I am such a bad friend. This weekend, I was supposed to go to Bath (about a two-hour drive from here) to meet up with two friends I met as an undergraduate. One of them has a baby a couple of months younger than my own tiny daughter, and the other, to whom I was always closer, is godmother to said infant; the idea was that they would come from London together, and I, armed with sling and baby, would meet them there for a bit of a catch-up, combined with tea-drinking and whatnot. 

I wimped out. 

The plan was suggested about two months ago, and when I agreed, to be honest, it was such a long way off that it didn’t really seem real. I could say that the witchling’s sleep patterns have changed and that made me hesitant. It would be true, but it’s not the reason I didn’t go. I could say that we’ve had ten days of visitors, hard physical work and general bedlam. Again, true, but not the reason I didn’t go. I could even say that, unwittingly, I exposed the witchling to chicken pox early last week, and it’s possible she’s picked it up (thank you, Steiner School, for not mentioning that when you confirmed by phone that the toddler group was running and had space for us to come along to try it out). Again, true, but still not the reason I didn’t go. 

If I’m perfectly honest, I don’t really know why I didn’t go. I suppose, thinking about it, that I feel I have little left in common with these people. One of them, K, was a sort-of friend while we lived in the same halls, but I saw little of her after I met Quercus (and, to be honest, that’s probably true of most people I’ve met since I’ve known Quercus). The other, G, is one of the nicest people I’ve ever known; genuinely lovely, she has resolutely stayed in touch with me, despite my disinclination to leave Devon, while she’s been all over the place, training to be a lawyer and working overseas. She once told me that I am her touchstone for inspiration regarding the combination of career and relationship; as yet, she hasn’t had a serious relationship, but she thinks that the fact that I got a PhD and a man I love means that there must be hope for her. But, other than the loveliness of that comment, we have nothing in common. She is very career-driven, and works sixty-hour weeks regularly as a city lawyer, while I loaf home from work as soon as humanly possible, and do my best to avoid committing to anything even vaguely work-related whenever I can. She openly admits that the thing she wants most is LOTS of money. Well, our buggered house, ancient sweaters, and general discomfort at expenditure of nearly any sort probably speak volumes there; let’s say it’s pretty safe to assume that it’s not really money which motivates me. (I don’t mean to be wanky about that; money is, of course, a necessity for us, as for anyone, but I hope that we don’t put getting it, or conserving it, above everything else.)

I’ve never been very good at keeping in touch with people over long periods of time, and over distance too. I seem to manage one or the other, but both together present too hard a challenge. I feel bad, though, about this one; G is such a nice person, and now that the ship has sailed for this particular meet-up, I feel I should have made more effort, should have gone, should at least have called rather than emailing to say I wouldn’t be able to make it after all. I would hate her to think that I just don’t care; it’s not that, after all. I suppose, though, that the grim truth is that I just don’t care enough. I’d rather spend time with Quercus and the tiny daughter, which, after the adventures of the last ten days, is what we did; it’s been about two weeks since we had any time to ourselves, just to quietly do whatever, just to be, to live life as it happens. Part of me thinks I shouldn’t feel guilty about that, and part of me knows full well that G probably won’t get what that means, and that I am a Bad Friend (TM). Ho hum. When do you just declare, do you think, and accept that some friendships last, and some lapse, and that’s not a bad thing, necessarily?

(On which note, though it’s unlikely, if you are reading this, Mr. Rutherford, please get in touch; we’ve tried calling and emailing, and we do need to talk about the caravan, she said, in serious tones.)

So, cake:

Impromptu Ginger Cake

Ingredients
1 cup dark brown sugar

2 cups wholemeal self-raising flour

2 eggs

A good sprinkle of ginger; probably about a tablespoon 

About a mug of sultanas

A splosh of soya milk as needed

 
Then…
Entire lot in bowl; stir about with suitably nice-feeling wooden spoon, and whack it all in a loaf tin. Took about forty minutes on something like 200°c.

Still laying siege to house; render largely off the south wall now, but a bit of an evil job, all told, and we learn, not really to our surprise, that most of that wall has been reinforced (we assume) with bits and bobs of concrete blocks and old bricks, probably to effect a sort-of cob repair at some point. Of course, let us not speak of the fact that concrete eats away at the cob because it’s so bloody hard while cob is a soft material… We have decided that taking the render off is probably sufficient unto the day; it seems likely that replacing the bricks et al would necessitate major cob repairs (and probably exciting things like acro props, which, while fine in a let’s-be-really-paranoid-even-though-we-don’t-need-them way, are less fun when there’s a real chance that one’s house might collapse without their presence), and we’re not here forever… So, it’s lime rendering still, and patching-up of cob as necessary.

