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 :)

The Friday Video

Ever felt like you were being watched by someone or something? This Friday's Video is centred on that theme....

Researchers set up camera.

Kitty discovers camera.

The cat is a Pallas Cat, a wild feline that lives in Central Asia.

Happy Independence Day!

So today is the 4th July! American Independence Day! The 4th July is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain. This is an interesting day amongst my circle of family and friends since I am married to a British royalist and I am the child of American republicans who adopted Britain as their home about 20 years ago. Personally I don't believe in empires, so hey, I will celebrate the independence of a nation escaping from the clutches of another one, situated across a giant ocean. Plus it means we get to eat hot-dogs and watch fireworks on the internet. On the other hand I have not in recent years been particularly impressed with America's foreign policy or military decisions so I am not sure I want to applaud the US' day of self-congratulating. And the American idea of 'freedom' does not sit all that well with me either, since essentially, I am really a socialist and believe in such schemes as higher taxation, state-funded healthcare and state-subsidised higher education and state-run transport. So perhaps I should shun the idea of celebrating American values. I supposed I have to wonder what the Founding Fathers would think of today's America. If the country turned out how they would have liked it to?

My facebook feed this morning is dominated by friends one either side of the great pond. British people jokingly put up photos of the British Queen dismissing the US and Americans post memes of the American Bald Eagle smugly declaring his freedom. All of it is very good natured. Even the Welsh tourist board has wished Americans everywhere a happy independence day mentioning:

Did you know one of the memorial stones on the Washington Monument is inscribed with the Welsh words:

“Fy iaith, fy ngwlad, fy neghenedl, Cymru – Cymru am byth”
“My language, my land, my nation, Wales – Wales forever.”

It is said that 20 per cent of the Pilgrim Fathers of America were Welsh and that almost 50 per cent of the signatories to the American Declaration of Independence were also Welsh or of Welsh heritage. And right there is the reason why I should celebrate Independence Day. Because no matter what state the US is in today, it is still one of the largest countries in the world to embrace other cultures and rejoice in the diversity of its own population. Many national monuments or works of art in the US were built to showcase the mixed heritage of the nation. Just think of the Statue of Liberty welcoming immigrants entering the US from Ellis Island in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The statue, built and designed by the French, is of a robed female figure representing Libertas, the Roman goddess of freedom, who bears a torch and a tabula ansata (a tablet evoking the law) upon which is inscribed the date of the American Declaration of Independence. A broken chain lies at her feet. The statue is an icon of freedom and of the United States. In 1984, the statue was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The UNESCO "Statement of Significance" describes the statue as a "masterpiece of the human spirit" that "endures as a highly potent symbol—inspiring contemplation, debate and protest—of ideals such as liberty, peace, human rights, abolition of slavery, democracy and opportunity." The Declaration of Independence itself contains one of the most fantastic sentences ever written in human history: 

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

And if you ask me, aside from just an excuse to eat a large hot-dog and blue, white and red food colouring in a cupcake, an ideal such as all men (and women!) being created equal  is a great reason to celebrate Independence Day. Because the founding principles of the United States of America are still important and relevant today. If only the US government could adopt free healthcare for all and pass stricter gun control laws....sigh...

Anyway, let's lighten up the tone of this post with a photo of a patriotic hamster:

Enjoy your day Folks!

The Mammoth Berry

Long time, No write! And I'm back from outer space and on cyberspace yet again with today's blog entry. I have been very busy recently recovering from a chest infection (bleugh! cough! splutter!) and applying for new jobs. I got an interview recently and after some careful consideration, they gave me the job! So in two weeks I will be going to work near the Strand in Central London for a famous University! I am very excited. I cannot wait to start the new job and go to the free public lectures on campus, peruse the local coffee shops, student library and the comfy staff room. I am hoping that this new position will allow me to have a better/work life balance and give me the opportunity to spend more time amongst like-minded people and perhaps even do a course or two at the surrounding colleges.

It is weird to leave my current job though. After three and half years, I only have to give a month's notice and then, bam! I am gone! So I am trying to condense a whole 3 years worth of knowledge into a simple 1 month handover for my colleagues. My whole team are acting quite nonchalant about me leaving, but I do detect some hints of panic under their calm exteriors. I do a lot of work for my team and the students and I am sure I am just a small replaceable cog in a big machine, but in my time at the Business School I do think I have made my mark as a valuable employee. The problem with many workplaces is that they don't make enough of an effort to keep their lower level staff and so they have problems with staff retention and high employee turnover. Sure you can hire another Administrator/Secretary/Receptionist any time you need to. It is an employer's market, there are so many young people out there wanting and needing jobs. But it takes time and money to recruit, hire and train new staff and in the meantime the current staff are run ragged by doing extra work and cover other people's jobs. I have seen it time and time again. Companies losing people who are especially good at their jobs because employers refuse to invest enough in their staff.

