August Break Photo 2: Air

So today's theme was 'Air.' Since I am trapped at home with a virus my choices were limited. So I experimented with the air in my lungs and drew a heart in the condensation from my breath on the window pane.

August Break Photo 1: Breakfast

The first August Break photo is up! My breakfast on a very crowded plate! (the plate was purchased by my mother at a car boot sale years ago and somehow I have ended up with it) Does make arranging food very fun :)

The August Break Returns!

The  mindfulness blogger and photographer Susannah Conway is yet again introducing her annual August Break photography challenge and I intend to take part. It starts on 1st August and I have my camera and iPhone ready. Bring on the last month of summer and all the wonderful things I can photograph! :)

To Geek or Not To Geek?

I have a confession to make. It probably won’t come as much of a surprise to my friends…but I am Geek. Yep. I love Science Fiction. I LOVE IT. When I was a child I was obsessed by the genre and I used to dream of traveling through space in a ship exploring new planets and species, usually accompanied by Mr Spock. It started when I was 7, perhaps even earlier. I blame my father. I think I inherited it from him. He has an obsessive streak to him. Once he becomes interested in something it becomes an all-consuming obsession. Whatever it is that grabs him, he does a degree in the subject. He reads voraciously on the themes of his chosen hobby. Or if it is a sport, he practices it repeatedly. At the moment he is taken with drawing and he works at it so hard and for so long that he has ended up producing some gorgeous pieces of art. Most of his chosen hobbies, he has some natural aptitude for. After years of barely picking up a pencil, he has discovered in his retirement that he actually has a previously undiscovered natural talent for drawing. He is naturally graceful and so is good at sports. He is inquisitive and curious so he is drawn to subjects such as philosophy, current affairs and literature. He is also a very good cook and has after much effort managed to produce a great meal without reducing the kitchen to a bombsite. But I have no doubt my father would be fantastic at anything he devoted his time to, regardless of natural ability. He does not play video games but he could probably ace all the levels of Angry Birds in an afternoon if he tried. He does not play a musical instrument, but I am sure after a month he could sufficiently play the guitar or piano and if he fancied giving poetry a try I am sure he would be reciting me his epic work to me over the phone by September. He is obsessive about the things he enjoys but it is more than that. He is persistent. He strives for personal bests and self-excellence. He is a driven man.

Unfortunately I inherited the obsessive streak of my father but none of his persistence or dedication. I fear that I am a lazy creature by nature. Sure I obsessively listen to the same song again and again, just like he used to (he used to love Pachelbel’s Canon – which is, let’s be honest, just one long repeated tune over and over again. It drove my mother mad) and I read all the books I can get on a subject I am interested in just like my father. For him it was ancient Greek philosophy, human rights law or Russian gulags, for me it is feminism, Tudor history, Scandinavia and animal behaviour (not all in the same book of course). We both have an addiction to TV. We can watch hours of it very easily and we both love to Google actors to find out who they are and what happened to them. My father looks up actors from old movies and westerns. I research actresses from science fiction and TV shows. We are alike in so many ways my father and I. We have the same judgemental analytic way of looking at the world, we are both anxious and alarmist, optimistic and yet cynical, vivacious and friendly, loving, honest and fiercely loyal. I even have his dark hair and long large nose. But we differ in one very different way; my father is more driven than I am. He is ambitious. He succeeds and then goes on to excel. I can’t think of a single thing he has failed at. Ever. I envy this part of his personality. I wish that I also possessed it. Perhaps if I had, I would be a published author by now or a professional photographer or a proper oral historian. My achievements are always half-assed. I work in relatively low-level jobs and I have never earned much money. I fear being tied down to any one thing for too long and I struggle to find a single thing to focus on. I always try to do too much. A jack of all trades and a master of none.