Quercus has a small scaffolding tower put up against one wall of the house, and armed with an intense frown and an SDS drill, he’s chiselling the render off, bit by bit. So far, we have most of the south wall clear, and some of the west, but we’ve also found that most of the west wall is covered with chicken wire underneath the render; not quite sure if that’s to give a key for the render on an otherwise very dusty surface, or because the cob was thought to be utterly buggered, but either way, preserving its presence seems a good idea. We’ll get more lime delivered next week, ironically just as our lane is closed for thirty-five days, which might make for some interesting manouevres on the part of the various drivers involved, and, possibly, on the part of any hedges foolish enough to put themselves in the way. (The lane closure is because the surface of the road has become, well, insubstantial, shall we say. There are potholes large enough to eat buses, and odd bumps which regularly cause cars to ground in the middle.)

Other than that, the Steiner School thing was thought-provoking, though I’m still not quite sure what I think (Steiner Schools: an interesting and informative alternative to mainstream education, or a bunch of smug lentil-eating tossers – discuss); the toddler group is over until next September, so we’ll figure out whether or not it’s something we want for the witchling over the summer, I suppose. In between trundling shitloads of rubble from one end of the garden to the other. Oh, and demolishing various sheds. And sorting the windows. And the buggered plasterwork. 

And buying another set of little lighties.

Because every house needs at least twelve sets of little lighties. 

Right?

… Right?

- The visit from the paternal relative (+ wife) went well; they both loved the witchling, and this resulted in lots of laughter, tickling, and general adoration, which the witchling lapped up. She was incredibly good-natured with her visitors, even managing a forty-minute car-drive home when she was really ready to sleep (she finds cars a bit too stimulating to sleep, generally, although she did nod off about five minutes from home, of course…) without a hint of displeasure, despite yawning her head off and clearly wanting some peace and quiet. We had a very nice time out in Totnes on Saturday; new dungarees were purchased for her from one of my very favourite clothes shops courtesy of the aged parent, and we had a gorgeous lunch in my favourite Totnesian eatery, Willow.  I am, however, cursing myself for not having bought a chest of drawers I saw at the market there – it was really quite good, and would have done for the space we have earmarked for drawers in the kitchen, but I sort of havered until we had to leave, and now I kick myself. However, a rootle in the shed later that day produced a forgotten demijohn of sloe wine; silver linings and all that. 

- An impromptu ginger cake I baked on Friday turned out particularly well; recipe to follow shortly.

- Quercus’s mother is here (the witchling is in danger of over-excitement at this rate, but we are off out together tomorrow on our own, just to give her some [I think much-needed] mama+babe time) and will stay until Thursday; on the plans – render preparation, garden organisation, door-finishing.

- Tomorrow the witchling and I are going to a Steiner School toddler group; I think it’s fairly safe to say that I am a thousand times more excited about it than she is!

You know how some days, the sun is shining, and the sky is blue, and a breeze blows in from the west, and things just feel right? Despite having woken up at five-something yesterday? And despite having spent quite a long time up to the elbows in semi-fermenting honeysuckle? Well, today is one of those days. Something has shifted for me in the last few days. I don’t quite know why, but it’s as if the energy around me has just altered for the better.

That’s really wanky, isn’t it? Sorry about that, but I can’t think of a better way to put it. I’ve been feeling stymied and tired and a little disgruntled for quite a while, in one way or another, for no reason other than just… because.

I think, for one thing, that having children of one’s own digs up, for me, a load of shite that would frankly be best left under the stone it previously relied on for cover; I’ve been introspecting to within an inch of my life, going over and over ground (my mother’s death, her illness, my father’s new relationship, my childhood, my father’s departure when I was a teenager and my mother was first ill) which is boring even to me. And now I think perhaps I am done with it. I think perhaps I am finally getting to the point where I can accept my father, and his involvement in my life (or lack thereof), for what he – and it – is: what he is, and what he can be at this moment. I am not his top priority, and I haven’t been for a long time. And that’s OK – I have priorities of my own these days, and Doc Witch’s post has just reminded me that actually, I chose this life, and I chose the things I do with it, and that any feelings of failure are created by measuring myself by other people’s standards or expectations, rather than because I’m actually fucking things up. So, yes: earwigs on the bathroom floor, grout which isn’t quite high enough, dead shrews littered artistically across the sitting room carpet, and a Baby Belling oven which is clearly sent from hell (along with a variety of mechanical and/or electrical fiends) – they are all part of this life that I have chosen. A life which includes a marriage I grew up thinking probably didn’t exist except in fairy stories (not that it’s fairy-tale, but, seriously, I do consider myself disgustingly fortunate in Quercus – I mean, as I write this, the man is going round the supermarket with the witchlet, picking up detergent, sugar for wine-making and whatnot, all having hung out the washing earlier this morning: what is not to like, I ask?), a child who makes me smile to myself in the middle of the night, a pair of cats who I adore (though don’t tell Wixon I said that; it’ll only encourage his twisted firestarter tendencies), a house which outwardly reflects so strongly who I feel myself to be (down-at-heel, but hopefully interesting nonetheless), and which Quercus loves as I do, and a life which, while there are still areas to work on, is, broadly-speaking, pretty damn good.

