Still, Mustn't Grumble

It’s the Olympics and everyone (rephrase: everyone in the media) is getting terribly excited about the World’s Greatest Sporting Event and, let’s face it, one of the world’s biggest events.  Just to remind you that it happens once every four years and was last in London way, way before my lifetime and probably won’t be there again whilst I’m alive.

Again, the world’s biggest and greatest sporting event is starting in London and it’s on for 3 weeks.  The person interviewed on the news this morning was just totally typical of the soul destroying, dust grinding, jaw clenching, constant, oh so constant irritations of the UK health and social system.  I say HSS because the person interviewed afterwards didn’t work in that milieu and was cheery and positive. Oh this woman moaned....

Reminder -  GREATEST EVENT for THREE WEEKS ONCE A LIFETIME! 

She worked in Newham as a Mental Health Worker and lived in Brixton, she cycled to work so had no travel disruption. The reason that she was totally fed up with the Olympics and wished London had never got it was....... some meetings had been postponed until after the Olympics, and some clients had difficulty getting in. I’m not even going to go into locality of clients (for those who don’t know, Newham is not large) and the mental health benefits of walking. Errh, which bit of GREATEST EVENT EVER!!!! aren't you getting?? And to think I had to put up with the constant mental rubbing of this sort of attitude every day.

Oh the marvellousness of living in a culture that encourages positivity. We had a whole lot from Proverbs last night and this just shows – ‘A cheerful look brings joy to the heart’. ‘Pleasant words are a honeycomb,  sweet to the soul and healing to the bones’, and ‘A cheerful heart is good medicine,’

Still, mustn’t grumble.

I think there's something happening out there

About 8 years ago, I was walking from my flat in Shepherd’s Bush to work and realised that it was late May and I hadn’t notice Spring. 3 years ago I walked in the bit of Epping Forest near work and there were about 3 species of grass, daisies, dandelions and 2 other flowers, in 2 miles. Oh a few trees, about 5 species.  Even Horsenden Hill hasn't that much diversity, though Perivale Wood is better.

One of the best things about holidaying in the summer house here was the smell.  You just have to be here, but the upper notes of the pines in the sunshine, the earth and the damp vegetation with the occasional doft of the wild flowers and fruits. It’s just unbelievable and I could have spent all my time just breathing... (Ed – errrh, is there something you should be telling us?  Alien lifeform perhaps??).

London dulls things: you train yourself not to see, not to smell, not to notice anything but where the best restaurants and bars are, who is the next celebrity. You forget that in the winter, the only colours are black, gray and white, with splashes of diamond, gold and burgundy.  There is no smell or sound in the forest when the temperature is  -15C.   Here, you are cut off, bundled up and turn in to yourself and your home, where the family and noise of the house make cooking smells the best and the colour comes from the lights in the windows, the curtains, the pictures and the people.

The wait for spring is palpable. As the snow melts, the landscape turns amber, brown, chestnut, russet, chocolate and tan. There are elusive wafts of damp earth and musk.  Then a film of green. Suddenly the grass is out and the stars have fallen under the trees.  The wood anemones dapple the ground under the deciduous trees and are everywhere.  As the temperature rises the smell comes back, gradually, not to scare us and the birds start singing.

Then the full scale assault of late spring and early summer starts.  Quite frankly, you need ear plugs for the bird song. The sun comes down in all the meadows as great drifts of dandelions fill the countryside.  There is barely time to draw breath before the lupins start.  A Monet painting is as nothing, a pale shadow of colour. Every one is a different colour and are framed by the Queen Anne’s Lace frothing all over the place.   As for going for a walk! Every step is filled with pleasure, “oh look there’s some Lily of the Valley, and some blue things, and some more blue things and some other pink stuff.” How many grasses are there, for goodness sake! Not to mention sedges and other straggly things.   Fields of sorrels turning every shade of red.

After that, things settle down in high summer.  There are many more types of flower, but they are more restrained, less “look at me”, just so many of them and then again you can spend more time eating than walking. Blueberries, wild strawberries, wild raspberries and then the lingon (cowberry), though the last can only be eaten in jam stuff, to be fair. And the smell!  Just totally and utterly gorgeous.  The feeling of lying on a little beach with the whisper of the breeze in the birches, the scent of the pines and the lapping of the water, with a few birds chirping away and the sun on your skin –ahhhhh.

