knitonlybutalso

Peace-knit

Gravel-guy and I took a few days off straight after Christmas and left the munchkins at home - they are mid twenties and were left a house full to bursting with food, so we figured they'd cope. Much as I love them, I also love my space, so we packed a few days clothing, some peppery oatcakes and some clementines and off we went down to a place near Lancaster. Most importantly I packed some yarn and a pattern for my Christmas project - pinwheel mitts from Ella Austin/Loop, I figured some serenity and some yarn and I'll be sorted for my start of 2019. The drive from Glasgow down is pretty lovely at this time of year, if you get it right, sky-watching is wonderful. Some times the skies are like drifting watercolours, sometimes they are milky with a high haze, and sometimes they are so low that you are driving through pishing rain. You often end up driving through pishing rain.

However our journey was blessed - some lovely skies were seen.

This... love this sort of light

and about 5 minutes difference

We arrived at Thurnham Hall after dark, the main building is a hotel but there is also a gym, a spa (Dermalogica products I think) and self catering units hidden amidst trees and rolling landscaped gardens. It is very pretty and despite a lot of cars parked, it felt very quiet and peaceful. It is a lovely place and a great place to stay.

Did I knit? Well not much - 2 pairs of mittens done, they are both Ella Austin designs I think, I am a total fangirl about her knitting patterns, sighhhh I LOVE her. Normally when I go anywhere with knitting I like to try and match my project in some way to where I go, I'm not sure I was that successful this trip - maybe the soft cool colours sort of match the tones of a winter Lancashire, but as for the big empty skies and broad sweep of marchy landscape surrounding our accommodation - no, I didn't think of that, maybe the Brooklyn Tweed "Perch" shawl I had been working on might have been a match for the marshes but I had finished that apart from the weaving in and blocking, so it was left behind.  Did I read any books - nope, I took a couple down but I was so chilled and calm I barely twitched.

Ella Austin Pinwheel mitts

Ella Austin Bunty mitts

Lancashire (or at least that part) is rather lovely - we took little excursions to Morecombe (I found a haberdashery shop that was open!!!), and to Martin Mere (ducks, geese, er birds) which is delightful. But most of the time was spent just wandering about without much of a plan. I love the wide, expansive landscape and the slightly down-at-heel feel to the area, it has a slightly cant-be-bothered and like-it-or-lump-it feel to the place.

Beach walk - Moorecombe

Martin Mere - friendly local

Martin Mere - hungry local

Martin Mere - sleepy local

Martin Mere - Lancastrian flamingos

Coming back we passed Caer Laverock, another bird sanctuary - it is quite off the beaten track but also rather fantastic - big skies, lots of birds, plenty to sit and just watch. Quite wonderful.

Biig skies and big landscape and big birds!

Feeding time at Caer Laverock

"Wasteland" - fabulous

and more - it is a sublime place

I also finished my Crooked Little Scarf which is an Anne Hanson pattern, only it never became a scarf - it got cast off early and made into a cowl, then in a fit on wild enthusiasm I finished the Brooklyn Tweed shawl-y thing, "Perch" for the office by darning in ends and blocking it, as no matter how hot it is, there is often a cold draft at shoulder level, only I got back to the office on Monday and not only was it hot as Hades, they had "fixed" the heating (which they do often, every time it is announced with great authority how "fixed" the heating now is), like I say, it is hot, and seems to be hot everywhere and all the time. The shawl-y thing might have to sit in a drawer for a bit until we move floors in a week or so.

Crooked Little Scarf

Perch from Brooklyn Tweed

However, being back at the office has meant I am back in the groove and in a routine - I have made my lunch for the office, but who knew a salad based around runner beans (don't judge me - I am fat and I like runner beans) squeaks when you eat it. I also realised that when I turned up in the office on Monday I was dressed all in black - I look like a wee chubby crow, diet it is then.

12 photos of 2018

Upper Rakaia, Canterbury, New Zealand

Gardens By The Bay, Singapore

Benmore Botanic Gardens, Argyll, Scotland

Rhodes, Greece

Symi, Greece

Oisans area, France

Chelsea Physic Garden, London

Montmartre Museum, Paris

Jardins de Luxembourg, Paris

Atelier de Lumiere, Paris

St Etheldreda, London

Kew Gardens, London

 

I am the Christmas Grincherina

What can I say, the struggle is real. Yes I am the Grouch/Grinch of Christmas but despite my best efforts a couple of really lovely things have happened to me lately that have softened my flinty little heart a little - namely 2 (yup 2!) advent calendars. The first was gifted by someone I consider a very special knitting buddy (actually she is more than a knitting buddy, she is all round patron saint of knitters throughout much of the UK and just one of the best people ever), and hilariously (well I think hilarious) there are little chocolate sprouts and Grinch candy. Day three and three adorable stitch markers - how gorgeous are they??? Its been a week and a bit since then and still more lovely stitch markers - this makes me so happy first thing in the morning. All opened and all had me hopping up and down with delight - really I just loved this present, a total delight!  Thank you Yvonne, thank you. 

The only difficulty is deciding which stitch marker at any one time, they are getting a lot of use already, who knew knitting could be so festive with these little guys jingling when you pick it up or put it down?

Aren't they just the cutest!

Secondly I got another mystery advent calendar in the mail - a gin advent calendar, and I don't know who it is from!!! Will my liver thank me by the end of the month, hmmm possibly not but what a lovely thing seriously I couldn't keep up, not even nearly. I genuinely have no idea who sent this to me - I checked it's meant for me and my address several times and I have been all over the packaging looking for clues/sender info - nada. I am mystified but what a sweet and thoughtful thing - gravel-guy who doesn't drink has been as intrigued as I am over the gin - he wants each bottle opened ever night as soon as I get home so he can figure what it smells like, like I say - he rarely drinks so every now and then he has a tiny little taste and his whole face reacts to the suckerpunch of neat gin, once he recovers he attempts a description "spicy?", "rhubarb?", it's worth it just to see his face.  

