Fade out.....

I moved my stereo back downstairs into the living room. Even rearranged to find the perfect spot for it. I am wending my way through my CD collection, dusting off old favourites (I've been mainly existing on my mp3 collection using the laptop. It's not the same). I feel so much better.
I've noticed that there are those songs that I have carried with me, and those that, when I hear them now, transport me back vividly to a particular time or moment. There were a lot of teenage Radiohead moments! I'm sure most people had them!
'Phew, for a minute there I lost myself' was my mantra. I was 17/18, studying to get my grades for university, and waitressing 3 or 4 times a week. I carried that lyric with me written on a postcard. It used to be my reminder, my cue to stop, to reflect, to put things back into perspective. I'd forgotten. Maybe I should have it tattooed along my arm.
I want a record player.

Remember, Spring swaps snow for leaves

So that's January behind us, and onto February, my very least favourite month of the year. It's a month of waiting, and hoping; Winter has been upon us for seemingly ages, it must be Spring soon....look there are the first green shoots from the bulbs I planted, and buds on the trees....and then suddenly it's bloody freezing again!

I also seem to have failed on most of my new year's resolutions already but I'm going to put that down to them being vastly over-ambitious and instead of giving up am scaling them down a bit :-)

On the plus side, it's a quiet time of year and we are using the mainly empty weekends to plod on with working on our house. The kitchen floor may be finished this weekend! That must have been one of my resolutions, surely, to get the kitchen finished?! I'm also spending free evenings knitting again and researching ideas for the garden.

As the garden begins to wake up I am getting excited about getting out there and starting the long (and possibly expensive) process of shaping it into the garden in my head. I bought a load of seeds (mainly annuals which hopefully will self-seed in later years) ready for planting in Spring - I even collected some of our aquiligea seedheads last autumn to harvest the seeds (thanks for the tip Carol Klein!)

My head is full of ideas for raised beds, perfect colour palettes for the borders that will be overflowing with flowers, for veg plots, herb planters, native hedgerows, pleached fruit trees, ponds, herring-bone paths and cobbled circles.... too many ideas for a relatively small garden probably! I'm learning to try to scale back my ambitions, at least to tackle things one small task at a time and realise that my dream garden will be years in the making (or should I say growing) - The first task will be to fix up some trellis for the clematis & honeysuckle that has overwintered in the cold frame. The second will be to find homes for all the bareroot plants which were supposed to be lying dormant in pots in our tiny boxroom, in fact they're mostly sprouting like mad! Of course there's plenty of room for them but first we justneed to dig out some more beds, dig up the root systems of some quite large and very ugly shrubs, and move rather a lot of boulders.....see, breaking it down into small, easy tasks. Hmmmm.

Is it just me or is it dark in here?

Hello blog. Have I really not written anything here for almost a year? What happened? Everything is covered in dust and it smells a bit funny.....*goes to open the windows*. Fresh air, that's a bit better.

Leaving for the Netherlands in about twenty minutes time. Really excited about seeing old friends, they're the kind we clicked with the first time we met...why do those kinds of friends always seem to live so far away?

Bye bye blog. I'll be back soon...I promise.

January Girl

So that's 2010 out of the way. Phew. Definately a swings and roundabouts kind of a year. Well aren't they all?

This year seems to be filling up with plans already. Another trip to Ireland, although much briefer than the last. A mini tour. Reunions. Festivals. Another wedding (not ours!) A proper summer holiday with a beach and a stack of books. Lots of DIY.

It's the time of year where we're supposed to make resolutions. The trouble is that the only resolution I want to make in early January is that I will imitate a hedgehog by curling up in a warm corner and not emerging until Spring. So I tend to leave 'I will change my life' type vows until I feel a Spring-like warmth on the back of my neck one morning and I feel a rush of energy and motivation (maybe I'm solar powered). Only then I look forward, begin to dream and hope and plan.

For me, this quiet, dark time once the excitement of Christmas is over and the decorations are back in the loft, the deep breath before the rush and babble of Spring, is one for reflecting and remembering. Memories that raise a smile and those that bring a tear. But I'm lucky, the teary ones are all intrinsically linked to the smily ones.

