ten years

Gris foncé 8 (2015), Katrine de Blauwer

Ten years ago I started a blog, it was this one. (I think that was clear but if ten years on the internet has taught me anything then it is to s.p.e.l.l. s.h.i.t. o.u.t.)  

This blog is ten years old, that is a decade people, a decade  (spelling it out.)  

There are some of you how have been here with me since the beginning (THANK YOU, and also probably don't read that post, it's written in the third person and is about wedding planning and refers to myself and Nye as 'the girl and the boy', as if any one of those three wasn't bad enough) and others who have joined me along the way, people who have seen this space's progression from neurotic wedding planning through pained wedding reflection, a dalliance with 'lifestyle blogging' as a distraction from the crippling misery of infertility and IVF, twin pregnancy and early parenthood and then as close to nothing as a blog can get and still be considered alive, just.  

That anyone has stuck with me and my haphazard ramblings for a decade is never not incredible to me.

That one small act of lonely desperation, that one 'create blog' click in the early hours of a sleepless February morning changed my life. From the very first it brought me purpose and community and distraction, it gave a place to hide from my terrors and a space in which to build a vision of myself and my future that might have felt entirely unachievable but was more fun to stare into than the abyss of hopelessness I was teetering above. 

It didn't take long before the blessings it sent me became increasingly tangible - emails of appreciation and encouragement, words of understanding and solidarity, links to things that would make me laugh, gifts of books and prints and beautiful things through my letterbox, friendship, support for our fledgling wedding photography business, actual work in exchange for actual money, actual money in exchange for my actual photography, requests to travel to far off places,  friendship. It is not an exaggeration to say that this blog, that the people who read it changed my life, changed my world. Without it I'm sure I would have found my way out of the fear and lonliness of chronic illness eventually, I don't doubt that we would have made something of our wedding photography business, but I struggle to believe for a moment that it would have been something so profoundly empowering and rich and nourishing , a foundation upon which to build a life. 

I have spent bloody ages considering how to mark this anniversary here. Over the last couple of  years I have struggled to see beyond the dwindling of this space, the slow decline (I lie, it wasn't slow) in enthusiasm and energy that I had for it. It has been hard to feel anything other than disappointment in myself for my inability to maintain this blog as it once was. But as my thoughts recently hovered over the switch that would end the life support that I've imagined keeping the site alive it occurred to me that I didn't have to define this place by its past, by its 'heyday', that what it is now doesn't have to feel like a disappointment, that instead of wishing for an output I can never achieve I can embrace the pace, the quietude, the slow and gentle cataloging of a life being lived (as with blogging so it is with life).

Because as I've read back over the blog in the last few days - reminiscing, cringing, welling up - it's the testimony to the last ten years of my life that I have found myself unexpectedly appreciative of. This space has borne witness to a decade's worth of dreams, despair, changes and growth, cataloged a third of my life (I really should back this shit up) and that feels kind of amazing. 

Over the next few days I'm going to do a little time traveling, a little reflecting, on what has been and gone, what has stayed and grown, through the classic medium of blog posts revisited. I apologise in advance. 

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. 

Doing, Reading, Listening

Doing; This week has been mostly hanging out with friends who came to visit from Glasgow, I'm loving how Uist is attracting friends, despite the epic ballache that is getting here. We did beaches and exploring and then I got sick and did a lot of sleeping while they walked my dog, cooked me dinner and entertained my children, it was pretty Grade A Friending on their part. Visitors who don't mind when you check out and go to bed and tell them to entertain themselves are the best kind of visitors.

I wrote no words for my big project this week, it's getting embarrassing. I did write this thing about Ammie though which I really love. I haven't written much about my kids or parenting over the last couple of years and it felt a special kind of lovely to celebrate my infuriating, exhausting offspring in words and pictures. 

Instead of writing I have been working on my newest project which is to get my etsy shop off the ground again. It's getting there and I'm really excited about making and selling again.