How elegant is this? I mean, seriously it is almost a shame to break open the little windows (almost)

... half way through. I cant even try and keep up

It did really make me think - I've been going through some difficult stuff at work and to know people care and do some random act of loveliness is something that kinda stopped me in my tracks, and helped me sinking further into the fug I was perilously close to descending into. It made me realise that even the tiniest little thing has an impact - good or bad and I hesitate to use the word "mindful" as it is often used as a weapon in our workplace by a boss with all the mindfulness of a plank, but being that little bit more aware than I usually am of my impact on people might be a good thing... Anyway I've volunteered to look after the work inbox whilst everyone else tootled for their Christmas lunch, that suits me fine as I like the serenity of the office when I'm there by myself, and I have never liked the group lunch where you sit at a long table and can't see or hear the people two seats along, everyone then ends up yelling, nope not really my thing.In fact I have some crafty knitting prepared and general office faffery alongside a multitude of easy-peelers (clementines in case you wonder - not sprouts), I wont actually be alone either - we work in teams in an office that is open plan so with various people coming to "commiserate" with my lonesomeness it is often one of the most social afternoons of the year, I get fed some absolute quality gossip and have a grand old time where I have a proper chat with people I often see only in passing - so it is better than going out for lunch.

Anyway that is all done and dusted now - here is to the holidays and re-orienting ourselves into a new year.

That time of year thing

hmmmmmmmmm

Well it’s the season, THAT season. Yeah, it is not just Christmas but also the season when “they” start to appear everywhere on social media. I am not talking Christmas adverts and the icky-sicky tripe about buying endless, forgettable plastic tat/bilge that gets shipped half way around the world and makes a brief stop off in people’s houses before disappearing into landfill soon after (just call me Mrs Grinch, I am happy being cranky – yep, that’s me waving at you, happy and cranky at the same time, it’s how I roll). Nope, however bad enough the Christmas season is, the thing that really gets me about this time of year is the associated season of competitive bereavement. Trust me it is war out there and a social order of sorts exists in the secret society of loss and loneliness, there are obligations and expectations and even a pecking order – to be blunt and a bit vulgar, that royally cheeses me off.

 

bork! 

I noticed this year as in many previous years, that little shared posts started popping up on FaceBook early October-ish - the “I am so strong – but you’ll never know my personal inner tears of loneliness” appearing across peoples pages (erm, well you just shared, so I guess now I do, and couldn’t you come up with your own words??? Even a few words on that “thing” you are sharing? Seriously?). There are also the “I miss my Daddy in heaven” poems on the FaceBook pages of a bus-buddy of mine – she is in her 70s, what the sweet eff am I expected to do? Sorry about the language but seriously – am I meant to like them? What does a “like” mean in these circumstances – do I like that you are supposedly miserable / missing your Pop? I do NOT like that you shared a really saccharine sickly-sweet poem along with a crappy photo of candles / flowers / blurry lake scene etc that makes my retina twitch and fills me with fury because it is so cheesy / predictable and I have seen on at least 2 other FaceBook pages, if grief or loss is so individual then why use a crappy identikit boring meme that is ubiquitous? I do not like being hit over the head with the message that somehow misery is something to be wheeled out every year to trigger an avalanche of responses along the lines of “you OK hon?” or “hugs” or “so sorry for your loss”… I feel like I am being manipulated into an expected response and a tit for tat of “ yeah, sorry about that” followed by their response of “so sorry back”… I hate that. I hate the EXPECTATION that grief / bereavement is a badge to be worn proudly and somehow profound loss can or will make you a better person, I get furious with the implication that those proudly displaying their big ribbon-y rosette of grief can hijack the Facebook pages and feeds of so many other people. Let me reiterate, grief doesn’t make someone a better person. It doesn’t. Crabby before and crabby since. I hate being bullied into a meaningless exchange of “so sorry” followed by “yeah, so sorry back” followed by “hugs” followed by “xxx” followed by “xxx back at you…” followed by a “keep strong” (what does that even mean???), followed by… often this starts about 11.30pm and I am thinking of bed time and stuff for next day. A conversation about loss is one thing, but the nearly monosyllabic and moronic ping-pong back and forth is nothing more than keeping me from my bed and it is very, very cross making. It is particularly cross making as you are locked into this keepy-uppy nonsense because you cannot tell a sad / bereaved / grieving person to eff off. Ever.

 

... and furious bork 

Here’s the thing re our own personal circumstances in case you wonder why this provokes my ire. Simon our middle child – beautiful, big, gentle, heavy metal loving, all round good kid died on the 16 December 2011, he died in his sleep on the last day of school term before Christmas of a massive heart attack. It hurts, it still hurts like hell – but you know it hasn’t made me a saintly fore-bearing one, it doesn’t give me some special “edge” or a special understanding / glow / empathy / listening ear, other people also have their own grief – I refuse to buy into the pecking order of grimness some people like to calibrate in their heads… lost cat sad, house fire (but nobody harmed) – very sad / bad, divorce (better or worse than house fire – debatable? How much was the house worth??), death of an elderly parent (factor in expected or not, how many family members remaining and their associated age, inconvenience of the death etc) very, very sad but there you are - they lived a good life, death of a child??? Now add in how long ago it was, and if there are any other sad cases that have bumped yours down the list of recent or memorable things (you have your allotted 3 months or thereabouts and are expected to take turns in being star performer, then budge up for the next big attraction in town)… You think I am kidding – I am not, there are some very aggressive bereaved people out there.

