} cont. 

Everything by Emma Lindsay, whose piece about what she learned from dating rape victims went viral last week but who is interesting and articulate and moving on many issues.

There’s another annoying thing that often comes up when I date people who aren’t down with their bodies: I often end up feeling like shit about mine. My ex and I got in this fight once where I said “Do you feel like I accept your body? Because I don’t feel like you accept mine.” She was shocked, and told me she did feel like I accepted her body and was upset that it didn’t feel reciprocated. And I asked her, with all the negative things she said about herself, how could I ever feel safe? She was clearly capable of putting her own body through a fucking ruthless judgement, why would I expect she wasn’t judging mine just as harshly? Emma Linday, Medium. 

This interview with John Irving, who I continue to adore, despite it being years and years since he's written anything I enjoyed reading, because he wrote two of my favourite books ever, a handful more of my almost-favourite books ever and knows how to wrestle a bear.

“The bear is almost blind but one thing he will see is your eyes,” he says, in best shiver-making, frontiersman-mode. “So you must never make direct eye contact. Avert your gaze.” He suddenly transforms into a cringing courtier and adds: “Retreat slowly from the bear and allow him gangway. Above all, don’t run. A bear will outrun a horse over a short distance. They chase and kill deer. Look at the way they’re built, with a powerful upper body, like a sprinter’s.” Somehow you can’t imagine picking up hard-won backwoods tips like these from Julian Barnes. Stephen Smith, The Guardian. 

The Pool (again) is running a series on Motherhood, Sali Hughes on Post Natal Depression (but really on all depression) is wonderful.

'I wasn’t exaggerating. I genuinely felt insane. Since the birth of my much-wanted baby, and the death of my father a few weeks later, my life had felt like an interminable movie I was watching from behind a thick sheet of tracing paper' Sali Hughes, The Pool. 

Listening; I haven't been doing a lot of listening, I've been adoring silence where I can get it, but yesterday Lyra and I walked into the moors and I listened to the latest episode of This American Life, it was heartbreaking, and a stern lesson in believing people when they tell you stuff, even if they are not telling you stuff in the way you think they should tell you stuff. 

There are two songs playing in my head constantly (three if you include that godawful Adele one that won't get off my radio); Hozier's WorkSong which is absurdly beautiful and Lukas Graham's 7 Years, which also won't get off my radio and which I can't decide if I actually like or if it's just catchy like flu.

What doeth, readeth and listeneth you this week?

Doing, Reading, Listening etc

One week's break from doing these DRL posts is enough for me to have completely lost my momentum, which is no surprise. The reason I impose schedules and routines upon myself is because if I don't have them then I don't do stuff and then trying to make myself do stuff is just about as effective as trying to make myself clean that bit of the toilet that you can only reach with rubber gloves and a sponge.

Doing; further schedules that have fallen apart - writing. I can't remember when I last even opened the files I'm working on. I wouldn't be surprised if my word count has started to drop, sentences dying from neglect, paragraphs eating other ones out of hunger and boredom. I can't bear to look. Monday, I'll do it on Monday. 

Instead of writing I've been doing long weekends, visitors, parenting, storm avoidance, mostly rather fun. Simultaneously though I've been banging my head against the walls of housing, schooling, taxes, employment, unemployment... adulthood in other words. Adulthood is a piece of crap. 

Reading {paper} I finished Purple Hibiscus, it was beautiful. Not as beautiful as Half of a Yellow Sun but not as gruelling either. Still gruelling! Just domestic-violence-and-Catholicism gruelling, not rape-genocide-and-civil-war gruelling. 

Immediately upon finishing it I started Isabelle Allende's Portrait in Sepia, read three pages, fell asleep, woke up forgetting that I'd begun it and started reading Game of Thrones (alternatively titled Murder Tits). It's only writing this now, a week later, that Portrait in Sepia came back to me, poking at that part of my brain labelled 'I'm sure I'm supposed to be doing something, what was that? Did I start doing it already? Did I imagine it? Was it all a dream?'.