Except for one thing. Being a geek. I have always excelled at this. It sort of came naturally to me. I may never have written a science fiction novel but I have read pretty much every one I could find. Name a science fiction TV show or movie and I have seen it. I could tell you all about the characters, their stories and their motivations. It would be my specialist subject on Mastermind. I have just about stopped short at dressing as a science fiction character at a convention, but had I not been distracted by a Classical Studies degree at University, I have no doubt that was the way I was headed. For 3 years I was consumed by Ancient Greek and Roman myth, poetry, history and art. I was Classics-obsessed. And I must admit I did really try at Uni. I worked hard, but not hard enough. I could not apply myself enough in the first year of my course and I always do think I could have done better. People wish they could go back in time to change all sorts of mistakes, but for me I would return to Uni and work harder. I could definitely have spent less time chatting to my flatmates about Lord of the Rings and done more reading on Ancient Greek Ethics. I graduated with a good degree, but I could have graduated with a better one.

It’s not all bad. I have been a faithful friend, an okay daughter and a very loving wife. I do pour my whole heart into making other people happy, so maybe that’s my persistent cause. And if that is all I ever contribute to the world, well, then that is not such a bad thing. So why do I feel frustrated? Why do I always feel like I want to do and be more? Is it a symptom of our modern times that we constantly strive to do and be more? Are we never satisfied? It is definitely a ‘first world problem’ and therein lays the issue. I am a very very lucky woman. I live in a country where I am safe from violence, fear or hunger. I want for nothing. I sleep soundly in my bed at night with no worries about the fate of my family or friends. They also live this charmed existence with me. Sure, we sometimes face illness, bad luck and emotional strife, but we do not need to flee our homes to escape a war or scratch out a meagre living in some dangerous and demeaning profession just to feed ourselves. Our time is not spent struggling to survive. I have all my immediate needs and concerns taken care of, so my restless mind is free to wander. I have copious amounts of spare time, a luxury not awarded to the majority of people living on the planet. I can do whatever I want (within reason obviously! As long as it is legal) and I can spend however long I want doing it. I can be whatever I like and try out anything. ‘The world is my oyster’ as the saying goes.

I met a woman earlier this year. I met her through a friend and on a whim I invited her to my birthday dinner. I was struck by her. She is polite and kind and very friendly. And she is brilliant. She is really talented. She has skills in all sorts of areas and she has applied persistence to her aptitudes and excelled. She was also very modest and she did not crow about her achievements. I liked her immediately and I was inspired by her quiet success. It made me think, I have been taking my freedom and spare time for granted. If I applied my obsessive nature to really doing well at something, goodness knows where it could take me. 

On the few occasions when I have been really persistent and dedicated I have felt a keen sense of achievement when I have met my goal and my fear of failure has just melted away. I once climbed a mountain in the UK with little more than my mind driving me forward and I descended the peak in a rain storm with hail stones the size of golf balls bouncing off me. I sometimes forget it was me that did this. But I was determined at the time, I wanted to know that I could successfully climb the mountain, I wanted that achievement for myself. This summer I surprised my husband by swimming in the Adriatic Sea all by myself. He watched open-mouthed as I took a deep breath, jumped off some rocks, swallowed my fear and a considerable amount of very salty sea water. He was impressed and I felt brave. And ultimately that is what it is all about. Fighting fear. Because underneath the laziness and the lack of persistence is fear. The fear that I will fail. The fear that I won’t be good enough. The fear of what other people will think of me. As a teenager I used to fear people finding out that I was a geek. I thought people would make fun of me for liking science fiction. But to quote from a film (very geeky of me I know): A life lived in fear is a life half lived. And in a life where we don’t have much to fear because we are so lucky, we should not take our good luck and opportunities for granted. So…I am going to go for it. I am going to be fearless, persistent and driven. Oh, and yes, as geeky as I can be.

Broadcast from a Part-Time Fried Chicken Taster...