 

and double, maybe even triple furious bork 

So what is my take home message? What is that thing I really want to get across? (and this is just my personal opinion and no, as a bereaved person I don’t have any extra powers / rights / expectations that I have the right to force on you). Well it is simple – you DO NOT HAVE TO BUY INTO THIS NONSENSE. There I’ve said it – you DO NOT have to respond / get sucked in to this. If people are genuinely in pain / distress, they rarely display it as a status on FaceBook with the intention of locking others into constant attention giving, my own understanding / observation of grief is that people often withdraw and go turtle. For many, withdrawing in the face of overwhelming emotion is perfectly OK, it is even quite normal – when Simon died, we really genuinely didn’t even notice the Christmas of other people, we were so completely absorbed by our own circumstances – we had no room / head space left. We made a brief message on Facebook to let people know that we couldn’t reach otherwise, but since then, I don’t do his “anniversary” on FaceBook, I don’t light a candle on Facebook, I don’t post poems churned out by some attention seeking personal monster creating this bilge, I don’t share the “9/10 people won’t understand my sorrow but I know you will” (actually nope - I’m just going to unfriend you right there, “friend”) or respond to any of this prodding and poking, I will NOT buy into it… My personal way of dealing with this stuff is generally to hit “hide posts from blah for 30 days” in the first instance. You / we / I have an absolute right to celebrate Christmas or any other part of the year how you / we wish, to the levels of happiness we wish, so do not allow these people to make you miserable. You are not responsible for their “unhappiness” (unless you were responsible for killing their cat / burning down their house – in which case I’ll never tell), and especially if they are enjoying it. Go – give full attention to the moment – love your family, love your new books, your cat, your new mug, your…. As someone who finds Christmas painful (and always has), I can say hand on heart – your happiness does not make me more miserable – it has no negative effects whatsoever. In fact life is for living and celebrating and loving, not for the inane and rather crass sucking of other peoples joy from their lives, I find it parasitic and really rather cruel and narcissistic, maybe someone has finally got the warm fuzzies and are feeling good with life? Why screw them and bring them right back down with attention-seeking misery? If you want a real connection then make that conversation – meet for coffee or a walk or something – but make real time, say real words that you thought of yourself (rather than some crappy greeting card stuff) however inarticulate those words are – they’re yours and not regurgitated from somewhere else, even more importantly listen, if there’s nothing to say and it’s silent, that’s perfectly OK – listen to that. If you can’t do it right now, that’s totally fine – but really don’t get stuck with the sucking energy out of people nonsense – it’s all meaningless and whatever these people are after, you cannot fill that big black hole, don’t fall for the fake messaging back and forth, your time and your life are worth so much more than low-life bullying by these people.

 

To be honest, we celebrate Christmas – not in a big fancy-dan kind of way. We remember Simon (as always) but we celebrate his silly, dopey genius for making people laugh and his kindness and his unerring smartness at finding the joy in people. We are fine – seriously. Crack on people, crack on.

Here I am - not there, but here

Autumn - Scotland

I am not always gallivanting – it is just that being away is endlessly more exciting than being here in the village in the middle of nowhere and perilously close to the arse-end-of-the-universe. But here I am. Sigh. To say I don’t like where we live and have lived for eons is an understatement, I hate it. Utterly hate it – it is an hour and a quarter (on a good bus trip) from Glasgow and the bus goes once an hour – that is a long time from civilisation and decent flat white (2 and a ¼ hours if you just miss one, not factoring in if it is late or slow – that’s each way potentially). Don’t ask me to list the innumerable reasons I can’t stand this place but suffice to say I don’t go out and about – the local corner shop is a 5 minute walk (at most) from our house, I’d rather wait for the bus and take a 45 minute ride to the nearest supermarket than be seen. A lot of it relates back to experiences after Simon died and I am still too traumatised to encounter certain people who enjoyed his death a tad too much, that's coming up for seven years at Christmas but I still cant bear the memory or being hunted down every time I showed my face on the main street. Basically I don’t go out, I hate it here.

Escaped to the city (and a flat white is being made as I sit...bliss)

Anyway, so I am “at home” which is not and never will be my home in this awful village and the only way I can think of coping with being here is to get out of the village as much as possible. I hear you saying “why don’t you move?” well, gravel-guy can’t be arsed – but then gravel-guy is barely here, his job takes him off overseas and if the house fell down around his ears he couldn’t give a flying fig, the house is therefore hideous, I kind of need him to agree to moving before we can possibly move … So anyway the only way to cope is to be out and this weekend was rather delicious weather-wise, who knows however many more we will get before the weather turns and we are drowned in rain, snow, sleet, skitter about with black ice, get blown away with howling gales etc and the darkness of a Scottish winter hits with all its full claustrophobic misery. Out I went on Saturday, 7.27am bus. The quandary is; do I go for another walk around the reservoir as of the other week or do I head for the botanic garden / Great Western Road area of the city. I decide to venture in towards town and leave the reservoir for another day. I get off the bus earlier than the usual stop so I am ready and primed for a flat white by about 8.20ish only most places open at 9.00, that then involves a lot of scampering about the botanic gardens for a first look in the biting cold, but it is glorious – the day is sunny and perfect. They are putting out the lights for the illuminations, they look rather good, but I am less enamoured of the ticky-tacky plywood cabins that will be selling hot food and throat-catching mulled wine…

Botanic gardens - autumnal light

After some serious people-watching in Paris I decided my wardrobe needs smartening up – I am a scruff, I really am but I work in an office of (mainly) fellow scruffs, every now and then I get a clothing-related obsession in my head and identify a perilous gap in my clothing and the cold winds suggest I need more layers. The current gap is a grey cardigan – I had one, I had two, I had three in fact, but I lost one, another recently expired (well it probably expired a while ago but I only officially recognised this when I wore a hole in the elbow and being a fairly scuzzy thing in general that was pilling and stretching, decided it was not redeemable in any possible way) and the third is missing in action and very long so it pokes out below my coat in a very unbecoming fashion. It is cold enough to wear woollies – hooray! This is the weather for knitters – only thing is, my woollies are up in the loft and the rickety ladder we have prevents me getting up there as it is too awful to contemplate. A lunchtime sortie to John Lewis confirmed my worst fears – there is no suitable grey cardigan out there, nothing the right shade, nothing the right weight, nothing the right fibre composition, the buttons / stitch pattern / sleeves were all too hideous and naf looking and it was all quite cross-making. I came out with a pattern book with a jersey (I’ll adapt that to a plain v neck cardigan), the right shade of chunky grey wool , a singular button (seriously John Lewis – get your act together – your buttons are vile and the button tubes are basically empty, pathetic, I may have to resort to FIMO and make a button) and 9 balls of yarn at that too. The thing is once I have knitted this ideal cardigan I will have spent MORE for the pleasure of making it than if I had bought it – however, it will be the cardigan I want and not some sort of “nearly” item that will annoy the heck out of me. And that is the thing, once I decided to crank this blog up I decided one of the reasons to crank it back into existence was to chart the embellishment or not-settling-for-the “meh”-in-life kind of thing, so a quick knitting of a grey cardigan it is (9mm needles – this will be a swizzz), that would be a quick knitting after a boring plain cardigan in a dark red that is currently on the needles and blocking the way... The grey cardigan may be a quick / boring knit but it will certainly make a useful knit that I will like to wear.