I read Allende's memoir My Invented Country in the summer, it was a beautiful if irritating study of nostalgia and homesickness, truth and invention, memory and storytelling and writing one's history. It strikes me that I should probably re-read it, now that those things are on my mind more or less all of the time. I photographed the passage at the top of this post (I love photography as a form of note taking, looking back for this picture I was reminded of exactly where and when I was reading this book - by a playpark, under a tree, overlooking a field of donkeys in a camp site in the Cévennes ) because as someone who finds memory, dreams and imagination to be an irredeemably tangled ball of twine it spoke to me deeply and thrillingly. 

Reading {internets} I have read two beautiful and infinitely helpful pieces about doing and making and being in the last couple of weeks. One is this Huffington Post piece To Anyone Who Fears They're Falling Behind In Life which felt like a letter written straight to me, 

'You don't get to control everything. You can wake up at 5 a.m. every day until you're tired and broken, but if the words or the painting or the ideas don't want to come to fruition, they won't. You can show up every day to your best intentions, but if it's not the time, it's just not the fucking time. You need to give yourself permission to be a human being.'

The other piece was Ted Thompson's The Evolution of a First Novel, written two years ago it's the tale of the painful, interminable process of writing a book, of the stops and starts and false turns and the 'I think it's finished! No, wait, I know it's been five years of work but I'm going to throw 95% of this in the bin and start again.' 

'Before I started this, I was always mystified by how books got written. Like how does anyone get from one of those half-formed 2 a.m. ideas to a bound object with a beautiful jacket and 300 deckled pages? Did that take a couple of weekends locked away in a cabin, or was the author struck by creative lightning after work? It seemed impossible or magical. It seemed like something that could only be achieved by very special people—David Foster Wallace in his bandana, looking forlornly away from the camera, or people who lived in other eras and unironically wore hats.' 

Reading both of these pieces released some of the intense pressure I've felt to Just Fucking Write, the feeling that if I apply myself hard enough I will get it done and I will get it done fast, and replaced that with a more healthy sense of doing it in the length of time it actually takes, not the length of time I think it should take. Of course I haven't written a work in ten days, so maybe I need to dial the pressure back up a little. 

Finally, Laura wrote this beautiful piece about being a mother, Sometimes {Moments From Motherhood} that brought tears to my eyes and spoke to me in a way that nothing I've read about motherhood has done for a long time. Laura is one of those parents who inspires me to do a better job, to play more, to listen harder, to let me kids be themselves and she does it without making me want to hold her head underwater and pelt her with wet toast, that's a skill.  I'm not going to post a quote from it because it's something that needs to be read in its entirety.

Doing, reading, listening, etc

Gold Digging, by Euginia Loli

Doing; meh. It's been one of those fortnights where a stomach thing turned into a head thing turned into a glands and shivering thing and people say 'oh! The days are getting longer! Spring is coming! Isn't it wonderful?' but actually I feel shittier than I did all winter and am getting nothing much at all done and I need those people to stop talking.

I'm learning to drive (for the third time) but this time I live on a island where there isn't a driving instructor so I'm learning with Nye. I mostly don't hate this situation. He's a good teacher, takes fairly kindly to me asking him to please shut up, accepts my yelling at him when his instructions ARE NOT CLEAR with good grace and most importantly - I don't have to give him £50 every time I get in the car with him. Handing over money that I could have spent on something that didn't make me stressed, embarrassed and brimming with fury was pretty much what killed learning to drive for me that last time around. Fitting in a few hours of practise was about as productive as my week got.

Oh and I did a blog post with beach photos, taken with a real camera and edited on a computer and everything. I forgot to promote it anywhere so literally no one has seen it. How do you know about new posts now that Reader is dead? Instagram? Twitter? Facebook?  (I know, Reader has been dead for a long time, I'm in denial about blogging being O.V.E.R. Should I just stop this nonsense and write a newsletter? That's what the cool kids are doing.)