Then autumn.  Mushrooms, earth, the smell of the burning wood, the feel of wool against the skin, the hunt and the golds and brunettes of the woods and fields bring you down the the glistening, soft whiteness of the first snow and shutdown.

Anyway, it’s not that you’re not going to notice! No chance of missing that lot.  In fact, sometimes, because I hadn’t had any time away from London and work for about 2 years, I had to come in and bury my head under a quilt because it all was a bit too much for my poor senses.

To quote my friend BA “why do you want to come here, it’s just a load of trees”.....

The proving of the bil

Oscar, my first car, was due his MOT, so I dutifully booked him in via the internet, as I’m terribly modern. We duly made our way 20km away , down the motorway, downer the big long hill into Jönköping and downest into the factory/warehouse region that housed the MOT centre.  After booking into the automachine in the somewhat scruffy unmanned office on the side, I waited with an old lady in the shade.  We exchanged a few ‘lovely weather’ comments and the registration plate number came up on the large board outside.  I, with it has to be said, with much trepidation, drove into the large garage area, got out and went to the coffee machine.  Oscar was hooked up to tubes, wires and general gubbins and the mechanics set to.  About 7 minutes later, much in the manner of a doctor coming to tell someone they had only a week to live, the mechanic came into the waiting area and said that the brake cables were gone and they were going to have to fail Oscar and I wouldn’t be allowed to drive away.  Well!  I was a bit taken aback to say the least.  However, common sense prevailed and sanity returned.

The little old lady gave me a lift to the station, bless her and I caught the bus 2 hours later back to Bottnaryd, where I happened to meet a neighbour  and cadged a lift back.  The marvellous BA and his family came to the rescue, despite going to a festival that evening and Graham and Jacob went to tow the car back to the garage at Bottnaryd last night.  I mused on the wisdom of going somewhere in flipflops and driving shoes that were no good for walking and mismatched clothes that were unsuitable for walking or display in town.  I will always now present a suitable image, no matter where I go and also be prepared to walk several miles.

Graham and I went there this afternoon to see what we could get sorted and found the garage was shut for July.  Hummmm, we’ve only got 4 weeks to get it sorted.  This could be fun.

(bilprovening = MOT)

Annual Outing - Part II

Midday came and went as we wended our way through the countryside, passed the crane’s lake, some barrows that could have housed trolls and wights, but didn’t.  Just as well really as they make a terrible mess.  In the middle of rolling countryside was a house, a soldier’s humble house, painted red and lonely on the side of the mountain.  It was surrounded by landscaped gardens and enormous barn and extensions housing a theatre, museum, baked goods shop and several banqueting halls.   I do believe that there was also a family house somewhere there as well.  We sat down and looked at each other, then at the hair of the hostess and sat in rapt admiration of the colour and set, which combined with the heels and organisational skills was absolutely awesome. Jet black beehive flick – fabulous.  It just set us up for lunch of salads and mixed fish gratin.  And then.....

Another groups of mostly women came in, some bearing knitting needles.  Well! Sorry, but there’s only room for one handcraft group in this hall.  There was muttering, there was murmuring, there was rummaging in bags. I was just about to whip out my 0.15 crochet hook when proof came that there was a God of peace.  Lo, a family group came in with the teenage daughter wearing a waistcoat of such 1970’s crochet spectacularness that we all laid down our needles in homage.  Oh, it was lurid, it was clashing and masterly in its execution.  We had our cake and left in silence, musing on the way that life could have gone.

So we rolled on.

I was convinced that this would now be our last stop. After all, how much more excitement could a body take? We turned up at a such cute house with a huge, huge extension.  It was the home of an artist with an extremely long suffering wife.  He collects. Everything. I mean, everything. He’d also just bought up an old grocery shop – everything in the shop, everything! It was fascinating how much stuff could be fitted into one extension, and as he was a TV personality too, E had arranged for him to speak to us as a special treat.  Little did I know what horrors awaited.  We went into a room as requested and stood waiting for him. I knew something was amiss when he positioned himself in a chair in the doorway. My gaze gradually took in the contents of the shelves around the room, my eyes grew wider and wilder. The chap himself then took my gaze. Yes, there were the sandals; and the socks; and the jumper; and the beard and........ the accordion.  I was in a room with millions of accordions and someone was about to play! Now I know why he sat in the door, it was to cut off our escape route – Arghhhhhh. 