There has been some significant change in my life recently. After more months of stress than I care to think about, I have left my job and I am about to start on a new one this Monday. My new job will be much more interesting than my last one with more room to be creative and develop. I will also be working with a close colleague who also happens to be a lovely friend so I am massively looking forward to getting started on this new chapter in my life and leaving all the stress of previous experiences behind me. Also, the new job is part-time! Yes! That means 4 days a week during which I will not be working! I know what you are thinking: 'Lazy Arse!' But I can't deny I am ridiculously excited about the prospect of devoting more time to my hobbies. Of course I could never afford to work part-time for the rest of my life, but after more than 10 years of long hard slog in the world of work, I feel depleted, tired and really ready for a change of pace. A different working schedule is just what I need to recharge my batteries and get my creative juices flowing....and..hopefully it will also mean more blogging hours!

So, things I learned this week are:

• A childhood idol of mine died. Yes, I am referring to Leonard Nimoy. Obviously I knew he would die someday and that he was old enough to be my grandfather, but nevertheless when I heard the news I was shocked. I had been watching him on TV since I was 6 years old and he felt like a very permanent part of my imagination while I was growing up. Mr Nimoy had a good life and he had achieved a lot, so really we should celebrate his life as much as we mourn his passing. I started watching Star Trek many years ago and it was the Original Series with Kirk and Spock that I watched the most in those early days. I loved Star Trek and it may sound silly but the show and the characters provided a refuge for me when I felt insecure, anxious or depressed. If I could not fall asleep at night, I imagined walking the corridors of the Starship Enterprise. If I was having a trouble staying calm during an exam, I would ask myself, 'what would Spock do in this situation?' I can't say I am the most logical of people, but the character of Spock was always my favourite and I even had a pair of rubber pointed ears when I was kid and novels about planet Vulcan that I read and re-read. I did feel this was inherently geeky and I can't say I felt comfortable broadcasting my love of science fiction around either my primary or secondary schools, but science fiction and the many stories that accompany the genre have always made me feel excited and happy. Mr Nimoy, although I was aware he was not actually Mr Spock, was inexplicably tied up with the identity of the character and I had read both his autobiographies as a teenager. Of course I did not know the man personally, but from his writing he seemed like a nice person who was kind to co-workers and fans alike. Science Fiction is an unusual genre because it contains such fervent and faithful fans and followers, who care deeply about the source material and are also creative with their own ideas. Science fiction actors have been some of the most fan-focused and pleasant people in the acting world that I have met and read about. This is especially true of Star Trek actors, who take the time to meet fans at conventions, answer fan mail and really get involved in the creative process of building their characters and the Star Trek canon itself. This was very true of Mr Nimoy who helped to build the character of Spock and his famous traits such as the Vulcan Nerve Pinch, the Vulcan salute and the famous Vulcan motto 'Live Long and Prosper'. So from one small long-time scifi fan to Mr Nimoy: Rest in Peace up there among the Stars.

• My husband is on first name basis with his car mechanic and is very fond of him. The fellow does the MOT for my husband's car and is named Bobby. Last year when our car broke down on the way to Cornwall (a mere two hours away from a small town called Marazion), we spent the rest of the journey riding in the front of a recovery truck with a cheerful and very talkative 19 year old rugby obsessive repair man. Later that afternoon when we finally arrived at Marazion, our defunct car was nosily and unceremoniously dumped next to our holiday cottage in full view of 30 or so curious pensioners. We were the talk of the complex of holiday cottages for the entire next week and were forced to have the same repeated conversation with everyone we met about our now useless and smoking car. One of these overly eager pensioners (it is true what they say, people outside London are massively more friendly to strangers) recommended a garage nearby that would be able to fix our car. My husband faithfully called the guy up and he fiddled and tinkled with the vehicle until he assured us it would work. We paid a large amount of money and shakily drove the car on the long journey back to London at the end of the week. Around a week later, the car broke down again. We felt swindled and a bit desperate. Then came the epic task of deciding what to do. Our car is an old car. But we love it. It is small, silver and totally unimpressive, but it is our 'Trusty Steed' and it gets us everywhere we need to go (except for Cornwall apparently). We consulted our parents (both sets), our friends, our work colleagues and everyone had a different opinion: 'trade it in for a new car, sell it, scrap it, repair it, don't pay the money, pay the money for repairs and improvements' etc. Everyone also had even more extreme views about mechanics: 'they cheat you, the break your car even more, they cannot be trusted, they don't pay proper tax, they charge too much' etc. We literally had no idea. Then my husband met Bobby our local mechanic. Talking to Bobby was like having a counselling session and getting your car fixed at the same time. An experienced car mechanic with a trusted business in our local area for many years, he had good online reviews, promised faithfully not to lie or cheat us and he reminded my husband of Tony Blair.....the way Mr Blair had been in early days when he was all about improving the UK and not bombing Iraq. Bobby fixed our car quickly and efficiently, he was honest about the price (which was painful but expected - like an appointment for root canal at the dentist) and he was so nice that all my husband could talk about for a week after was Bobby and his friendly conversation and our fixed car. So it was no surprise that this morning when Bobby called, my husband answered the phone as if we was talking to an old friend. 'See!' he said to me enthusiastically on his way out the door, pleased as punch that the car had passed its MOT, 'It is all about the people. You get the right people, who are good at their jobs and you can always get stuff done.'