Writing; meh. This week I did three mornings instead of the five I swore I would. On those three mornings I did not do the three hours I swore I would. I'm trying this thing where I tell myself I'm easing in gently, I'm going at my own pace, I'm being kind to myself, but actually I'm scared I might just be lazy. My weekly word count is going dowwwwwwwwn, but it's still up on what it has been for the last two years, so yay for that.


Reading {paper}: I gave up on the dragon book, it just wasn't doing anything for me. For years I would not give up on a book once I had started reading it, doing so felt like a huge failure and embarrassment and sign that I was both a quitter and not a Serious Reader. Now that I have established that I actually am a quitter (and met people who are Serious Readers, who are quite clearly a league above me in the book stakes), I'm a lot happier to throw in things that aren't working for me and the number of books I don't finish is probably equal to if not greater than the number of books I reach the end of. I'm okay with this.

I am now reading Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, which I'm feeling a lot more optimistic about. My first experience of her writing was Americanah, which is actually possibly one of the first books that I gave up on. It pained me to do it, reading so much as I had about what a great, important novel it is, but I just couldn't get beyond the first couple of chapters. I tried a few times, but no dice and still worried that I was missing something life-changing, gave the door-stop sized book to the charity shop. Then when I was in France I read Half of a Yellow Sun and holy shit, that was a book, one of the best books I have ever read. The story is unavoidably gruelling, set as it is during the Nigerian civil war, but the characters and the story telling and the writing and well, all of those things that make a book, they were beautiful. You should read it. It will probably make you cry but it's worth it. I opened Purple Hibiscus tentatively, wondering if it would grab me like Yellow Sun or if more like Americnah, it would feel like chewing cardboard, I've only read the first five pages but within a paragraph I breathed a huge sigh of relief , it felt like a book I could get lost in.

Reading {the internets}; I have been reading a lot about Beyoncé . I have never really cared about Beyoncé to be honest but her latest video  Formation - sprung on her fans and the internet and America the day before she performed at the SuperBowl (apparently that's something about football, not bowling, who knew?) - is amazing. Visually it is beautiful but as a piece of protest art about race and gender and the Black Lives Matter movement it is deeply moving. This New York Times piece is a good starting point if you want to read more about it but this collection of writing by black women delves much deeper into many issues surrounding the video, from her use of post-Katrina New Orleans as a setting to her baby girl's beautiful afro to her sheer feminist badassery.


Listening: I didn't bother with Serial this week. Are you listening to it? Do you care? Does it just sound like an awful lot of men being dicks to you? I'm just not sure. I love Sarah Koenig and I miss her in this series. My favourite podcast at the moment is Death, Sex, Money with Anna Sale and this week I listened to the last two episodes - LucindaWilliams who is a country singer and Jeb Corliss who is a nutter who jumps off cliffs. I adore Anne Sale, I listen just for when she occasionally laughs, it is the realest most warming laugh on the whole radio and every time it feels like a gift.



Happy weekend. x

Doing, reading, listening etc.

Andy Prokh 

What the hell? It's Friday again? What is this 'time' bullshit that keeps passing? And I'm sure I told myself I'd do this every Friday, this blogging thing? 

But I just blogged yesterday. What's that? Rules are rules? Shut up.

_

I actually haven't been doing a lot of reading and listening this week. Between a storm day that kept the girls home from school on Monday, no electricity for much of Tuesday and a bunch of errands that needed done on Wednesday both my internet time and my writing time has been severely bollocksed this week.

Reading: I've been reading some actual paper books, which has been nice. I'm reading Marie Brennan's A Natural History of Dragons, a Memoir by Lady Trent, which isn't a memoir, obviously but a faux-memoir, about a Victorian-ish era lady dragon enthusiast. It's good, not great. I like the mash up of historical fiction, science fiction and memoir and it's easy bedtime reading but I'm not riveted and I doubt I'll read the rest of the series. 

On the recommendation of a dear friend who shares my prediliction towards Anxiety and Doom I'm also reading Fear, Essential Wisdom For Getting Through the Storm by ThichNhat Hanh. It's less annoying than any other bhuddist books that I've read but it's slow going as it keeps making me cry. Most of what I've read so far are similar techniques, strategies and ideas that I learned about in therapy a few years ago and promptly forgot, all of which do in fact help to dispel my anxiety, once I've stopped blubbing.