Reading {paper} I finished Game of Thrones. It was terrible. I can't wait to read the next one.  I started Christopher Brookmyre's One FineDay In The Middle Of The Night a couple of days ago. I love his writing – it's grim, profanity laden, hilarious Scottish crime and he's one of the few writers who can reliably make me laugh out loud. Even his lesser works have lines that make me snorlf;

'St Michael’s RC secondary sat on a promontory overlooking the town of Auchenlea. The choice of site was an indirect consequence of a past mistake in vocational guidance, leading someone who had a pathological hatred of children into town planning, rather than the more traditional field of teaching.' Christopher Brookmyre, 

Reading {internets}This piece in The Pool by Lauren Laverne on finding the meaning in your work even if your work doesn't happen to involve saving lives or creating Great Works Of Art. As someone who has recently realised that perhaps I don't want as noble a career as I once imagined, I found it extremely comforting;

'People started to get in touch. I got to know my regular listeners and I began to understand that, sometimes, a bit of silliness can save your life. Some days, a five-minute distraction is the only thing that gets you through' Lauren Laverne, The Pool

This on the environmental and moral implications of the leather trade convinced me very quickly that I need to think harder and longer about the leather purchases I make. I have always thought of leather as a by-product of the meat industry and I continued to buy and wear it throughout the two decades that I was a militant vegetarian. I haven't bought any leather for 18 months (passively – I've been too broke for shoes and bags) and I think it's going to be a good long time before I do it again.

'Nearly half of the global leather trade is carried out in developing countries – from Ethiopia to Cambodia and Vietnam – where, despite a backdrop of exploitation of animals and humans and the extraordinary level of pollution caused by unregulated tanneries and processors, the pressure is on to produce more.'

And at the other end of the scale entertainment-wise; reddit readers sum up their first sexual encounters with a safe-for-work gif. Their choices are genius.

Listening; the two most recent episodes of Death, Sex and Money – the one with the couple who have been together for 20 years and had three children whilst being raging heroin addicts. That one was gruelling with an ending that had me 'WTF?'-ing out loud, out on the moors (the moors are my go-to podcast walk now, each time I think of that episode of Girls where Hannah lay down in the woods, unable to keep up with her fitter friends, and hugged her This American Life-playing iphone). After that episode I listened to the previous one, an interview with comedian Michael Ian Black, who I had never heard of but really enjoyed. It was wonderful to listen to a middle aged man be deeply neurotic and anxious and hilarious about his weight, a blessed and almost shocking change from the standard 'middle aged (or any aged) woman talks about her body and the neurosis she has about it'

Watching; we are almost finished FridayNight Lights and although I'm sad about reaching the end (again) we are looking forward to to new series of Better Call Saul, which we both preferred to Breaking Bad. As I've been working I've been watching Rupaul's Drag Race which I am loving, LOVING. As a family we've been watching a lot of David Attenborough, which is how my five year old came to ask me 'what is a sperm sack and why is the cuttlefish putting it in the other cuttlefish's mouth?' (cuttlefish are filthy.)  

on writing and the first draft.

but you can edit your first draft.

There is very little flare to my shitty first draft. Aside from those first thousand words that I wrote two years ago and edited until they were gleaming it is just facts on a page, with all of the fluency and grace of a seven year old writing about their school holidays – 'I went swimming then I had a burger then my sister punched me in the leg on the way home so I broke her toy and we both got in trouble and it wasn't fair'. I didn't know that I had it in me to write so badly.

The shitty first draft is an notion that stuck with me after reading Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird five years ago (and then four years ago and three years ago and one year ago - I love that book). Inspired by Earnest Hemingway's assertion that the first draft of everything is shit, its only purpose to get a writer past the terrifyng hurdle of the blank page to the point where they can revise it and tweak it and turn it into a good second draft and an even better third draft, she wrote a whole chapter extolling the virtues of the Shitty First Draft. It is an explosion of the myth that coherent words just flow from those with a gift for them, that a good writer can just write and that if what comes from your hands the first time around is less than readable then writing is not for you.

She says

I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts. All right, one of them does, but we do not like her very much. We do not think that she has a rich inner life or that God* likes her or can even stand her.

Very few writers really know what they are doing until they've done it. Nor do they go about their business feeling dewy and thrilled. They do not type a few stiff warm-up sentences and then find themselves bounding along like huskies across the snow.

We all often feel like we are pulling teeth, even those writers whose prose ends up being the most natural and fluid. The right words and sentences just do not come pouring out like ticker tape most of the time. Now, Muriel Spark is said to have felt that she was taking dictation from God every morning -- sitting there, one supposes, plugged into a Dictaphone, typing away, humming. But this is a very hostile and aggressive position. One might hope for bad things to rain down on a person like this.

I find myself thinking of this a lot at the moment, as the words stack up and they are mostly terrible. Lamott also advises vehemently against editing as one goes, she says that you must get to the end and then edit. Doing this pains me. Seeing all of those crappy words sitting there disjointedly and clumsily and adding yet more crappy words to them makes me feel slightly sick, but she knows more than me and is very clever and I need someone to tell me what to do and seeing as she makes me laugh a lot it may as well be her. Not everyone agrees with her, this guy for instance, but I don't know who he is, he has never made me laugh and he doesn't care for the word 'shitty', so I see no reason to listen to him. 