• This weekend we are experiencing a heatwave in the UK because of a 'warm wind' that is blowing over our lovely Sceptred Isle that has traveled all the way from the Caribbean. This is nice as it means warmer temperatures and sunnier skies, but I feel as if it is not quite the same thing as being in the actual Caribbean, which I imagine would be a lot more tropical and would involve a cocktail of some sort contained within a coconut shell sipped on a beach while wearing a sarong. Unfortunately doing this on Wandsworth Common in South London on a Saturday would make look like a weirdo.

• Fried chicken, cheese and onion waffles and maple syrup do not make a good dinner. Last night I rode the bus all the way from work in Central London to the funky East End of London to eat dinner with three friends at a new fried chicken restaurant called Bird (http://birdrestaurants.com/). My friend Ashley expressed a worry that perhaps she was not young or cool enough for East London nowadays, something I have long suspected about myself , since I have never been that cool. Everyone in the restaurant could not have been older than 25 and our nice waitress looked like she might actually be 12 years old. I still feel pretty young at heart, so to suddenly find that you are among one of the oldest people in the room is a bit of a disconcerting shock. The couple on the table next to us had fashionable haircuts and cutting edge outfits and halfway through dinner decided to sit laconically on each other's laps oozing East London coolness. Ashley, Charlotte (who could pass off easily as a stylist due to her impeccable fashion sense) and Jen (miles younger than all of us) all studied the menu. After much internal debate, I decided on the two pieces of fried chicken on a cheese and onion waffle with maple syrup. I love waffles, I love meat with sweet sauces and if I could eat maple syrup everyday I gladly would, so I thought this was a good choice. The food arrived promptly, was hot and smelled delicious. Now, when I say that this dish was not a good dinner, it was not because anything was cooked badly. I do not fault the chef or the restaurant. It was just not quite my cup of tea. The chicken was nice, the waffle was nice and so was the syrup but together they made an odd and not entirely pleasant taste sensation. I could not quite cope with the cheese and onion flavour mixed with maple syrup. It seemed to coat my mouth and obliterate any other taste sensation. As I munched away, regretting not ordering something more normal like chicken wings, we listened to a series of loud late nineties and early noughties hits played across the restaurant bringing back memories of teenage dances and years of awkward obsessions with rap singers and pop stars. After a while we felt as if the restaurant staff were not playing these songs simply because they like TLC and The Notorious B.I.G but because they see them as retro hits. Jen, as young as she is, shuddered at the idea of songs from the nineties being retro. How old does that make us? If music we listened to as teenagers is considered retro?