Looking at my internet history to see what I've been reading online this week is cringe-worthy, it's almost entirely how to attract the rare cats in Neko Atsume and 3 Messy Signs Your Main Sewer Line is Clogged (I'll spare you the story that led to that one. And the link.)

Reading/Writing: On the recommendation of another friend I did read this BrainPickings piece on the psychology of the daily writing routine, which is something I've been trying to cultivate. Between 9 and 12 is now my Writing Time. Last week went better than this one and between the disruptions of lack of electricity and excess of children at home I managed a paltry 5000 words to last week's 9000, but whatever, I'm still doing it and I'm being kind to myself and I'm letting myself do just one hour when three feels like it might kill me dead. Baby steps.

Watching: Nye and I are watching Friday Night Lights on Netflix at the moment. I've seen it all before but that doesn't seem to be making it any less brilliant/gruelling. People in my real life keep looking at me like I'm deranged when I say that we watch a TV series about American football. These are people who are not doing the internet properly. 

Also watching this vaguely obscene clip of James McAvoy on Cbeebies, over and over again and laughing my arse off.

Listening: Old episodes of This American Life, which are as wonderful as ever. New episodes of Serial, which I find distinctly meh but I can't seem to give up on. And Radio 2, which was back to back Terry Wogan on Monday which made me cry and reminded me that I need to re-watch Stoppit and Tidy Up with my children. Did anyone else watch that as a kid? Nye is literally the only person I've ever mentioned it to who even knows what I'm talking about.

Housekeeping: the food processor is a Kenwood FDP613 (you have to pay more for one with a memorable name). I chose it because it was cheap (for a food processor) and we are broke, also it has pretty good reviews. So far (aside from being mad at it), it does seem good. I don't think it's powerful enough to make smooth nut butter but whatever, Nutella. I never did find the plasters that I KNOW I bought, but a tiny piece of panty liner and a good length of washi tape makes a pretty good alternative, in a pinch. You're welcome.

Doing, Reading, Listening

WHO RUN THIS MOTHER?

by KARL HOLMQUIST 

• I went to Glasgow (see last post's Photos From A Bus Window) and I did some actual real photography work. The pictures are of families in the snow and you can see some of them here.

• I have been listening to Elizabeth Gilbert's podcasts. I thought they would annoy me as her facebook page annoys me (I don't love inspirational quotes) but actually she is wise and funny and there's profanity and advice and listening to her is like listening to your most comforting friend, or a really good therapist. The first episode was her in conversation with a blogger who wanted to write a book (it wasn't me), who thought she would be able to do it once her kids were finally in school (again, not me) but who was stuck and couldn't get going (could have been me, but wasn't). The advice Gilbert gave her was the advice I was looking for last time I talked to someone about my wanting to write and was instead told 'writing is just a hobby for you, stick to what you're good at.' I won't pretend it didn't hurt. But that podcast helped and now I'm writing again and maybe I won't keep writing but I'm going to try because it's not just a hobby, it's something I love and am good at and want to do* 

• Speaking of facebook and conversation, I started a facebook page for this blog, mostly because I was bored and lonely and hoping some of you might chat to me sometimes about the interesting things that are on the internet that I might post there sometimes. Also because I heard it was a good idea if I wanted to sell a book one day, I'm not going to lie.

• I also have a facebook page for Bluebird and the Bear, where I will be posting dates for my next trips to both London and Glasgow to do photo sessions. Follow me! Like me! Please!

• I read this piece about why young women should have savings, it is literally the only thing I have ever read that has inspired me financially. My grandpa should have told me about a Fuck Off Fund when I was 17 instead of that 'rainy day' crap, it would have been infinitely more effective.

• This bear looks like my dog and this swear world generator is my new most visited website. (thanks to my friend Marie for both of those, she is good to me.)