I'm not sure I can do it right until the end. I am working in six sections and I suspect that once I have finished the first one I will go back and edit it, partly to see if I can make it readable before I flog myself over 60,000 more words, and partly because there's only so long I can go on living with this drivel on my hard drive. What if I die before I get a chance to edit it and people think that it was meant to be like this? Sheesh.

* Lamott writes a lot about God and Christianity and has written some beautiful books about faith and how she got there from being a raging alcoholic. I am not religious, not with any regularity or predictability anyway, and I love her writings on God, they are some of the most calming, reasuring, inspiring, hilarious books I have ever read. I have reread Travelling Mercies even more times than I've reread Bird by Bird. 

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.

♥

Shit guys. I think you might have breathed a few more months of life into this place. Thank you. 

copyright, Landor's Cat Studies. 

In the gutter.

This blog guys, I don't really know what to do with it. I kind of love it but it's becoming increasingly alien to me. I feel like maybe I should just admit that it's over, that we had some good times but that we're really ready to go in different directions - like my friend C went and did. I was kind of mad at her when she did it, how dare she break up with her blog/Me The Reader? But then today she wrote about her reasoning over at her new place and I thought 'shit, that's exactly what I want to do.' I mean, not *exactly*, I don't want to write about soup, (I'll eat it if you have any, but I don't want to write about it) but the breaking up part. I'm too chicken though.

Historically this blog has been where about 25% of our wedding photography work comes from and in these lean times when we're still bouncing back from moving the business 500 miles, it seems crazy to cut off any source of potential clients. And then there's this other um, thing, which I'm hesitant to even call a 'thing' because well, it's not really a Thing yet. I'm sort of maybe working on perhaps writing a book. And apparently the people who publish those book things are a whole lot more enthusiastic if you have 'a platform', ie a blog with readers and twitter followers and all that shit. Breaking up with the most established part of that platform at a time when even real writers who have published stuff struggled to get book deals seems a lot like the definition of Shooting Oneself in the Foot.

And so I remain in the limbo that I've been blogging/not-blogging in for about three years; wanting to write Proper Stuff but mired in a history of rambling about wedding decor and dogs on trampolines; knowing that my kids are my prime material but aware that they're getting bigger and bigger and less and less likely to want to be material; kind of interested in gardening and cooking and travel and knitting, but not really enough to write about any of it. And writing posts that start somewhere, or at least within sight of somewhere, and end absolutely nowhere at all.

Coeliac and Secret Passages.

Things I learnt from a google chat with my brother in law today:

• The price of a Savile Row suit. 

• That a good pair of shoes should, in theory, last one a lifetime. 

• That there is an off license in Mayfair that shares a secret passageway with Buckingham Palace, so when the queen runs out of booze no one need step outside. 

• That coeliac disease is more common among the those of Irish heritage. 

What did you learn today? 

*Photograph from the Statham Cook Collection via the Guardian 

The end.

Let's leave aside illness and bereavement for a moment and focus on what else this first month of the year has had to offer. January 2013 has been the month that:

• I fell down the stairs. Top to bottom. I've always liked to imagine that I am the sort of person who if I had a proper injury I would remain calm about it, telling whoever was nearby that I was in a lot of pain and needed an ambulance please. I'm not. I fell down some carpeted stairs, bruising my coccyx and cutting my elbow, and I screamed. Then I sobbed like a baby, pressing my face into Nye's chest and gasping 'I fell. I fell. I fell.' Self-image: shattered. I was fine, I just couldn't sit down very easily for a couple of weeks. My bum still hurts actually. I also really freaked out Ella who is still urging me: 'carefoo mama, faw down stairs. Ouchie' three weeks later. For additional points: I was carrying the bathroom bin when I slipped. As I bumped down the stairs on my arse then collided with the bikes at the bottom, a shower of damp smelly nappies rained down on my head, some of them containing day-old shit.

• (Speaking of shit.) Ammie discovered her own poo, and what fun it is to dig it out of her nappy at nap time and throw it around. Then she pushed her explorations further and dabbled in a little smeering, on her own head. And tasting. Now she takes naps in a romper suit with the buttons done up the back. Beat that kiddo. She also discovered wallpaper stripping, although to be fair she had some help from her sister with that endeavour. There is precisely one room in the house that didn't need repainted when we moved in. Now it needs wallpapered.

• my ankles got so badly bitten by fleas and I scratched those bites so hard that they now look like they have chickenpox and probably will do for the foreseeable future. ( DON'T SCRATCH YOUR BITES CHILDREN.)