So here’s to taking ownership of one’s life, and of saying that the good stuff is all good, and the crap? Well, it’s transitory. (And sometimes, quite useful for comedy value.)

You know, it’s not often that I get the chance to sit down and write two blog posts in one day these days. Gone are the heady (for which read ‘crappy’) days of full-time PhD study, when blog posts felt almost like work because they included the writing of words, albeit words which were completely unrelated to anything I should have been writing about, and in their place are days of almost frenetic activity, of organised chaos, of places and times and movement and change and learning and teaching and… so on. The coin has two sides: one side is that Quercus and I manage not to use a nursery for the witchling, and can look after her ourselves, which is what we always wanted to do if we had children, but the other side of that is that we seem always to be en route. En route to work, en route home, en route to pick up groceries, en route to do, do, do. We have three-quarters of an hour between my leaving work and Quercus arriving at his desk, and a twenty-five mile commute split between the two of us; it’s tight, to say the least. BUT – and this is a big but – it’s working, I think, and we are settling into a new pattern, and I’m so very glad that when I leave in the morning, it’s Quercus who is holding the witchling as she looks a little uncertain about my departure, and Quercus who jollies her along with a wooden spoon and a quick waltz around the kitchen, and Quercus who gives her expressed breast-milk mid-morning before her snooze, which she takes in her own cot, surrounded by her own things, in her own house.

Anyhoo.

For some reason, I’m feeling introspective. Perhaps it’s an impending paternal visit. Or perhaps it’s the making of wine, which always reminds me of my mother and of my father, who first taught me such delights. And with introspection comes memory, and, often, thoughts of my mother. What would she make of my life now? Of our life here, all three of us, together in our tiny and slightly chaotic house? Of the new extension? Of the red paint? Of the fact that the house speaks of her in the things it houses, of her influence on my life, of my love for her, of the life I lived, the person I was, when she was last on this earth? I hope – I think – she would be happy. She would be pleased. She would be proud.

And that makes me think of the time when she was last on this earth. My twenty-second birthday preceded her death by a matter of days; I remember knowing that she was going to die long before the doctors confirmed it to us. I could see it in her; one simply couldn’t look like that, and be going to make old bones. I tried to hide my knowledge, and I hope I did; I know that we didn’t speak of what was coming, only of what was, though we did take, simultaneously and spontaneously, to saying we loved each other every time I left the hospice for any length of time.

And after she died, just before Christmas, I muddled my way through the assessments I had to complete in order to stay at university and maintain my grade average. It sounds uncaring, I always think, but I felt that to drop out would be upsetting to her – she had to leave university after she fractured her skull in a road accident at nineteen, and she never made it back, a fact which always pissed her off. She would have felt responsible for my failure. So I stayed, just barely, and a few weeks later, I went back for the start of term. Back to normality, in some ways, though in a world so altered that even the colour of the sky seemed wrong to me. And one night, long after Quercus and I had gone to bed, I woke suddenly, certain that someone was standing by the bed. I had an attic room in a Victorian terrace that year; my mother had liked the look of it from the photos I’d shown her, because it had reminded her of the room she herself had lived in during her brief university stint. The room was cave-like, with a dormer window at one end and the bed far back in the darker end of the room; I awoke to find just enough light to make out quite clearly a figure by the bed, one with light hair. That is all I can say with any certainty. I was so shocked that I did the cartoon thing of rubbing at my eyes and blinking to make it go away, to no effect. I reached behind me to wake Quercus, and as I turned back, it was gone. I didn’t see it again, whatever it was, but I never lost a feeling of being watched whenever I was in the house alone.

It’s that old cliché, really, isn’t it? There are more things in heaven and earth, and all that. How I have wished it would happen again, but it never has. I once smelt a scent she used to wear while I was in the car with my father, so strongly that we both got out and tried to find the source of it (to no avail), but I’ve never seen anything which could be connected to her since. It’s left me with a certainty that this isn’t it, though; I’ve always had leanings towards ‘alternative’ thinking on the religious/spirituality front, and I feel very strongly that there is something beyond the normal sphere of human existence, and sometimes one gets a glimpse of that.

So, that’s my moment of introspection for today, folks. See what too much Joni Mitchell will do to you?

Pinched from Mon at Holistic Mama.

What author do you own the most books by?
It’s a tie between Wilkie Collins and H. Rider Haggard, the former because I love love love him, and the latter because I wrote a chapter of my PhD thesis on him.