• Speaking of ma dog, before Christmas I read Reaching the Animal Mind by Karen Pryor. It looks and sounds like an animal training book (which is why I bought it) but actually it's more of a brilliant memoir about Karen Pryor's life's work in animal (including human animal) psychology and how when the Man Scientists told her she was wrong and that she didn't have a PhD and she should do things differently and that she wasn't a real scientist anyway, she said 'hmmm, that's interesting' and carried on doing exactly what she did - brilliantly. I loved this book and her publishers need to re-market it as a fascinating, funny, inspiring memoir/popular science book. I'd read it, again. 

• Finally, do you know this 1970 song by Peggy Seeger? It's bloody brilliant and probably the most feminist thing I've ever heard. I have spent 15 minutes listening to it on repeat for my favourite lyrics but I don't have any because it's all fantastic. Eat your heart out Beyonce.

* It's 'Cara's creative confidence gets kicked but somehow she keeps on trucking' week here on Peonies and Polaroids. Thank you for your comments on that post by the way, they were appreciated and it was valuable to hear that I'm not the only one was was Lost in Indoctrination (phrase coined by Emma in the comments). I'm trying really hard to reply to my comment now, to give them the attention they deserve and to spark some conversation so if you feel like replying to my reply to your reply then have at it.

This postwas practise for making notes and remembering interesting things and sparking conversation, also just blogging, because I'm hoping to do more of that in the future, here and elsewhere. Share your best things from the internet in the comments if you feel like it, I'd love to read them.

The Weekly.

It's Sunday morning, the babies are asleep, Nye is asleep, I am sitting at my desk, panicking. There is no smell of bagels or steam from freshly made coffee, just the hum of my hard drive and the sweet scent of anxiety. Oh and the growling of my stomach for an ikea biscuit does not a breakfast make. But there's So. Much. Work. To. Do.  I'm on top of it really. Sort of. I think. Probably. And yet here I am, editing wedding photos at 8.30 on a Sunday morning. 

This week Ella has mostly been growing teeth (two at once, the girl's hardcore), learning to bounce, not sleeping, screeching quite a bit and making odd noises with her tongue. She has also been doing solid poo. Only someone who has stood at a changing table, immobilised by the dilemma 'do I wipe the liquid shit off my head or my daughter's first?' can appreciate the beauty of a solid poo. 

Amelia has been mostly just hanging (she doesn't bounce), splashing, rolling and learning to eat. It seems all I needed to do was blog about how she wouldn't eat at all.  Oh, and the night after I wrote this? Slept all night.

Nye has mostly been adjusting to a life where finishing fixing up the flat isn't his number one priority. As such he has moved into the living room cupboard where he has set himself up a desk, two computer screens and has tacked a Sisters of Mercy poster to the filing cabinet. Yes, that's right, my husband has a Man Cave. 

Aside from panicking (see above) I have been  mostly sniffing the babies. And rubbing my face against their heads, which are getting fluffier.

The week past, from Saturday morning

It's Saturday morning, the babies are asleep, Nye is asleep, the washing machine is running, the kettle is boiling and the smell of cinnamon bagels drifts from the toaster.  A week ago we were moving to London (or maybe Brighton) at the end of the year, now we're not.  

I hadn't talked about it here but in February Nye and I decided we were going to move south, that we were going to be brave and uproot everything and carry it all with us and live our lives for a little while at least in a city that has whispered sweet words of enticement to us for years. We were going to leave the city that we Don't Love. We were going to have A Great Adventure.   

Now we're not.   

Our roof is sick and it needs fixed and we live in a communal building and it could take many years and thousands of monies to make it well again and in the meantime no one will buy a flat with a sick roof so we can't move.  So we're stuck.  In many ways it's a good thing (sort of.) We're tired, we just had babies, before that we spent a long time trying to make babies, and starting a business, and renovating a flat. Before that there were family upheavals and fights with educational establishments. Before that we hadn't met.  It would do us no harm at all to Just Be for a while.  The problem (apart from the thousands of monies, much mess and the fact that we don't really want to live here) is that we don't know how to Just Be. We've never Just Been. We've always (see above) had a project/battle to occupy/consume us.  But it's something that we need to learn and so begins Operation Just Be (The No Project Project) (subtitle thanks to Meg who has a way for noticing and illuminating the ridiculousness.)