Summer Moved On

October has brought an Indian Summer. It's been an eventful few months. Buying a house is one of the most stressful things I have ever done. But now we have a forever home that, although it looks as if it has been decorated by an army of grannies wielding anaglypta, wallpaper borders and purple paint, and despite the fact that it is going to take a lot of effort and probably quite a lot of saving to get it to look how we want it to, is starting to feel like ours. And we have a garden.
Between the solicitor wrangling, sorting and throwing away, packing, furniture buying, unpacking, cleaning and other necessary evils that come with finding a forever home, we also threw in a hectic schedule of weekends away, gigs, day trips. The highlight of which was End of the Road Festival. The whole experience was almost like some glorious dream! After days of rain I was starting to dread the idea of 4 nights camping but we were blessed with almost constant sunshine. We had rain during a few nights when we were tucked up in sleeping bags but the only time I got wet was for ten minutes during Iron & Wine (he was playing The Trapeze Swinger at the time so it could’ve rained frogs and I wouldn’t have cared!) and when I voluntarily stuck my head under the tap instead of queuing for showers!!

We saw some amazing sets – the Mountain Goats & Wilco lived up to all my expectations; the Unthanks played gorgeous traditional Northumberland folk, and threw in some clog dancing; Caribou kept me dancing until the early hours; Joe Pug, Deer Tick, Phosphorescent, Wintersleep, Caitlin Rose, the Low Anthem, Modest Mouse all wonderful! Dylan Le Blanc is a great young singer-songwriter (I'm ordering his album really soon), he played a secret set at 1am in the morning then I caught him again opening the main stage on the last day. The Felice Brothers were rowdy and great fun and really got the crowd going and singing along. I think that the Mountain Goats and Iron & Wine were my highlights though; we were right at the front singing along for both and they are both such intense and mesmorising performers. But apart from all the music there was so many other things going on! We sampled local cider & played mini croquet (unfortunately girls were soundly beaten by boys but I am so buying a set to challenge Hugh to a rematch in the garden!) I tried reflexology, there was a tea bus, a library in the woods, a twinkly woodland path lit with fairy lights, giant board games, a circus skills tent, storytelling, a dance floor complete with disco ball hanging from a tree branch, and also a sitting room complete with out of tune piano and armchairs (random bands would stop by and play a little set there!)

So we will definitely be going again next year, I think it's going to become an annual tradition. Unfortunately as with all festivals I couldn’t see everyone I wanted to, but I did have the opportunity to catch a couple of the bands I missed a couple of days later. I went to see Joe Pug again at a dear little venue in the rafters of a pub and he was playing with Horse Feathers and the Mountains & the Trees. I’m really glad I made the effort to go along, Joe is always great to watch so I was happy to see him play again, & the other two were both fantastic. I got chatting to Jon Janes from the Mountains & The Trees in between sets, he is from Newfoundland and is a really lovely and interesting guy. Turned out we’d been standing really near to each other during Iron & Wine’s set at the festival.

The other highlight was three wonderful Josh Ritter shows. He & the Royal City Band put on a great show as always, and also threw in a couple of unexpected curveballs - a gorgeous and haunting 'Remnant' acapella at the front of the stage, the hilarious new song 'Sir Galahad' and a storming rendition of 'Once in a Lifetime' during Harrisburg. I also got to visit Oxford for the first time, and got a brief taste of student life, staying in the halls at Jesus College. I climbed up the Carfax tower for the best view of the dreaming spires and pictured Lyra and Pan clambering over the rooftops and skipping around the chimney pots.



Hugh and I also managed to grab the odd bit of time together, spending a day walking over the Roaches in the Dark Peak and delving into the crannies of Lud's Church. We need days like this at the moment, to remind ourselves of why we decided to buy a house together, and to make sure we don't forget what we love about one another.

Meet me at Mary's Place

Wow this year is flying by a little too quickly for my liking. I haven't done too well at capturing all the things that have been happening. I went to Germany (with a quick foray into the Netherlands). I went to Ireland. Both times I hung out with people that I met by chance on another trip and I'm so happy to be able to call them my friends. We found a house to buy, and we're so close now to actually owning it. Then my life will be Decorating. And possibly Destroying Walls and Building New Ones. Oh and Gardening! I'm so excited at the prospect of a garden of our very own.

Hugh and I also managed a very brief trip together, to Dorset to see his dad & stepmum (and Ollie the dog); while we were with them we took in a walk along Chesil Beach and a wander around Portland & Weymouth Harbour.


Then we had a few days by ourselves to unwind in Lyme Regis, which is one of my favourite places in England, a little town clinging to the very edge of the coast with steep winding roads leading down to the sea. We had beautiful weather, it was lovely to bask in the sunshine (did end up with a very red nose and cheeks after foolishly forgetting to take sun block out with me around Weymouth) but it did mean that everywhere was pretty crowded.