What book do you own the most copies of?
Until recently, I had five copies of Gawain and the Green Knight. Wait – don’t judge me yet: I have reasons! I bought my first copy when I was nineteen and a first-year undergrad. Then I took a further Middle English module in second year, and of course, the reading list included a different edition. Was it in the library? Was it fuck. Then I taught a course when I was working as a seminar tutor during my PhD – yes – you’ve got it – two more editions courtesy of two different module conveners. And then I bought one more, because it was edited by my personal tutor, a lovely man who interviewed me for my place at university and said ‘I’m supposed to ask you about this bloody poem, but frankly I’ve spent all day talking about it, and I’m fed up to the back teeth with it. So, what shall we talk about?’

Did it bother you that those questions ended with prepositions?
Yes. I really hate slack English. Unless it’s of my own divising, that is. But seriously – the semi-colon. So very underrated. And why not write in a style which conveys meaning in the most elegant fashion possible? i.e. ‘Of which book do you own the most copies?’ I’m not saying that my writing is elegant – nope, more ‘c’est infernal, mais ça marche’ (which is apparently a contemporary description of the vehicular clutch). But anyway. You get the idea. I will try (very hard) to take my head out of my own arse now. In light of all that, I present the following rephrased question:

With which fictional character are you secretly in love?
Well, I have been quite keen on Kingsley Amis’s Patrick Standish (Take a Girl Like You and Difficulties with Girls) for years; I am also rather fond of Jonathan Strange (Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell), and of Robert Copplestone (Part of the Furniture, Mary Wesley). Oh, and George from E. M. Forster’s A Room with a View. Profligate, moi?

Which books have you read the most frequently?
I’ve read The Lord of the Rings several times, and E. F. Benson’s Mapp and Lucia series. Also Nancy Mitford’s Pursuit of Love, pretty much the entire H. Rider Haggard and Conan Doyle repertoire, and Wilkie Collins’s Armadale.

What was your favourite book when you were ten?
I can’t honestly remember; I think I read the Moomins quite a bit around then, though. (Oooh – get me, with my split infinitives. See? I can be out there, me. Living on the edge, with my slack grammar and my open hostility towards the transgressions of others. Oh, and my hypocrisy. That too.)

What is the worst book you’ve read in the past year?
The Rose Labyrinth by Titania Hardie, courtesy of the Oxfam shop in Teignmouth. It was drivel.

What is the best book you’ve read in the past year?
I really enjoyed Andrew Davidson’s The Gargoyle. It took me a while to get into, but once I had, I was hooked until the very (bitter) end.

Which book would you most like to see made into a film?
That’s a tricky one, but, generally, I find that once something’s made into a film, it skews my vision of it. I saw the film of Twilight a few weeks back – it was rubbish, to be honest, and I’d really enjoyed the books. I like the Harry Potter films, but Daniel Radcliffe is now Harry Potter to me, and before I saw the first one, he didn’t look much like that. (Is now the time to admit, slightly worryingly, that I quite fancy Daniel Radcliffe? I add, in my defence, that he looks very much like Quercus did at that age, so much so that several people have teased him about it in the years since the films came out.)

Which book would you least like to see made into a film?
See above, really.

What is the most low-brow book you’ve read as an adult?
Well, I read a lot of trash. And I mean A LOT. There is just nothing like the raw, adrenalin-filled rubbish that people aim at the ‘young adult’ market. Thanks to that demographic, I have particularly enjoyed the delights of Garth Nix’s Old Kingdom trilogy, and of Trudi Canavan’s Dark Magician stuff. Oh, and of course, the Twilight quartet.

However, I’ve also read some pretty low-brow stuff as part of my research. You have not read rubbish until you have slogged through Marie Corelli’s Ardath. It is a bewildering work. It includes such lowlights as personal vendettas against critics, protagonists who are clearly idealised versions of Corelli, and, for good measure, a bloody good slug of utter bilge.

What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read?
Well, first define ‘difficult’. If by that you mean ‘you must get through this, come what may, and come out the other side able to answer questions on it in a vaguely coherent manner’, see any of the standard literary criticism on an English lit. degree. So, anything by Foucault, Saussure, Barthes or Walter Benjamin, perhaps. If, on the other hand, you mean ‘challenging because of the emotional response it provokes in you’, I found The Time-Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffeneger) very affecting, along with Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient. If still another interpretation is meant, however, it took me six months and five attempts to crack Dickens’s Bleak House when I tried it first, at the age of seventeen (I was working in Lincoln’s Inn at the time; it seemed apt).

What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you have seen?
I haven’t seen many, actually; I’ve read nearly all of them, though. Does that count? I suppose the one about which I knew the least when I began it was probably Henry IV.

Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
I think probably the Russians.

Shakespeare, Milton or Chaucer?
With a first degree which includes Medieval Studies in its title, the answer should really be Chaucer, I suppose. However, it’s probably Shakespeare, although Milton has a peculiar place in my heart courtesy of a 15,000-word dissertation on the role of kingship in Paradise Lost, and I took a module about Milton as an undergrad partly because the convener, a lifelong Milton obsessive, had become a good friend, and I wanted to see what I was missing. Also, I got my first first (ho) for a Milton essay; I can still see it now: ‘Would you mind if I kept a copy for future generations of my Milton students to look at?’ THERE ARE NO WORDS TO CONVEY THAT LEVEL OF SMUGNESS.

What is the biggest gap in your reading?
Hmm. I dunno, to be honest. Possibly poetry, I think; I am not by nature a poetry fan, with a few notable exceptions. (See below.)

Favourite novel?
Just one? Really? OK. Um. Well. Probably something Wilkie Collins. Yes. I’ll say Armadale.

Poet?
‘He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven’, W. B. Yeats. (Those exceptions include Yeats, Donne, Marvell and the Earl of Rochester.)

Work of non-fiction?
At the moment, probably What Mothers Do by Naomi Stadlen. Longer-term, I have various cookbooks that I love – including various Cranks ones, and a couple of the Moosewood tribe – and some of the academic books I’ve collected are also favourites. Ronald Hutton’s The Triumph of the Moon would be one of them, as would Karen Edwards’s Milton and the Natural World.

Most influential novel you’ve read?
E. M. Forster’s Howard’s End, for its ‘Only Connect’ opener. Also, A Room with a View.

Most overrated author?
J. K. Rowling. Yes, they’re good. Yes, they’re entertaining. But beyond that? Ephemera, and largely Tolkein-derived.

Which less widely-read novel would you recommend?
Disraeli’s Du Maurier’s Trilby. For some reason, my brain was confusing Disraeli’s Sybil with this one – no proper reason, of course, unless you count being knackered.

What are you reading right now?
Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn, The Chase by Louisa May Alcott, and The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman. See earlier comment re profligacy.

If you’ve made it this far, well done. If you’re going to have a go yourself, do say so in the ol’ comments whatsit.

Is it wrong to fall in love with a paint, d’you think? The red tester arrived two days ago. It is small. Innocuous, even. But only because of its size. Man, that is one RED paint. We are going to paint the lime wall – which is both the tallest wall, and the one you’ll actually see least of, as it’s going to have cupboards nearly covering it, and already has shelves on one side of the door – with it, and I cannot wait. The paint is breathable and doesn’t smell at all, which is slightly unnerving to one who knows the Way of Gloss (sounds like some Taoist thing, doesn’t it?), but rather pleasing. So far, I have, ahem, ‘tested’ the paint with a series of hearts in varying sizes, sprawled across the clean freshness of the wall with lavish abandon. Well, it’s important to see what it looks like in different lights. Ahem.

Oh, and Ms. LLama has started me off wanting dreadlocks again. I had a brief flirtation with dreads when I was about 22 – as my hair was very short at the time, it was, well, short-lived… A friend was learning to put fake dreads in people’s hair, and I volunteered as a guinea-pig. They looked fab for about a week, but then I gradually moulted. Not so great. Now, however, my hair is long enough, for the first time since I was about 14, to consider Actual, Proper Dreads. And yes, I am aware of the hideous predictability of it, particularly for those of you unfortunate enough to know me – and my tendencies of a hippy variety – in real life. So. To dread, or not to dread? I am slightly reassured on my one previous reservation – the frequency of washing which one could undertake – in that the lovely Sarah, herself the owner of a very fine set of dreads, reckons every two or three days works fine. Should have thought of this when I started my maternity leave, I suppose. Meh. No-one’s perfect, right?

First, a disclaimer – this post is ridiculous, because its form makes it something of a paradox. There isn’t much I can do about that, really, because I choose to use a blog as my method of writing this, but, well, don’t say I didn’t warn you. I am aware, very aware, of the ‘pot… meet kettle’ possibilities inherent.

So, here’s the thing: I have a very ambiguous relationship with things like Twitter and Facebook. I use both, but I do so largely out of boredom; if I’ve been particularly active on either, then you know it’s probably because I’ve got something large and dull on which I should be working (whether that’s housework, DIY in the extension, or freelance editty stuff [and yes, that is the correct professional term, thankyouverymuch]), or possibly because the world as we know it has ceased to exist, and I have run out of such things with which to occupy myself. Clearly that latter is deeply unlikely, but, well, one can dream, right? Anyway, the thing that irks me about things like Twitter and Facebook is that they seem to me to erode ‘proper’ social interaction. I know, I know: pretentious alert! sound the siren! But seriously – I actually mean it. And yes – I am a hypocrit for using them, then; being a hypocrit doesn’t mean I’m also wrong, though.