• Speaking of music, while I was in the bright yellow tiled bathroom of the above restaurant gazing at my distinctly yellowed appearance in the mirror while washing my hands in a cool retro-looking sink, I noticed they were playing different music in the toilet than in the restaurant. The song was nice, so I made note of the tune and lyrics and then sang it rather badly in the privacy of my own flat into my SoundHound app on my phone later that night. After several minutes while my high-tech and impressive phone did its mysterious thing, the song popped up in YouTube ready for me to view. It is called 'Budapest' and is by a new artist called George Ezra. I have always been puzzled by people who have a first name as their surname (such as Will Andrew, John Jacob etc) but I am not one to judge, so I gave the song a second listen and I love it! The video sort of makes me think of the daily commute on the London Underground, with everyone crowded in together and I like the sentiment of the song; giving up everything for the person you love.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHrLPs3_1Fs

The other news is that I am gearing up for International Women's Day tomorrow, starting a Scandinavian themed fan club with my friend Ashley, looking forward to two new BBC period drams about to start on TV and eating pea soup for lunch. But more on all that later...

Have a great Saturday one and all!

The Long and Winding, but ultimately confusing, road....

So long time, no write. To be honest I have not felt like writing. Things have been very up and down for me at the moment. I had a brilliant Christmas holiday, spent Christmas Day with my parents (just them and my husband) for the first time in 6 years. We ate, drank and were merry. I spent the whole 2 weeks off (2 weeks of annual leave in a continuous row – what a treat! What a luxury!), reading, watching old films while eating homemade cake, walking in Richmond Park, editing my photos, dancing on New Year’s eve to silly old 90s pop music and listening to Copland’s ‘Simple Gifts’ on Classic FM at the stroke of midnight. With time to spare and nothing to aggravate my mind I found myself to be pleasantly focussed. I cooked meals from scratch, I cleaned whole rooms of the flat efficiently and wrote letters and Christmas cards with care and love. I had no commute, no work, no stress to slow me down or overwhelm my senses and fill my head with little anxieties and busy thoughts.

Then I came back to work. I had such high hopes for 2015. And I still do, but after 4 weeks of continual stress and some unexpected changes in my career, I feel a little disillusioned about the whole ‘New Year, New Changes, Better Things!’ theme that comes with the beginning of every new calendar year. The interesting thing is that I am not the only one who feels this way. I have quite a few friends who are struggling to figure out where in life they are headed. Perhaps when you hit your late twenties, early thirties, you have some sort of life crisis? This morning I heard news that a woman who I once knew a few years ago is pregnant. I am very happy for this woman and I do not begrudge her exciting life change, but I am struck by the timing of this change. This woman once told me that she had a life plan, in fact she told  me in detail exactly what she was going to do when, down to the actual year. She explained her life plan to me after one too many glasses of wine, which I suspect contributed to the new found intimacy she felt in order to confide in me very personal details about her life. I was surprised that she had planned having a baby during a specific year. She had everything worked out, house, career, baby, holidays etc. And so when I heard today that she was pregnant, I was struck at how this was exactly the time she had planned to be pregnant. Her plan apparently seems to be working. I know that she owns at least one property and she has achieved a high position in her career. Perfect timing to have a baby I suppose. I must admit, I little in awe that everything worked out according to her time schedule. Of course, I have no idea what goes on behind closed doors and we should all be careful in assuming that everything is going well for people. We can’t see how they feel on the inside; we don’t know the problems individuals might face that they choose not to share with us. The wisest words someone once said to me were: ‘Don’t compare your ‘inside’ with someone else’s ‘outside.’ And it is true. I should not compare myself to this lady, no matter how fortunate she appears to be from a distance. But her happy news did get me thinking.