potential adaptation into a cardigan

The thing is, that a lot of what I like to wear is fairly plain but sadly plain is harder to find and often more expensive as there is nowhere/nothing to disguise poor construction or shoddy fabrics, I get really infuriated with brassy zips that don’t need to be there (Mint Velvet), gathers, frills, trimmings, ruching, shiny-shiny buttons (Marks and Spencer), huge bat wing sleeves that make even the smallest person look like a misshapen lump (Jigsaw) etc. Where the heck are all these classy items without the trailing whatsits and the scabby finish – at a reasonable price and for a normal body? Seriously – where are they??? Coming in to winter all I want are plain-ish and well made clothing items, things that go with other things, that are thick enough in fabric so I don't feel like I am standing at the bus stop in my knickers and preferably don't define my age/class/batdom - when did this get so hard???

Paris

tell me that hotel room is not ridiculously adorable

and the cutest courtyard view

Love Paris, love it. The city is an absolute joy – by that I mean it is gorgeous AND very walkable. G and I arrived Friday, early afternoon and settled into our hotel in the Batignolles area, Hotel Eldorado is a small and quirkily charming establishment. It is sadly nearly always booked solid and hard to get in, but it is gorgeous and very sweet. The staff are lovely too by the way (and I include the resident cat). We immediately set out for a bit of a flaneur – we like to wander, so a toddle around the local shops, a brief sortie through Montmarte cemetery (ha! My mother would be delighted by the idea of her “local” cemetery she likes a bit of the old morbid stuff does mother, although Montmartre cemetery is anything but…), then settled ourselves into a cosy corner of a local establishment for a shared bottle of voignier and some fairy lights (lovely wine – very “green peppercorn-y”, delicious) before waddling onwards for dinner locally and a relatively early night, turning in about 10.ish

wooo fairy lights

Montmarte cemetary

nothing miserable here

Saturday – our first full day in Paris and we decided to walk from our hotel to the exhibition we were in Paris to see and find a petit dejuener on the hoof as it were. I had heard about a new exhibition venue and was really keen to see it, I had high hopes that this might be something quite good and boy, it surpassed anything I could possibly have hoped for. The Atelier de Lumieres exhibition of Klimt, Hundterwasser, Schiele etc was beyond incredible and has been extended to January 2019, if on the offchance you are wandering past Paris – go. Just go, and in fact check their website generally to see what they have on would be a VERY good idea. The venue is a large converted old warehouse, the exhibition space is essentially an empty shell apart from a mezzanine area one end, a couple of smallish enclosed spaces and a watery pool in a basement that you look down into. Upon this, are projected images that slowly change and are set to music. Doesn’t sound exciting? Except it was – you are submerged into the art – it is projected all around you and on the floor, enormous portraits stare out at you and you stare back – normally the trick is to wait for a gap in the crowds to get the right photo only the interplay and the knowingness of these giant faces and the little people (us!) staring back (or not) actually made for a really interesting conversation between the art and the people attending – and all this was so mesmerising and beautifully done that people were drifting around silent and respectful and totally, totally absorbed.

   

Huge space - view over to mezzanine

Who's looking at who?

who wouldn't want to wander through this?

beautiful 

Blissful – photos don’t do it justice but it was easily one of the best things I have seen in a very long time. The choice of Klimt, Hundterwasser and Schiele as the main artists was an inspired first choice for this new venue, I can’t wait to see what programme they will come up with over time. We turned up about 10.00am and when we went in the place was not particularly busy, but as more people arrived it got busier and busier – but still it was respectful and quiet and lovely. We left about 1.00ish completely spaced and deep in thought finding a small Kurdish place for lunch on the way back (delicious) to the hotel.

 

 

 The evening was filled with something G had wanted to see – another light/illumination type experience. The was the Coeur de Dames, a light show of the history of Paris projected on to the front of Notre Dame. Like the morning, the majority of the people there appeared to be from Paris. We were there for the 7.00pm show and filed in with everyone else to find a convenient spot to watch the proceedings, ending up next to a very Parisian family/teenagers who appeared by the barricade we were leaning on and immediately settled on the cobbles for a picnic. Every time Mama caught G’s eye she leapt up to offer food from their picnic – an immense pile of carrot sticks wrapped in foil, quiche, golden delicious apples, cheese…. A small boy was despatched by Mama to offer salted pistaccios to people surrounding the family and especially to the helpers and policemen etc. The smallest child (probably about 7 or 8 years old) asked through her papa if G had any children – G had none (and normally is not a great fan of small people – but these innumerable teenagers and smaller children were delightful, Mama appeared in total control even when she was rootling through her massive bag of picnic supplies etc), G explained I had offspring. Was G bored? The small child wanted to know, G was not bored but the small child then wanted to know if G was tired, hungry, lonely, liking Paris… and eventually deciding in case G WAS bored but too polite to say, small child clambered up and perched on the barriers like a dainty little bird and sang to her. Very sweet, somehow very French and totally adorable.