See, with Twitter, your status is a condensed 200-odd characters long – it’s all about the moment, the instant, what you’re doing at that precise second, and so, by its very nature, it’s out of date very quickly, and thus time to move on. In a way, I like that: you get snapshots of people’s lives that you otherwise wouldn’t have, which can be nice if you have friends in far-flung locations and you don’t get chance to see that daily-living-what-shall-I-have-on-my-sandwiches-style stuff. But if you’re anything like me, it can also mean that you spend a lot of little bursts of time updating your status. And your Facebook page. And maybe adding a link here, and a nudge there. And then you realise that if you added up all that time spent nudging, statusing, and generally buggering about in an utterly non-productive manner, you’ve probably got a good couple of hours that you didn’t think existed. And that’s where my gripe comes in. I have several good friends who use Facebook and Twitter religiously. It’s lovely to know what they’re up to, and I enjoy seeing pictures of their latest jaunts and whatnot, but I still miss actually connecting with them at a level which isn’t easily translated into one sentence. It’s funny to think of email as old-fashioned, but it seems that way, when you find you haven’t actually sat down and written a decent-length email to so-and-so for months, because it’s easier to just hit ‘post’ on someone’s wall, or @so-and-so on Twitter. There’s a loveliness about that instant connection, for sure, but there’s no sense of deeper communication. For me, there’s still something missing.

I’m thinking of deleting my Twitter account, for the second time. When I wrote as Kitchen Witch over at the now-newly-formed Journalspace, I used Twitter briefly, but the flirtation died because my PhD was in its death-throes and making one hell of a fuss about its impending completion; this time around, I think Twitter and I simply aren’t suited. I appear to be increasingly drawn, ironically for one who has been blogging for about five years, to the slower pace of actual conversation, of letter-writing, of parcel-sending. Perhaps it’s having a small person about the place; I am aware of those little eyes, saucer-like, watching that odd little white box that Mama is tap-tap-tappitty-tapping on, and I am conscious that, among the very few things that the witchling needs, my attention – undivided, amongst the chaos of daily chores, hens, DIY, proofreading and whatnot, for at least some of the time – is near the top of the list. When I have the most to do, my procrastination tendencies are at their strongest; Twitter and other Web 2.0 creatures offer easy distraction, but the penalty for me is a constant sense of failure, of having given in when I should simply have pulled my finger out and done whatever it is that I know I should really be doing.

[Of course, the other side of this is that I have been lucky enough to 'meet' people with whom I share a real sense of deep and abiding friendship. Ms. Llama and I met via the interweb in about 1998, and Ally and I have spent many a happy hour lusting after new breeds of chickens while discussing whether or not one could build a house out of Weetabix. We met up with HWz and his lovely family for a walk round Riverford Farm, home of all things box-scheme, back in October of last year, and he was once foolish enough to volunteer to help out with our extension, which couldn't have been built without the help of Lovely David. So, I'm aware of the contradictions in my feelings, but that doesn't make them go away!]

- The aged parent arrived yesterday. Thanks for all your lovely comments, and I’m sorry I’m so rubbish at replying at the moment; I read every one avidly, but a combination of house-cleaning as if my life depended on it (come to think of it, with grime levels like that, life probably does depend on it!), going to work again, freelance work, website design and general parentingy bits and bats have meant I am spending a goodly portion of each day flapping about headless-chicken-style, and am thus not spending much time online because I know oh-so-well from my PhD days how much time can disappear when one thinks ‘I’ll just have quick look at so-and-so’.

- I have a new love: felted letters, the creation thereof. I am making the witchling a complete set; thus far, we have a heart (not strictly a letter, but, well, the spirit moved moved me, OK?), a capital ‘J’, a capital ‘N’, and a ‘U’.

- Second only to my love of felted letters is the strength of my affection for Ælfric, a corduroy owl I made over the weekend. He is a sprauncy flowery cord, for the most part, with a felted face and wings which crunkle courtesy of having the window from an envelope secreted about his person. He is, of course, destined for the witchling’s little paws, but I confess that handing him over will not be without a struggle, for he is a mighty owl indeed. I may post pictures, in fact, when I am sure that the lure exerted by Etsy, always strong, is not at siren strength, which, given the preponderance of felted goodness currently on display over there, always represents something of a challenge to my buy-nothing-unpaid-maternity-trimester resolution.