I learned a lot working for the Business School. I appreciate the opportunities that were given to me here and the friends I have made, but so much of my life, dreams and ambitions were put on the back-burner in favour of work. I had complained about the lack of work/life balance to my current employers many times and my concerns had always fallen on deaf ears. After one particularly bad month this Spring, I decided it was time for me to move on. And so moving on is what I am doing. I am eternally grateful to my family and friends for supporting me during this time and giving me the confidence boost I needed to believe in myself. I always felt I never fitted in at work (not in all my previous jobs, but I felt ill at ease in this one particularly) and sometimes when you don't feel as if you fit with the culture around you, you can lose confidence in yourself. 

So I'm off! And I am already making a set of new resolutions for my new workplace and all sorts of plans of how I want to develop my hobbies outside of work! 

Anyway, other things that have happened in my life recently are.....

• Today I ate a Pimm's Trifle. This may not sound like news. But it is. Big news. The catering company on campus had a small food extravaganza based on the theme of Wimbledon. I have no interest in Wimbledon. I enjoy playing the occasional bout of tennis, but I have never really enjoyed watching it on TV, so the tournament holds little excitement for me (sorry Dad!). But food? Now FOOD is something I can get excited about! Photographing food? I get even more excited! Check out the photos below:

Check out that smoked Salmon!

The catering staff very kindly sold me a Pimm's Trifle (I love a bit of custard, cream, cake sponge and jelly) and gave me three huge strawberries. I have never seen strawberries so big!

Of course I immediately took loads of photos with the strawberry in my hand to show the size of the summer strawberries. For scientific reasons of course. To give perspective.

See the size of this thing? I could practically use it as a weapon and throw it at people. Not that I did that. This beast of a fruit went straight in my belly.

• Anyway, moving on....my husband and I have decided to get a cat. Not any time soon (our landlord won't let us and we might want to have kids in the next few years before we adopt an animal), but having both been raised with pets, we mutually decided recently that one day we will own a cat. I have yet to persuade my husband to agree to a little dog, but I have faith that if I persevere over many years, I will eventually get him to agree to a little mongrel. I will name the cat Athena and the dog Totoro. I would just love to return home from a long hard day's work, put my feet up with a cup of tea and stroke a pet that comes to sit on my lap. Someday, someday.....

• I have started listening to whole load of new music on my commute to and from work. My favourite at the moment is Ben Howard. I especially like his song 'Old Pine.' He sings about camping in the summer and the trees and I find it really peaceful when I am squished on a crowded tube train or answering emails in the office.

• So while I listen to Ben Howard on the train, I am also currently reading a really great book called The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin.

Gretchen Rubin is a writer living in New York who decided to do an experiment of trying to improve/increase her happiness levels over the course of a year. I have only read the first two chapters but I have already got lots of ideas on how I can make myself happier. She makes it clear that the project was not about making her go from unhappy to happy. She is already relatively happy in life, the point of the experiment is to boost her happiness so that she hits the top of her range of contentedness. I especially like the idea of this theory. I want to be as content as I can be in life!

• Oh and last but not least. I recently celebrated my birthday. I turned the ripe old age of 31. No wait, I mean I celebrated turning 25 again for the 6th year in a row! My birthday was an interesting experience but that is a post for another day..... 

It is the end of the week and this is what I am gonna do...

Straight to Bed Gif

Mid-Week Video: Saturday Morning Musical Pain

It is that time again! The middle of the week. And what better way to get over the 'hump' that is Wednesday, than with a mid-week video. This week I have chosen a film made by a long suffering father, over a 3 month period, showing his average Saturday morning with his young daughter. The father is at home with his youngest child while his wife takes the eldest to her weekend dance class. Obviously the younger daughter also wants to dance....to the most annoying music..ever...made.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0n2iE3FikJ0

Awwww, Dads! Don't we just love our fathers. They have had to put up with so much throughout our lives. Bless 'em!

NB: the father is deliberately pulling bad tempered expressions to make the video funnier.