Why do we have life plans? Why do we feel that we need to be on a journey to some ultimate destination? In our careers? In our pursuit of property or wealth? Or in the course of a relationship? Most stories are love stories and they end with a wedding or a ‘they lived Happily Ever After.’ But what does ‘Happily Ever After’ entail? Very few stories continue on to show what happens after the wedding, to show the marriage, the cohabiting, the families, the joys and sorrows. I suppose we are on an ultimate journey from birth to death (or from the cradle to the grave), but between those two events (and if you’re lucky) are many many years during which you float with some sort of vague plan, but often you are just…well…’living.’ The problem is, that in today’s world, we are constantly sold this idea that life is a series of planned life stages. You grow up, you go to college/uni, you get a job, you climb the ladder, you get a partner, you get married, you buy a house, you buy a car, you have a baby, you get a dog, you get a promotion, you have another baby and so on….
Films, TV shows, books, social media, even reality TV shows and documentaries portray humans going through journeys that have a start, a middle and an end. At the end of many of these forms of media, characters and people are often irrevocably different than when they started off as if every experience is a journey with some sort of definite conclusion or life-change. There is very little portrayal of people just meandering through life, living in a much more fluid way through experiences that simply just happen to them, some they make happen, some that just appear to be fate. Characters often seem to have an idea of what to do, of how to do it and what to do next. Some of my best friends, who are stunningly clever and creative, exciting people still have no idea what they are doing in life half the time. My mum, a woman who I would be very lucky to turn out like, still questions what to do with her life and she is in her 60s! This is because there are no definite steps in life, no established goals in life that we all must meet, except for the ones that we personally give ourselves or that is dictated to us by society and our culture.

A good friend of mine said to me today that her life plans are all in disarray. She had thought she wanted one thing (to live in the USA) and then when she got it, it turned out not be what she wanted after-all (she moved back to the UK). After several big life changes and house moves, she now feels lost. This is a woman who I admire. She is courageous and brave and very very determined to whatever she sets her mind on, why should she feel constrained by the idea of a particular path she must follow? Perhaps she should be direction-less for a while and see what grabs hold of her by chance or what comes her way through some twist of fate. Another close friend of mine has expressed frustration that all her friends are getting married, buying houses and having babies and she feels stuck behind them in the established planned timeline of the life of a 30 something Londoner. But this woman does not want children yet and she is independent and adventurous and really very satisfied with who she is. Why should she feel like she is stages behind all her friends? We all do things at different times in our lives and sometimes we are just living not constantly striving or deciding.

Recently I got involved in a project to document the oral history of an organisation called WILPF (Women's International League for Peace and Freedom - http://www.wilpfinternational.org/). WILPF was started in 1915 by feminist pacifists during the First World War. They wanted to to study, make known and eliminate the causes of war. They believed that women played an integral part in making war a thing of the past and eliminating conflict worldwide. My part in the oral history project is to interview WILPF members who have had a long involvement with the British arm of the organisation. In the last month I was sent to interview an 85 year old lady who has campaigned for women's rights and against violence, weapons and war for many years. Speaking to her and listening to her had a profound effect on me. Here was someone who lived through the history I studied at school, who had seen things I could only dream about. But also, it was inspiring and encouraging to hear how her life had twisted and turned and gone in one direction or another without her even realising. Her third child was born deaf and so she ended up become an expert in teaching deaf children and then eventually became a social worker who worked with deaf people in the community. At her workplace in social services she met some feminists, who influenced her in their thinking and she became a feminist and then she met some women in her feminist local group who campaigned against nuclear weapons and before you know it she was marching in London and organising international anti-war conferences. See! None of this was a big deliberate plan. But along the way life took hold of her and she was lead from one thing to another. Her story gave me great courage, it made me feel less scared about where I am now and how I have not achieved what I thought I would at 31 years of age, There is still time for me. Who knows where I will go and what I will see and who I will meet.

I have never been good at life planning. I have some sort of idea of what I might like for myself in my future. I would someday like to own my own home, have a baby (maybe two) and enjoy myself raising my children with my husband so that they become lovely young adults. I would like to have photography exhibition, maybe publish some poetry, master a full chin-up and learn to dance the Lindy Hop. I want to see the sunrise while sitting on a beach and mashing the sand between my toes. Doesn't really matter which beach, I just think it would be magical. Someday I would like to have a pet cat or a little dog that I can throw a ball for in the local park. I want to learn how to make my own pinhole camera and develop my own funny photos in a dark room. Someday I would like to plant flowers and veg in a communal garden or paint in an art studio. I would like to join a choir and sing silly cheerful songs and maybe someday make a difference to just one person’s life, to help them in some way, so that they are better after knowing me than they were before. I really want to make my husband proud to call me his wife.