• After a couple of years of deliberation I invested in a pair of waterproof, felt-lined Sorel snow boots, aware of the fact that having just left the Scottish Highlands for London, the window in my life where I needed snow boots was probably over. Three days later it started snowing, heavily. The snow lay and lay and lay until it compressed into sheet ice (WHY DON'T THEY HAVE GRITTERS IN LONDON?) and then melted into sloppy slush. The snow boots didn't arrive. My feet got very very cold. I'm still waiting for them to show up.

On the upside:

• it was my birthday, I was 28 and I almost exclusively got booze, chocolate and booze-flavoured chocolate. And when Nye asked me what I wanted to do I said 'take me to the garden centre and buy me a plant..' Middle age is delightful.

As good as my birthday was this year it's really not going to make up for the (literal) shit storm that was the rest of the month. So let's all join together in wishing January 

GOOD FUCKING RIDDANCE. (And why don't you take this time out to a good long think about your behaviour. I want to see a total change in your attitude by the time you come back, OKAY?) 

*image Bruno Ripoche, via Hybrid Hunter. 

flying.

Next week I'm getting on a plane, with toddlers, two toddlers. Just me and two toddlers. I don't like getting on planes at the best of times (I'm not scared of them, they just smell bad and they're uncomfortable and the whole thing takes sooooooooo looooooooooong and I can't afford the good seats.) me, alone with two toddlers is not the best of times.

How do I entertain two toddlers for 2 hours? Two toddlers who do not like sitting still unless there's awful tv to watch and I don't have any devices for watching awful tv on the move so please don't suggest awful tv. 

The wise Christine suggested sticky plasters (band aids) to unwrap and stick. And Celia is all about the snacks which I think might be a goer, seeing as they're not allowed unscheduled snacks the rest of the time (we're very French/mean like that.) Between snacks and sticky plasters I think we've got about 15 minutes covered. What else have you got? 

Also, do I sit between them so they don't fight, on the aisle so they can't escape? Or do I sit by the window and order a glass of wine, trusting that the doors are locked and they can't go anywhere? Dilemmas. 

*I'm sorry, I don't have a credit but the picture was too good not to use. I imagine it's from a shiny fashion magazine, the kind I won't get to read on the plane. 
UPDATE: image is by Helmut Newton, thanks Mr T

gift etiquette.

What's the etiquette with buying someone a book for Christmas that you really want to read? Are you allowed to read it before you give it to them? Or is that really not okay? What if the book is second hand already? Does that make a difference? While we're on the topic, are you allowed to watch DVDs before you give them? What about trying out perfume?

(I really want to read this book.) 

What do you daydream about?

By Tracie Taylor

A friend asked this recently, on realising that she spends most of her daydreaming time daydreaming about childcare, its possible permutations and eventualities and their impact on her time.

At the moment I just don't have the mental capacity to focus on any one daydream for more than about 4 seconds, preferring to flit from thought to thought, only returning to one when I've completely forgotten what I was thinking in the first place. 

Here though, in rough descending order of frequency and duration, are the things that currently occupy my thoughts, when I am awake enough to have them. 

* Nye and I lying on a deserted beach somewhere warm with kids who are happily occupied playing with sand and shells and someone on hand to bring us vast quantities of food. 

* More generally, just food: What I would like to eat and how nice it would be to have someone to cook it for me.  

* storage: for books, toys, kitchen implements, bathroom ephemera, booze.  

* living in London. (Subcategories: the galleries to visit, the friends to spend time with, the food to eat.) 

* A better wardrobe.   

* having Good Hair.

I conclude that my life is lacking sunshine, London and somewhere to keep all my crap, and that I need to eat more and book an appointment with a hairdresser. 

What do you daydream about and what does it tell you about your life right now?

*image by Tracie Taylor, via 500px

Bobama.

A young Indian girl dances outside the US embassy in New Delhi

* Kevin Frayer/AP via the Guardian

We had our own dance party in the kitchen this morning, Ella shook her nappy while Ammie shouted 'Bobama! Bobama!'

Now UK, let's sit up and pay attention to what can be learned about voting on the side of good, not evil. (Although, if we're honest I find it hard to imagine either option being worth dancing for. Or as a wise woman says...)

Scenes from Gastroenteritis

Day one: you feel iffy, you have the sweats, you're not sure that omelette + doughnut lunch was a good idea at all. You are in the shops, about to try some clothes on and you feel a nasty rumbling in your stomach. You hurry to the changing rooms where you finally let out the fart that has been brewing, unaware that the shop assistant has FOLLOWED YOU IN to the cubicle. You were not expecting this and you do your best to hurry her out, although to be honest, you would think that the sulphuric stench that is only getting stronger would be enough to make her step on it. Strangely, she lingers. Like the fart.