We walked far enough along the beaches to leave the masses behind though and only encountered one family while we explored the ammonite graveyard. We had an interesting morning at the museum but I was hoping the exhibition about their local heroine, Mary Anning would be bigger. I wanted to know more about her life other than the bare facts - I suppose I hoped they might have letters that she wrote, or that others wrote about her, smaller specimens that she found, things like that. She was remarkable and deserves to be celebrated. However the museum are currently fundraising for a new wing that will be named for her. We did stop off at the Church as we walked back up the hill to our bed and breakfast one evening, we found her grave, that she shares with her brother, Joseph. The upwelling of emotion I felt took me by surprise; maybe I'm just soft hearted, but it was like seeing a friend's name engraved there. We popped in to see the stained glass window dedicated to her, not only for her contribution to science, but for her faith, her kindness and generosity of spirit.

We are going back to see the town and the Jurassic Coast at its dramatic stormy best, at the end of the year and beginning of the next one. The local 'celebrity geologist' will take us fossil hunting. Who knows, maybe we'll find another of Mary's crocodillies.

This is just to tell you....

The weekend before last, whilst in London, I managed to do two things that I've wanted to for a while.

The first was to visit the Natural History Museum, to see the very first complete Ichthysaur, that was discovered by Mary Anning in Lyme Regis when she was a young girl. Mary Anning has been a hero of mine since I read about her when I was a girl of 10 or 11. At roughly the same age as me at the time she was supporting her family by discovering and selling fossil specimens, or 'curiosities', and during her life made some of the most important discoveries that contributed to knowledge of what life on earth was like millions of years ago.

She was a woman before her time; nowadays she would have become a renowned professor in her field. In the 1800's she was regarded by the published 'experts' around her as just a woman, and one from a poor, uneducated background - Even though they relied on her knowledge to find them new specimens, published her detailed drawings in their papers, and used her ideas to propose new theories, she received little or no recognition for her talent until long after her death. Her story sparked my interest in palaeontology, and whilst it is only a leisurely interest for me now, rather than an academic one as it almost was, it was still an incredible thrill to see with my own eyes the monsters from the deep that she uncovered.

The other thing was to finally hear Anais Mitchell play live, a singer of unique, beautiful, thought provoking songs, well stories really. She has been touring with Erin McKeown, who happens to be another of my favourite kick-ass girl singer songwriters! What an amazing evening!Anais & Erin treated a packed Luminaire to wonderful solo performances plus played a number together, their voices blending and complementing each others gorgeously. We heard some of Erin's new ones from 'Hundreds of Lions' (awesome album) plus a taster of what's to come from Anais & Co's 'Hadestown' recording ('Co' being Ani Di Franco, Greg Brown, Bon Iver - I cannot wait to hear this record!) After telling us how their ideas for a suitable cover version were lost on each other (Erin wanted a hip hop number, Anais some 80's classic) they gave us a rousing rendition of a gospel song to finish up a fabulous and fun evening.
One of my favourite of Anais' songs is 'I wear your dress', a song written for her grandmother about a dress she made that was passed down to her.

'This is just to tell you that I wear your dress sometimes'

It is a song that has been in my head a lot lately, in fact since I was given a ring that I can remember my Gran wearing. I've been wearing it every day and thinking of her, trying to remember her with smiles and laughter as she would want me to. It's difficult at the moment, there are so many emotions still swirling around and the happy memories are still wrestling with the bad ones. The topmost feeling is still just, I miss her, and I wish I could have said goodbye properly. I hope that wherever she is now she is happy, and at peace, I hope that she knows that we did our best, I hope that she forgives us. I hope that there is somewhere where we'll be able to meet again one day.

'With the liberty you've given,
Like the clothing you've outgrown,
To your granddaughter'


My gran was a sergeant in the Auxiliary Territorial Service, the women's branch of the British Army during World War II. She contributed to a cause bigger than women my age have needed to. Anais' song is also a story about the changing roles of women, and how much opportunity and freedom we now have thanks to the efforts of generations before us. We shouldn't waste this, nor forget the women before us who got us here. There are still collective things to fight for, causes that put our tiny, individual lives into perspective. I may only be one person making small steps and contributing a tiny amount, but if everyone got behind a cause that really mattered to them, whether it be conservation, raising money for cancer research or for those struggling in the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti, well maybe it could be 'like the falling of small stones that start an avalanche', maybe we could make some change happen, and in 40, 50 years, our generation will be remembered for the good that it did.