As he played and anecdoted, my horrified gaze rested on the rest of the audience, but there was no rest to be had.  They were smiling, and nodding to the ‘music’. He was a master of the instrument, but we all know what price there is to pay for such a thing.

I applauded with the rest of the poor lost souls, just because it was damn good manners to do so, then escaped past the watercolours  and tottered into the sunshine to be revived by the sight of a chestnut horse being ridden under the wild cherry trees with marshmarigolds lining the  green lane.

Off we rolled down a little valley, with the cutest houses complete with sheep and random hanging fox corpses. We stopped for coffee when the valley broadened out into the graves.  There were literally millennia of them.  Thousands from various stages of history, it was so the place to be buried. Unless you were modern and died either in the last few hundred years or are intending to die. Why it’s gone out of fashion after thousands of years is beyond my understanding. I blame the young people of today, no sense of history, humph.

And on we rolled!  Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was a woman in a little town who decided to collect embroidered wall hangings. Absolutely everyone in the entire country had at least one and of course, there were popular motifs and verses.  It was absolutely the best when something original come up.  Folk art at its best in my opinion.  Then someone made the mistake of asking the person in charge of the exhibition questions.  Once again I was left reflecting on the graciousness, manners and kindness of these sewing women. The teenager ‘in charge’ didn’t have a clue about anything, personally I doubt she would have been able to give her full name, and I would have ripped her to shreds, but everyone listened to her read (badly) the sheet she found in a drawer and thanked her for her time.  I am sooooo bad and she is now no doubt a better person.

After all the excitements  and as it was getting really quite late (translation for Londoners – late afternoon), we agreed that it was now time to wend our way homewards, replete with cheeses, cakes and coffee, images of cherries and primroses.  And I won a breadbasket in the bus ticket lottery. Result. Roll on next year!

Musings

How is it possible to go for a nap with a cold on Monday and get up on Thursday feeling that you've gone through a mangle?

How is it possible that in 3 days, the weeds grow at least 10m, whilst the other plants just die a bit more?

How can the ironing pile grow without having done any washing?

Where do dust bunnies come from? 

Is summer over yet?

just liked this.

Annual Outing - Part I

Goodness, when the Bet Sewing Mafia do their annual outing, they don’t cut corners or do anything by halves.  It’s such good value for money that this account has to be cut in two or it’ll be an epic saga in it’s own right. 

Part I

It was a cold and gray day in mid May. My loins were girded, my faithful enchanted travel bag (Cath Kidson carrier) held firmly in one hand, emptied of all but cash and a few useful items, axe, dragon eggs and so on.  And so I waited at 8 of the clock at the gate of entry to the forest.  The intrepid E, he of the uber-Swedeness, was driving our plucky, yet strangely comfortable for a saga, carriage which in the dim light was seen to be packed with sewing heroines from all necks of the local woods.  Naught but the dauntless leaders knew where we were going (and E of course), so the excitement and ferment were fermenting.

Dauntless we rallied forth to the first adventure, which was a dairy outside Fälkoping.  Twas the stuff trendy London dreams were made of, peradventure the weather was pants.  The rain slew near, the wind howled about the heads of the Valkyries as they gathered sedately under the apple trees.  There was no gainsaying the cheese sampling and and our souls were purchased as we recklessly streamed to the shop and were enchanted into having seconds. 

Forthwith, the gallant E braved the highways and byways, strewn with wild cherries, cowslips and ostrich homesteads. (yeah, ostrichs! And!!) and henceforth the bold Valkyries entered the Alphem Aboretum. After slaying the dragons at the entrance, we had coffee and cake as our just reward.  Mead, though the stuff of legends, is filled with devilish poison and saps the strength of the brave, so is not to be borne by the true warrior. (they’re like teetotal, whatever, dude).  And so, after gazing with raptness at the beauty created from the blasted heath (and the like, totally cute small house thing), we pondered the lesson that although you can teach yourself to read and drag yourself up from a backwoods small holding to be one of the world’s experts in tree growing, you too will die. That and when on an adventure, t’is best to have warm and sturdy foot coverings.

And so the noon sun rolled out and twas with upfilled hearts that the valiant band wended its way towards the midday meal and our next battle...... to be continued...