 

I'm not even french - but I really wish I was

dramatic

stunning 

Again, the light show was wonderful – absolutely delightful and so well done, but also being surrounded by French people makes the experience really lovely too. People went out of their way to talk in English (yes I MUST learn some French), a very tall man sidled out of the way of smaller people behind him (people like me Jand a couple of others) and made chit chat, a couple of women commiserated over Brexit, and everyone was friendly and good natured and quietly enjoying the spectacle.  

 

and the exit was through the interior of Notre Dame

 

The rest of our break involved a great deal more walking and church visiting – and also a visit to La Droguerie which is a fabulous shop hidden behind St Eustache. Think wool shop, fabric shop and jewellery-findings shop. Bonkers, eccentric and somewhat mystifying in its processes – you sit on a small settee if you want to be served, however if there is a queue or you simply don’t know the system then that can take some figuring out. Once you are served then they are very attentive – you point out the skein of yarn you like for instance, they note it down, you explain you’d like enough for a scarf – how much do you think you might need, they inquire how big a scarf – one loop around the neck or two (very sensible rather than metres), you tell them whatever else you want – they note it down and then they leave you at the settee and disappear down the far end of the shop behind a velvety curtain and magic up the goods. Wool skeins are then wound on a creaky winder and presented to you. Delightful, and as all things in Paris, the people watching while you wait is a great past time. A young woman arriving with much huffing and puffing and twitching of feet as she was in a tearing hurry (I suggested she get served before me – partly as I was slightly dithery and partly as I was still figuring their “system”) only to be firmly told – don’t do that again, you’ll be here all day (the young woman was still delightfully chatty and friendly and thankful for bumping her way up the queue, she was a seamstress/sewer and needed that specific something right away for a deadline)… an elegant woman with a wild mass of charcoal curls and canvas sneakers who was visiting from Montpelier… another older woman wearing shades of burgundy and inky blue who just looked effortlessly elegant and casual… all were attended to and all sat on the settee and made attempts to chat and be friendly.

 

bit of a covered passageway

Luxembourg gardens

I think that is the thing I adore about Paris most of all, the expectation of good manners and decorum and just random moments of connection. No shoving, no shouting, no gum chewing or trampling of others, it makes you wonder how we treat people on our home turf.

Back at it

Well here I am back in the office, I am nursing one stinker of a cold but have valiantly fought off the sore throat. I’m not actually back in the office for long as I have a long weekend (yup another one) planned for this weekend when I fly out to Paris with a different friend (G). G is a partner in crime that I KNOW likes to walk about a city as much as I do, we did Paris last year and took in the Dior retrospective, the one thing she does that irks me (and it doesn’t take much does it – let’s be honest I am one cranky old woman) is she snores like a trouper. We are not talking gently muted flutterings – no, this woman is heard through 2 feet of masonry (mutual friends reported that on a trip to Assisi…), still small price to pay for a rather glorious partner in crime – G also puts up with me and my irritating habits, of which, I have many. Therefore I am packing the ear plugs and the knitting – I figure I will just roll with the sleep deprivation, one of the (many) wonderful things about G is she is at least as independent as I am – nothing gets in her way when she is exploring a new place, although she knows Paris pretty well she is up for new corners and bits to sniff out… In the meantime the west of Scotland is veering from glorious bright autumnal weather to howling gales and horizontal rain, some days it is utterly wonderful and Milngavie Reservoir is a delight and other days you want to hunker down inside and wonder if this is a little early in the season for keeping the lights on all day…

 

 

 

 

 

I think that is the reason why there are so many coughs, colds, sniffles etc in the office – it seems early in the season for all this mucus. This week however most parents of children are off as it is the local half term and so the office is marvellously quiet. Unfortunately before they left, the parents gifted the office some delightfully snotty germs – that’s the thing about small children, they are outstandingly toxic – I say that as the parent of children (since grown). So pretty much those of us in the office this week are hoarse, croaky, snuffly, quavery of voice and sneezing merrily. Still the sore throat and blocked nose mean I am up knitting into the small hours – productivity is a small benefit I guess…

 

 

This was meant to be a small knitted neck muffler type thing but as I was nearing the end of my first skein and rootling though my piles of yarn, I discovered another skein of this unknown yarn, so I wound it up and kept knitting. Hence a much longer neck wrap thing and just the absolute smidgen of yarn left from the project – see that needle, yes that’s the remnants of yarn still attached after sewing it up into a loop. I am now on to a cardigan – a dull but serviceable cardigan in a colour I am not entirely sure of, is this red too brown? I liked the shade-name “Dahlia” I may fall out of love with this project very quickly but I am going to persevere and even take it to Paris. If I really blitz the knitting maybe I won’t have time to fall so out of love I stop knitting it.

 

one close run thing, this was all I had left after I sewed up the scarf...

  

It also means I still have plans for a small-ish neck muffler thing, and that involves a commitment to knit it in other than linen stitch or horseshoe stitch, my 2 fixations – I will come up with something else, but at the same time I am a creature of habit and not feeling much love for anything too showy or over the top pattern-wise, so it will be back into the stitch dictionaries to see if I can find a new and interesting but not too out-there kind of stitch. It can wait until after Paris.  

London - two tales of one city (part 2)

London – I absolutely love London and getting back so recently after I'd been with gravel guy was enormously exciting to me but it got me thinking – who is the perfect travelling companion? I say this as I pretty much know it isn't me. The following paints me in a less than flattering light, but I figure I may as well share who I am and be honest about my flaws.

Pavement art... 