In the last week Amelia has learned to talk. She says 'ahbahbahbah' 'adahdahdah' and 'ahgahgahgah'.  She has also discovered that she has volume control (thank the good lord) and it's more than a little hilarious when she says 'AHBAHBAHBAH ahbahabahbah AHBABAHBAHB ahbahbahbabah AHBABBAHBAH.' Just to practice.  Her new-found vocal skills seem to have released some of her frustration with the world.  Much like with the rolling, Ella did the whole talking thing a couple of months ago, for a couple of days, and has been pretty quiet ever since.  She's now fully occupied with eating.  That girl can eat moosh faster than we can get it in her and her enthusiasm kills me dead.  Sitting in her little seat on the table she spots the spoon, lunges for it, often misses entirely poking herself in the eye or cheek, then tries again. There's no point in me trying to guide the spoon to her mouth as her lunging for a moving object as opposed to a still one only increases the risk that she is going to swallow the spoon too.   

Amelia will not be fed.  Nuh uh, no way, not ever.  She sees the spoon coming and clamps her mouth shut so tight ain't nothing getting in there.  But.  Give her the spoon herself and she will put it straight in her mouth. Well not straight in her mouth, and therein lies the problem.  The process goes something like this: mouth open, spoon in ear. Mouth still open, spoon in eye.  Mouth open, spoon brandished through the air. Mouth open, spoon finally in mouth. By which point there is carrot in her ear, on her eyebrow, splattered across the walls and the baby is sucking on an empty spoon.  It's entertaining but I'm not sure how long she can last on milk and an empty spoon. Nye thinks that her determination to do it herself is a good thing. I'm going to remind him of this when she's 4 and we're running late for school and she wants to put her shoes on BY HERSELF DADDY.  

* Ammie, Ammie, Ella. For those of you who STILL can't tell the difference.

Saturday morning

It's Saturday and we don't have a wedding to go to. I'm tired and the babies have a cold and turning six months seems to have marked some sort of transition from exhausting into BLOODY exhausting. Ammie has discovered rolling. And it sucks. After thirty seconds of being held or of sitting in the swing or the pushchair she starts squirming to be put down. Five seconds after she is put down on her back she has rolled over onto her face. Ten seconds after that she screams and screams and screams until we turn her back over. And then we repeat. And repeat and repeat and repeat. At first I thought she was pissed off to be on her stomach but she's perfectly capable of turning herself back over. I think she's just pissed off not to be crawling.

That kid is so physical, so desperate to be on the move, so bored to be sitting still. And so. damn. strong. Dressing her is not unlike trying to put clothes on a springer spaniel (there's a reason you see very few springer spaniels in clothes) and has started to involve the use of elbows to pin her down. I don't really understand it. I'm not physical. At all. I like to look and touch and taste and smell but physical activity? Nuh huh. In my head is where it's at. Which isn't to suggest that I'm thinking anything very clever: often I will disappear mentally, I will be at the table or sitting by Nye in the car and I will be staring into the middle distance and it's been 5 minutes since I've said anything. Nye looks concerned,

'what are you thinking about?'

'Tomatoes.'

'really? You've been quiet for a long time. It looked like you were having a difficult thought.'




'I wasn't.'

I think Ella might be kind of similar. She lives in her head. She will happily spend 20 minutes examining her toes or a wooden spoon or the pattern on her sleeve before she looks up as if just remembering that there are other things in the world than her toes or her spoon and gives the biggest, happiest grin ever. She's not interested in rolling over. It's not that she can't, she can, we've seen her. One day, while Ammie was determinedly trying to move from back to front as she had been for a week, Ella just did it. Just rolled over, no practising. She lifted her head up, looked around, smiled then rolled back over. And that was that. A week later Amelia managed it too and she's been doing it every 30 seconds ever since.

*photo of Brighton, just because.