All of these things are goals. But they are hazy goals, like a landscape viewed through steamed up glasses. More hopes and ideas. Dreams even. I am careful not to project too clearly and precisely on to the future, because that can lead to specific expectations and ultimately disappointment. We probably should all have some idea where we might be headed, but life does not come to us in a series of steps on that uphill climb of a staircase to justified success. The danger is, that if we expect that things, ‘should’ be a certain way, then we expect that our children ‘should’ be this or our partners ‘should’ be that. People change like Life does, they flow forward and back, up and down and your relationship with them is as much a winding road as your own life is.

So I don't have much of a plan and any plan I did have is kind of in flux at the moment anyway. I literally have no idea what the future holds and to be honest sometimes I wonder how I got here. I have a photo in a picture frame of my grandfather holding me as a baby in Japan and when I look at it I wonder how that happy chubby little baby with the big smile and the woollen onesie turned into me as I am now. Complicated, adult, anxious, always thinking. I guess that is what growing up is. And its not all that bad. I may not follow a specific plan, but I have had a good life. And all the little experiences along the way have been worth the time I took to focus on them, rather than how I had not reached some arbitrary goal or step that it was expected I should have reached at that point in my life. So I am throwing caution to the wind and in February, I am just going to see where life leads me on....

Remember Remember...to..check for Hedgehogs!

My handiwork with whiteboard pens at work this week.

After yesterday's rather serious post, I woke up exorcised of my working-week-demons and felt splendid this morning. I do love Saturday mornings in bed listening to Classic FM and contemplating my two days of free time. It's the weekend! The WEEKEND!!! Let's have some fun!

This week London has been ablaze with firework displays throughout the city and the constant soundtrack of explosions has commenced each night since Monday as soon as the sun goes down each evening. Yep, it is Bonfire Night! Otherwise known as Guy Fawkes Night, the night that commemorates Mr Fawkes' failed attempt to blow up Parliament (and the King) in 1605. Sadly for Guy Fawkes, the endeavor did not go well for him and he ended up being caught, hung, drawn and quartered a year later (luckily this is not how we treat our criminals nowadays). Obviously most of this is glossed over when families take their kids to bonfire parties in local parks and we all gaze into the night's sky and ooh and aah over big firework displays organised by the various city councils. Tonight my husband and I will be attending the big Battersea Park fireworks display and I am very excited. I love fireworks. I just adore them. I go all wide-eyed, mouth hanging open and silent with wonder when viewing a display of rockets and catherine-wheels. I actually quite like fire (not in an illegal arsonist sort of way) and I love a big bonfire. I am always mesmerised by street performers that juggle with fire or blow fire outwards using those stick fire implements and gasoline. I actually knew someone once who set fire to his own face while doing one of those tricks and although I knew that I should not be impressed with such stupidity, I was ashamed to admit I was kind of in awe of him. I called him the 'Fire-eater' from then on, which I think he really liked.

Anyway, Bonfire Night actually takes place on 5th November (not today). But each year it has got more and more elaborate and the firework displays have got bigger and bigger and the celebration has lasted over days and then sometimes over a week or two (and extending from the fireworks popping in people's gardens over Halloween and Diwali the month before), which all means a time period of at least a month during which it sounds like suburban London is under attack. This does not bother me that much but it does bother my mother, who finds it all a bit tiresome after a week or two and then there are the millions of cats and dogs in London who don't understand the reason for fireworks and hate the sound of screeching and popping rockets. One of my husband's friends, who is partially sighted and owns a guide-dog (named Elvis), spends most of Bonfire Night awake as Elvis, a heavy dog (he is part Labrador, part Alsatian, which makes for an interesting guide-dog mix), sits on his head out of fear and stress from all the fireworks going off outside, while he is in bed during the night. This means little sleep for Elvis' owner. When I was a child, my pet cats used to creep about hunched close to the ground, mewing pitifully on Bonfire Night. If I picked one of them up, they would burying their head in my armpit in attempt to muffle the noise of the explosions. I did used to feel very sorry for them. No amount of reassurance, cuddling or petting ever made them feel better. It is not just pets that suffer at this time of year. I read in the news that wildlife charities were asking people to check their bonfires for hedgehogs, since they like to reside in dense wood and foliage.