Day two: lying in bed, you wonder whether to put the hot water bottle on your belly, which is being pounded against a rocky river bed by someone who really fucking hates laundry but is determined to get this lousy, pox-ridden stomach clean, or your legs, which are the playthings of a giant 8 year old bully with a penchant for Chinese burns, or your feet, which have been immersed in blocks of ice and are screaming out with cold. You start with your belly and work on a 60 second rotation system until the horse tranquillisers you took kick in and you pass out for 5 hours.

Day three: you drag yourself out of bed to try and eat some of the soup your husband has made for you. You haven't eaten in over 24 hours and just getting down stairs feels like a massive feat. You pour yourself a tiny bowl of parsnip and potato soup, add some water to make it a little less daunting, and raise a teaspoon full to your lips. It has spices in it. You cry. Big, heaving, ugly sobs at the dinner table. Then you consider divorce. Who feeds someone with gastric flu spicy soup? You continue to sob while your husband scrambles you some eggs. Once you've managed to eat them you realise that maybe you overreacted. Maybe.

Day four: bent double on the loo (it's your 43rd trip today), clutching your stomach in agony and whimpering at the unfairness of it all, two small people stand at your knees, leaning around to look at your arse and shout 'Yucky mama! Mama poo!' then run off laughing hysterically. You think maybe it's time to just give up and die.



*image source

Life without the internet.

Jake Davis, 19, was arrested a year ago for being part of an internet hacking thing I don't entirely understand but which I admit, I found rather amusing. One of the conditions of his bail is No More Internet. I'm probably not the only person who finds myself envying him this, just a little bit. (I'm not so much envying the potential extradition to America, where they don't like people who make them look silly.) I found the whole article about Anonymous fascinating but Davis' piece about his forced exile from the internet was unexpectedly moving.

'Things are calmer, slower and at times, I'll admit, more dull. I do very much miss the instant companionship of online life, the innocent chatroom palaver, and the ease with which circles with similar interests can be found. Of course, there are no search terms in real life – one actually has to search. However, there is something oddly endearing about being disconnected from the digital horde. 

It is not so much the sudden simplicity of daily life – as you can imagine, trivial tasks have been made much more difficult – but the feeling of being able to close my eyes without being bombarded with flashing shapes or constant buzzing sounds, which had occurred frequently since my early teens and could only be attributed to perpetual computer marathons. Sleep is now tranquil and uninterrupted and books seem far more interesting. The paranoia has certainly vanished. I can only describe this sensation as the long-awaited renewal of a previously diminished attention span.  

 For it is our attention spans that have suffered the most. Our lives are compressed into short, advertisement-like bursts or "tweets". The constant stream of drivel fills page after page, eating away at our creativity. If hashtags were rice grains, do you know how many starving families we could feed? Neither do I – I can't Google it.'

*Jake Davis, in last week's Observer  

Image by Emilie Bjork, via East Side Bride.  

tattoos.

The ones I love are nearly always birds. Freedom and independence, it would seem, are things that I need to be reminded of regularly, prone as I am to forgetting that they're mine. The ones I love are nearly always painterly, works of art on a living canvas. Muted colours, but not afraid. Sometimes I just fall for a reminder, or a record of a life lived.   A print of Jen Bandini's collarbones lives above my sofa, it's probably my most prized piece of art, it catches my breath every day. 

About once a day I think about tattoos, about where I would put what and how I won't because I don't want one badly enough to deal with the prospects of infinite choice, commitment and paying people to hurt me, but how I love the beautiful ones and what an amazing thing it would be to carry around a piece of art that is mine and mine alone. 

. image source. Tattoos by Berit Uhlhorn

you know that thing I said about "maybe it's not so bad if I'm not certain about everything"? It was a pile of arse.

that's all. 

source .soma gallery

love.

It's taken a while but I'm finally, well and truly, in love with Beyonce. Did you see the dress she wore to the Met Gala? God, that's one sexy woman. I love that she radiates an air of couldn't-give-a-fuck-what-you-think, while also appearing wholly dignified. I like that in a person. 

* photo from this wedding. Yes, I'm the wedding photographer who will stand in front on MTV for 5 minutes waiting for the right moment to photograph Beyonce shaking her ass behind you. I'm also the wedding photographer who will put down her cameras during the reception to dance to Single Ladies with your two-year-old niece. Just so you know.