M is a friend I last went to London with in 2009, she has recently finished her Ph.D and we decided it was high time we went back to London and to take in the Frida Kahlo exhibition amongst other excitements. We arranged a long weekend – flying down on a Friday and coming back on Monday evening which is quite long enough to put up with me. The first thing I noticed was when we arranged to meet at Glasgow's bus station for 8.30a.m at M's suggestion, and she was late, 20 minutes late as she has been next door working in her office… Given that she was the one worrying about arriving at the airport on time and then late, I wasn’t so chuffed, but I figured I’d just suck that up and maybe learn to relax a little, but I get very angsty about lateness. The next thing I realised is that she is NOT a morning person, I am not entirely sure whether I am or not either – but I AM a holiday person, it took two coffees (well two decaffienated coffees for M, not sure they count as coffee) to get her into a functional state and on to the plane. As an adult I am just about capable of looking after myself – I am not so capable of also looking after other people and I don’t want to learn either, I don’t remember nine years ago being so hard. We arrive at Heathrow's terminal 5 (UK traffic – otherwise all the other terminals do international – and seriously don’t go via them if you aren’t a UK national, it is horrible) then we catch the express into Paddington as M was pretty tired (seriously, all we did was sit on a plane) and then underground to St Pancras/Kings Cross, dropping our larger luggage early afternoon before we went out to explore. That’s when I realised fully that we have very different energy levels and walking speeds, poor M. Normally I am trailing behind gravel-guy so this was a new experience for me being way ahead. The first place to visit was something I was pretty sure/hoping M would like – a visit to Persephone Books, a veritable shrine to womens’ writing of mainly the 20^th century.

Here I am again - bliss!

More cute little shops in Lamb's Conduit Street

This is a glorious little gem in the heart of Bloomsbury – you can wander the little streets and pretty parks etc on your way there and once you arrive, it is an exquisite little slice of book-ery heaven. The insides are stuffed to bursting with elegant, slim, grey-jacketed treasure, each has a carefully thought through endpaper and matching bookmark and every volume has a potential for latching onto the unwary reader that has wandered in on the off-chance of a little something.

Oh yes, these gorgeous little books look innocent enough, but if books were fish – these would be lamprey, somehow they sucker themselves on to you and you leave with an armful rather than the strictly-rationed-one you planned. Heaven. M liked the bookshop but really wanted more coffee so we ambled along the small street to Knockbox Coffee – a flat white and exquisite little cake for me and a ginger tea and a delicious little cake for her and we were all set to trot back to our hotel to leave our purchases before our next adventure. M was limping by the time we set out from the bookshop, her back hurt, her hips hurt and her side twinged, every now and then as she fell behind she’d give a little yelp or start heavy sighing to let me know to slow down. I am NOT a fast walker but I am giddy with excitement to be in London and within cooeeee of independent bookshops, M didn’t enjoy the glorious sunshine or the walk back, she bows her head and trudges along like a beaten down little pit pony, every now and then she leans against a lamp-post and stretches her back with sighs and whimpers. I’ll be straight up and say I find this infuriating – I feel compelled to ask if she is OK and she gives me a tight little smile and says “yeah fine” before shuffling to the next lamp post, after what seems years of my children whining, the last thing I am going to find charming is someone being a martyr or doing the “brave heroics” type act – tell me to slow down, tell me you could do with me carrying your new book, tell me to feck off….  I don’t like guesswork or being manipulated into expressions of concern, that renders me livid with barely suppressed fury. I tried the mothering thing, I wasn’t very good at it. Don’t ever tell me you are fine if you are not.

Denis Severs house

Books safely tucked up in our room and with M taking her meds then stretching downward-dog style in the direction of her new book and book bag, we head off to Spitalfields to see Denis Severs house – this I had booked in February and never got to because of the big snow. The house has a no photography rule and even for a click-nut like me, I can see this is a really good idea. The visiting times are generally in the evening and the concept is, as dusk falls gradually your eyes accustom to the candle light and your other senses become heightened and you are more aware of sounds and smells. You’ll either love it or wonder what the hell it was all about, I loved it – totally and thoroughly loved it. We arrive in plenty of time for our 6.30 entry so M suggests coffee and cake beforehand as her back hurts from all the walking (we came by tube – Liverpool Street! you barely shake a leg in the distance between tube and house), I’d rather do a couple of circuits of the local streets but sit down for a bite. Denis Severs done after about an hour and a bit, we head back on the tube to Kings Cross, M wants dinner in one of the cafes in the railway station and sidles onto the escalator as she can’t do any more stairs, I feel completely hobbled and hemmed in by the early finish, but decide the pleasure of some new books and a cold drink back in our hotel will be lovely.

Saturday, we head to Frida Kahlo and the V&A, our tickets are for 10.30 and M is anxious about being late, we arrive in South Kensington about 9-ish so sit in the Illy café on the main street eating pastries and drinking Italian coffee until 9.50 when M thinks we had better line up (the museum opens at 10.00), we arrive at the underground entrance at 9.55 and a little knot of people anxious to get in. M frets, I walk her to another entrance to soak up time but her legs hurt and her back twitches and her hips are louping. After diverting M away from the Frida queue inside (and the anxious V&A attendant) and into a gift shop, M circles back and tries to line up at 10.25 but is sent away again, I think M is a bit cross, but really the attendant is fielding lots of cross people trying to sneak in ahead of their ticket times and the exhibition is heaving, I feel a bit bad for the woman so tell her how adorable her Frida-inspired clothing is – really the woman is a total peach and very sweet, just overwhelmed by the multitudes of people fanning her with their paper printouts and abandoned by her colleagues, she is almost tearful that people are going to complain – but really she’s been given a job so she is doing it, alone. The Frida exhibition is a no photo exhibition, and sold out – but thoroughly absorbing. The first room is rammed with people peering at small family photos and tiny text, pictures of Frida and her family and Fridas home are trapped in frames on the walls, the next room has Fridas medical records, cosmetics, prosthetic leg, sewing box, all these items are beautifully displayed in large free-standing cases that are made in the shape of grey, brooding four poster beds – subdued, claustrophobic, very clever. The final room is Fridas clothing – joyous, colourful and celebratory plumage – a triumph of her life-force over intractable pain and suffering, it is a room full of vibrant, detailed birdlike beauty in each piece of clothing – gorgeous. M and I emerge at different times – M about 12.30, I stagger blinkingly into the gift shop about 1ish, we eventually find each other. M is exhausted and her back and hips hurt so we find cake and coffee in the V&A then M wants to head on into town to find a branch of Forbidden Planet to check out some graphic novels. M wants to eat dinner at Kings Cross railway station again and then retire to bed, her hips hurt, her back spasms and her flank-side catches, I feel a little reluctant but figure another cold drink and a return to a good book are probably a nice end to the day.