- I am weighing up whether or not to pay for a listing on a website which is supposedly the best place for freelancers to advertise; it’s £70 a year, which, while it may not sound substantial, is a lot of money to us at the moment, bearing in mind our financial context – very little income presently, and some big bills going out (water connection, various car things [Quercus has finally bought a replacement for the CX - still-much-missed-but-was-the-right-decision-did-I-mention-the-welding-it-needed; he collects it on Friday, all being well, from the frozen North], and now our arseing fridge, always something of a beast, has decided that coolness is overrated, and, actually, it would quite like a new thermostat, thank you very much), and I’m not going to get paid again until nearly May. That said, Dr. Anna, a very lovely friend from my MA and PhD days, has a listing with said chaps, and frequently bumps work my way as she is snowed under with Proper Academic Work, and thus has little time to, you know, draw breath, let alone take on freelance stuff. So… worth it? Not worth it? Tricky one.

I leave you with news that I recently succeeded in making chocolate cookies so pleasant that I almost wish I hadn’t worked them out; naturally, I shall condemning you all to being as fat as I shall surely be, should I ever make more be sharing the recipe with the world as soon as time permits.

Hmm. It transpires that the aged parent, which is to say my father, is coming to visit on Monday. Unlike Quercus and myself, he is not sufficiently pikey as to make the caravan, a lumbering beast of unknown antiquity which arrived in our garden at the beginning of the building work and has yet to realise it is now little more than a garden ornament of dubious style and taste, an attractive prospect, so he is going to stay in a small hotel thing up the road.

It’s strange. I haven’t seen him since October, when he arrived with virtually no warning, stayed less than twenty-four hours, told Quercus’s mother how ‘cross’ the tiny daughter seemed, and departed the parish. He came largely because he was bored, I felt; mid-house-move, he brought some boxes of things from what was once my family home, largely things which I’d already told him I didn’t want and hadn’t got room for. It was strange, awkward. He dropped hints about how we should go and visit them in their new home at Christmas; this being our first Christmas with the tiny daughter, and it having been A Bit Of A Year, what with the tiny daughter’s arrival, the ending of the PhD, and the building of the extension (complete with my seven-week absence due to the lack of running water and whatnot), we just wanted some time off, quietly, sitting and staring at a Chrimbly tree without the harassing tones of relatives to whom one isn’t really related, if you know what I mean. And that was it – I haven’t seen him since. We speak on the phone from time to time – he tells me how fantastic Wife II is, and how she does this/that/t’other which is extraordinary/talented/creative/hard-working, and I sort of verbally nod and smile. Sometimes this pattern varies, and he asks how the tiny daughter is before moving swiftly on to more pressing matters such as, for example, the latest orchestra he has started, or the programme on a forthcoming concert.

It’s hard, really hard, not to feel very saddened by this, particularly in relation to the tiny daughter. I don’t want to have to beg him to feel interested in her, jumping up and down, trying to reach the bottom of his jacket so I can tug on it and get him to look our way. I know I shouldn’t have to ask him to take an interest, and if I do have to, then it’s not worth it. But having spent a lifetime feeling that he wasn’t really interested unless I did exactly what he wanted me to do, it’s hard to shake the habit, I suppose. So I view this forthcoming visit with a curious mixture of nervousness and disbelief – I can’t believe he’s actually coming for starters – and I worry about his reactions to the witchling. I just want him to see for himself how lovely she is, how exciting, how interesting. And I fear that all he sees is Generic Baby, regardless of her being my daughter, his granddaughter, a visual reminder of my dead mother (though perhaps that says it all). He used to tell me almost proudly that he loved me because I am me, and not because I was his daughter; he pointed out his relationship with my brother, which, always pretty piss-poor, he used to illustrate his idea that water is thicker than blood, as it were. Ironic, then, that I expect, or wish, that he love her because of what she is, rather than who she is. He’ll think what he thinks no matter what I do, so why do I worry, and why do I think I can change this?

Today the witchling went from being two-thirds to being three-quarters. Well, strictly, she’s been doing that for the last month, but, you know, play along. Nine months she is today, and we celebrated with pancakes, delayed from last (Shrove) Tuesday. Because I am crap with dairy products, we are waiting to give her milk and so forth until she is one, but I have discovered that oat milk, revolting though it may sound, is actually roughly akin to soya milk (apart from the hideous, hideous price tag – £1.60 or so). Oh. Hang on. I always forget – I am in a minority of, er, one in thinking that soya is an acceptable beverage, aren’t I? I’ve tried and tried to persuade Quercus that Earl Grey with soya is the drink of the gods, but thus far, I have failed. Anyhoo. I digress. So, oat milk in one hand, and newly-allowed-egg in t’other, we scoffed down rather more pancakes than one can shake a frying pan at, and the witchling evinced her delight at the proceedings by allowing me to feed her little morsels of pancake from my thumb, an activity reserved for those rare occasions when the food is sufficiently tempting as to overcome her desire to feed herself, by herself, without help from her bloody mama, and preferably without any sort of interaction with facecloths afterwards, thank you very much.