Illustration by Sophie Corrigan
http://www.sophiecorrigan.com/

The British Hedgehog Preservation Society says:

Every year an unknown number of hedgehogs die or suffer horrific injuries because bonfire piles are not checked before being lit. To save hedgehogs and other wildlife from appalling suffering the British Hedgehog Preservation Society (BHPS) urges that bonfires should not be built until the day they are to be lit. This will not only save wildlife from burning to death but will also stop the bonfire from getting soaked should it rain the night before! Fay Vass, Chief Executive of BHPS, said “Piles of bonfire material look like five star hotels to a hedgehog in search of a hibernation site. It is crucial to dismantle and move bonfire material that has been stored in advance on open ground. Move it to another spot just before lighting. Ensure it’s moved to clear ground - never on top of a pile of leaves as there could be a hedgehog underneath, and not too close to pampas grass which can ignite very easily and is another favourite spot for hedgehogs to hide under.”

So check your bonfires people! There is no need for local wildlife to suffer simply for our pleasure.

So other than enjoying the local firework displays, lately I have been up to the following:

• Knitting! I am attempting to knit again. This time I am actually going to make something useful. I have started like all crappy knitters with the most simple thing I could find: a scarf! I am using a nice bright yellow chunky wool and 10mm needles and hopefully I will end with a nice scarf that I can wear with my new navy blue wool winter coat. I sort of need to get a move on though because the days are getting shorter, the weather is getting colder and I will need a woolly scarf very soon!

My yellow scarf in chunky wool

• I successfully helped my husband buy a new winter coat. This might not seem like such an achievement, but trust me it is an event with massive implications for years to come. My husband hates shopping. He hates it like he hates going to the dentist to have his teeth cleaned or driving on the circular road that encircles Tunbridge Wells. Getting my husband to buy new clothing is probably one of the biggest trials I have ever experienced. It is up there in my list of unpleasant experiences with de-boning a week old rabbit carcass and squeezing the suet off a lamb's liver on Christmas eve to make a seasonal pie (biggest mistake ever). So when we managed to buy a coat that is not only stylish and warm but also looks fantastic on him in less than 30 minutes of shopping, I felt as if shop assistants should come out of the aisles of clothing with party poppers, a brass band and celebratory glass of champagne. Who would have thought it was possible! Best part of the whole experience? Watching my husband walk down the street in his new coat feeling good about himself and his appearance (which is hard for anyone in this day and age) with an extra spring in his step! 

• I have fallen in Love with Sir David Attenborough all over again. Not that my love for this nature journalist has ever gone away, but it has been a while since he did a documentary series for the BBC and he is back! The new series that he narrates is called Life Story and follows some the unbelievable journeys that animals have to make through life lived in the wild.

It it s a great series full of amazing camera work and lots of interesting species I knew nothing about. There are some hair-raising moments such as the cliff jump made by Barnacle Goose goslings in Greenland:

You have to wonder if mother nature could not have made things a bit easier for this species! David Attenborough's voice is so perfect for wildlife documentary television that I wish he could do all documentaries on everything. In fact I wish he made tapes of him reading poetry so I could play them while falling asleep. He could even do the announcements on buses and London Underground. I seriously think everyone would be a lot less stressed if he did.

• In the last month I have also started to listen to some new music. Lately I have been listening to a new band called London Grammar. My favourite song of theirs is called 'Strong.'

So the video is a tad weird. A father and daughter engage in some highly dangerous and flammable behaviour in what looks like an industrial estate for no apparent reason (something I would definitely would not recommend adding to your Bonfire Night festivities), but the song is really nice and relaxing and works a treat at keeping my blood pressure down on the Northern Line tube during rush hour. 

Anyway enough rambling! There is knitting to be done! Fireworks to view! Tea to be drunk! Have a good Saturday night everyone, wherever you are :)