Hampton Court

Sunday – Hampton Court, Ms’ choice, I have next to no interest in any royal person and barely anything but revulsion for Henry VIII,however M really is keen and despite the Stalinist brutality of the man, I do find the place interesting – I am not as charmed as I am by other places I have been to perhaps. Hampton Court feels like a giant machine for sucking in money (I guess historically it always was industrial in scale), but it has some of the tackiest gift shops ever which are in themselves quite fascinating and worth it for the people-watching, M buys a gilt spoon for one of her sisters whereas my wallet is firmly wedged in my handbag. We drift off in different directions – M is in pain again and wants to chat endlessly on the phone to her husband, “Don’t you want to talk to gravel-guy?” She asks, well nope and why on earth would I? (he is down decanting madams stuff into her flat in Bristol for her masters year, he wont be in any mood for talking). I want to be in the here and now and looking at things and shadowing people - I love stalking humans. M is in pain and wants to chat to her man…

The gardens are cool...

Some pretty garden ideas that might be easy to replicate

Auricula Theatre and Ponga tree (from New Zealand, more recent than Henry VIIIs plantings)

I wander off to do the gardens, I find the inside of Hampton Court overwhelming and really rather ugly in it's omnipotent style.  We meet eventually and head back to the hotel for an early evening (again) with books as M is tired and in (more) pain, I am almost hopping with frustration as it is barely tea time but I manage (I hope) to winch it in and trot in a reasonably calm manner back to Kings Cross station for food and then back to the hotel for 6ish. By 7ish I persuade M that we only had a small bite (cake – fricking cake!!! I need something other than sugar or I will end up in a cake coma, I need green leaves – I love salad and food – real food, not just cake!), we find a small Italian restaurant next to our hotel – M doesn’t want to walk any further and settles for a salad where she picks out the onion and scrapes it to the side of her plate, she barely touches the leaves. I relish my pizza and glass of wine.

British Library

Our final day (Monday) is our day for a visit to the Holy of Holys, the British Library – it is a scant 10 minutes very slow walk but M is clamp-faced with spasms, and twinges and joltings in her back and hips and her backpack makes her look like a sad, sorry little snail as she toils along, refusing help. We stop mid walk for coffee in the Black Sheep café and M fillets a banana muffin. By the time we get to BL, she is wincing at every step and I am almost pogo-ing with pent up energy, M heads for the gift shop and I follow for a couple of circuits before M decides coffee and cake, I settle on a cup of tea and a cheese/spring onion muffin while I mull over what to do. M decides she just wants to sit and just be, I decide I will  scamper outside and we arrange that we will meet back at the seats at 2.30 and then take the underground back to Heathrow. Outside I feel I have been given wings, lord alone knows what it is like to be wracked with pain and especially if your comrade is bouncing about like a spring-laden critter over-excited by anything and everything, I do feel for her but sheesh, I need to stretch my legs if nothing else. I had a vague notion to head for Daunts but instead I veer off plan almost immediately and gallop towards UCL, Grants museum of zoology opens at 1.00!!! So I prowl the local streets, wandering leafy squares and little streets before arriving outside PlanetOrganic which I find almost too exciting to contemplate – ok, the charcoal infused drinks are pure bunkum (and medical evidence suggests charcoal may even leach out good nutrients for our bodies), but the salads are delectable and give me ideas for lunch making when I get home. I sit outside with a mushroom/ginger salad and a can of elderflower fizz while I enjoy my freedom. Grants museum is a delight – a small, lofty room full of glass cabinets with a mezzanine walkway around the edge, it is a teaching collection and like the Petrie, the people who staff it are wonderful – enthused and welcoming and thrilled that you found them. The exhibits are the stuffed, pickled, sliced, preserved remnants of animals (no that didn’t put me off), displayed in jars or mounted. Many have adoption certificates, I found it a fascinating and oddly pleasant place to explore.

The Grant Museum - odd but fabulous

Micro exhibits

Little guy looks like he should be wandering about

I tear myself away and return to the BL for 2.15 only to find M has scarpered and she texts me to say she will arrange for my ticket to be left at the BA desk at Heathrow, I am ready to spit feathers but collect my left luggage and catch the Picadilly tube from St Pancras to terminal 5 arriving at exactly the same time as M. 

So what did I learn? Well I am impatient, intolerant and hate being held up or waiting for people especially when they say a specific time or place. I am also the type that hates to be joined at the hip – I need to forage for excitement and sniff the air and totter about independently, I am a greedy traveller who wants her space, time spent trailing after someone else or waiting for them is time wasted – it is much better to arrange catch-up moments and places to meet over coffee than stretch the friendship elastic until it is on its last ping. But essentially my kids are grown – I am done nose-wiping or asking how someone is or pandering to anyones’ needs but mine. I am one selfish traveller. I guess that's why gravel-guy and I manage to rub along reasonably well - we are both grouches that have short fuses for malingerers, but future London trips will either be solo expeditions or carefully matched to others with similar levels of fitness and bloodymindedness. 

London - two tales of one city (part 1)

Tower Bridge..

We fly into London City, and stay in a hotel close by. Gravel-guy is delighted that we have seperate beds, I am saddend by this - when he does his snoring, his snuffling or running in his sleep I cannot whack him one, on the up side if he sleep farts, I am not going to notice. I decide to try and resurrect our romance...

-Darling, you are so far away, I protest

-Wonderful

-I am so lonely over here without you

-Shut up

-But I am bereft..

-Rubbish, he snorts

We spend our full day in London at Kew. Kew is site of most holy pilgrimage for plant junkies, I have no interest in the Royal family or anything about them - but Kew Gardens are the exception.. 

Warm and humid and delightful

Magical little blooms

Waterlily house

Princess of Wales greenhouse

Canopy walk

The Hive - a relatively new addition to Kew. I suspect it is primarily aimed at children, but it is wonderful - there are poles with holes and you take a thin balsa stick between your teeth and stick them into the hole to feel vibrations just as bees do, you then climb up and admire the hive or return underneath to look at the human bees above - wonderful. Everyone was smiling, small kids were doing a waggle dance and even gravel-guy was almost charmed

The Hive

Have some sunshine from me

I managed evade gravel-guy and scuttle back for some more lily pond action...

The Sackler Bridge

The wilderness area of Kew

Escaped parakeets

Little folly

Ti (cabbage) trees, native to New Zealand and in the secret garden area

Winding paths

Alpine house - little bulbs

Camassia

Lotus

Dinner is in Kew near the train station - Antipodea, it is gorgeous - the restaurant is full of plants to continue the theme of gardens - a wall of plants can be glimpsed through a sky light, a tiny hidden passage next to the body of the restaurant is full of leaves. I choose a Vietnamese chicken salad and is fresh and vibrant, whilst Gravel-guy goes for a burger and fries, I enjoy a glass of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and Gravel-guy chooses orangina, we polish off our feast with cherry pie and coconut icecream, delectable.

The mechanics of Tower Bridge

The Old Operating Theatre Museum

Some of the medications...

More treatments

Nursing equipment

The actual operating theatre

Prosthetics

Child's cot

Venosc to Bourg St Maurice

We decide to take a road trip and pull ourselves away from Auris and explore further afield from the charms of the local area. I let Gravel-guy choose where he wants us to go and he wants to possibly explore the area around the Hautes Alpes so we head east, but we are easily distracted and led astray. Down the hill from Auris, we pull into Le Chatian and admire the church. Old and rather lovely, it seems rather grandiose for such a tiny place and then we continue on to the les Deux Alps and then back down the valley and back to the tiny village of Venosc hidden behind and below Les Deax Alpes, a place full of artisans. we push further east to resume our plans for Les Hautes and Valloire.

Isn't this beautiful...

...and more...

Le Chatain on the way down the hill from Auris is adorable - a tiny hamlet, nothing to it basically - no shops of "stuff", no crowds, just a tiny library and this church - maybe there is more tucked away further in the village but gravel-guy has itchy feet. Once he has admired the stone and decided where it is from he is ready to move on. Me, I am lulled into a stupor with the sunshine and gentle hum of the insects, I could stay there all day.

Local church - beautiful and very old

Venosc - full of little artisan shops

Chapel in Venosc

Reluctantly after I am prised away from my ambling about the little church and we head south to Venosc, then back towards La Grave and Valloire. The verdant leafy slopes of the softly wooded valleys give way to more coniferous and tougher landscape, the herbs and grass are no longer so lush and wavy. Flowers are fewer and grass is coarser. Eventually the conifers give way to meadow - but the growth is more wiry and golden than Auris and in the Oisans area... this is an altogether tougher and harsher place. The rocks are crumblier and more friable - great scree slopes flow from the top of the mountains to valley floors. The flowers that are here work harder for their existence, the easy-green of the Oisans has turned its back and retreated from us.

Dammed lake - pretty nevertheless

Changeable landscapes

Would you ever get sick of looking at this? Nope, guess not

It is in this unprepossessing landscape that we reach Lauteret. Lauteret is at the top of a pass (funnily enough the Lauteret pass) and is the site of a botanical garden devoted to alpine plants. Despite it being past the height of summer flowering, the blooms are exquisite. Where the blooms are over, the seed heads are fascinating - they are maybe not so colourful as the flowers, but their shapes and the secret chambers full of seed are like little worlds hidden from easy view full of twisty corners and half glimpsed tunnels and passages.

May not look it - but this landscape is FULL of flowers

Most flowers are nearly over, so the seed heads are starting

Vibrant flowers abound

Shy high umbels

Stunning flowers

Lovely pale yellow sacbious, would love this in my garden

Small shrubby thing

Some sort of larkspur type thing

And some sort of relative of the pea family maybe..

Lovely flowers - bigger than you'd expect at altitude

Tiny but tough...

Scabious - after it has flowered

Lauteret Botanical garden with the mountains in the background, this is an altitude of 2100m

Eventually Gravel-guy tricks me into leaving the botanical delights by suggesting food. We drive on towards Bourg St Maurice - a pretty town and stay in Landry just outside for 2 nights. Bourg St Maurice has that air of quiet contentment, the local street is full of patisserie and bread shops, the humans are like honey bees as they go about their business. We explore the basilica of St Martin in Aime - it is eons old and we are the only people there, it is beautiful. We eat peaches and are covered in juice, sweet sticky juice. Bliss.

Roman foundations, Napoleonic connections, a fabulous wee place

...just a little fresco remains inside

Crypt

Our last day in France, we spend mostly in Annecy. We head there via the back roads - up sleepy valleys and arrive to intermittant showers, but between the fat and luxuriant raindrops the heat still packs a late summer punch. Annecy old town is like the cutest of toy towns - very picturesque and dinky, we eat lunch and by mid afternoon decide to push on towards the airport so we have enough time to explore anything interesting that takes our fancy on the way. We find that "anything" at the Gorges de Feirs. The Gorge is a spectacular limestone chasm with a walkway half way up the wall of the narrow gap which eventually emerges from the shadows into the sunny bleached "sea of rocks". It is lovely, there are information boards at the end of the gorge and Gravel-guy is delighted to find there are a couple of errors - this probably makes his entire trip, their dates are "slightly " wrong. This is sufficient importance for him to "harumph" a couple of times in delight and then to actually take out his phone and take a photo. He is immensely pleased. We get back in the car and travel on to Geneva and its airport.

Old fashioned house

Main river through Annecy

 

 

More Annecy and it's little river...

Poseur

Stunning place

Goodbye France, until next time