(As an aside, I can’t express my delight in life with the witchling. I really should post about it, come to think of it; I would hate her to think, should she read any of this wittering in the future, that I didn’t post because she wasn’t interesting or enjoyable or what-have-you: it’s largely that I’m busy enjoying myself with her, and thus don’t post! I also don’t want this to be one of those blogs where What Once Was becomes nappies, nappies, nappies – oh, and a few more nappies, if that makes sense.)

One of the things I really, really relish about being an adult with a household of my own is the ability to pick and choose traditions, no matter how bizarre, and to adapt the same for our own twisted purposes. Neither of us is remotely Christian – in fact, quite the opposite, if there is such a thing as the opposite of Christianity – but we do like a pancake, oh yes indeedy, just as we do like a Chrimbly tree. We’ve sort of evolved our own approach to these things.* We have Chrimbly puddings, for example, and the excellent dark solstice cake which graced our table for the first time this year will definitely be making a repeat appearance in future – I’ve been looking for Our Chrimbly Cake Recipe for yonks, but hadn’t found it until that baby came out of the oven. We also have a real Chrimbly tree, and we decorate it with things made anew each year (normally fircones, twig stars and orange slices; the jewel biscuits to which Turquoise Lisa introduced us will also be part of the repertoire from now on too!) Since having the witchling, I’ve been thinking a bit about which things we do, and why, and what we’ll tell her about them when she’s a bit older. I mentioned the concept of season tables and whatnot in my previous post – while I can’t ever see us having something that formal, I do like the idea of having a sort of pattern to the year, and punctuating that pattern with some sort of recognition of the time passing. Preferably an edible punctuation, naturally. Mostly, we do things like Samhain/Hallowe’en, shortest day/winter equinox/Candlemass/St. Lucy’s day, Yule/Chrimbly, Beltain/Midsummer etc. But now I realise we also do things like bonfire night, and the pancake thing. For me, most of it I just enjoy as a passing of the year, as a seasonal change, as a shift in the pattern we follow, though I am aware of the spiritual sides, particularly with the witchcraft/earth-religion-related things. What sort of calendar do most people follow? Do you do what we do? Do you have this and that, from this religion and that? Do you take note of any religious symbolism, or do you just eat the damn pancake, as it were?

*Not the least of which, of course, is the fact that Christmas = Chrimbly here. Or sometimes Crumphole. I don’t know why; blame it on my mother, whose love of buggering about with language is clearly indelibly present in the ol’ DNA.

Oh, Procrastination. You and I are old friends. Old enough, surely, that we can dispense with the formalities. Can I call you Pro? Go on – just between you and me? I won’t tell anyone. No? OK. Well, anyway, we’ve known each other intimately for the last five years. You were like a second husband during my PhD, and we probably spent more time with each other than I did with Quercus, come to think of it; certainly, we’ve been together quite a lot during my time at my day-job, and you’ve normally been waiting in the wings, proffering a nice cup of tea and whispering about a quiet sit-down, when I’ve got any one of a million things to do. Like, for example, sorting out a nappy wash. Or hanging out the already-washed nappies. Or, say, going to the post office (though when I was supposed to be finishing the bathroom grouting, you did help me out with listing lots of useless PhD-related books which I was never going to read [I would say 'again' there, but quite a few of them never got more than a cursory glance the first time round...], which was so productive of you that I think perhaps it almost doesn’t count…). Ah, happy days. How we laughed. How we … did nothing. Hmmm.

And now, here you are again. You let yourself in, of course. I think you saw that I was tired, and felt that perhaps making an approach now, you might find me at a low ebb, and unable to resist your temptations. And you are tempting. I can’t deny that. Very tempting. I mean, look at you. You’ve got me here now, sitting on the sofa typing, when I should be sorting out the washing, cleaning out the chooks, checking for eggs, and finishing off the knitted vest* which will shortly grace the witchling’s wriggly form. Or, perhaps, working on writing that sodding novel I’ve been thrashing around for so long it’s not even funny. Or, say, coming up with what on earth I’ll write for a post over at the Ecologist next week. (Though part of me wonders if I am quite sane for taking on things like this, when I feel I’ve never time to get everything done. Particularly as I got lots of flak over there recently for my ‘trustafarian’ lifestyle – ha! because I am so rolling in money! ha! – and it’s not like I get paid to do it – I started writing for them because, actually, I genuinely do give a shit about the environment, and about living sustainably, and I’d like to share my enthusiasm if possible.) (See what just happened there? Procrastination mid-post about procrastination.)

I long to take Mon’s line on time. To give time only to those things about which I feel passionate. But it’s really hard to feel passionate about unloading groceries, or hoovering, or cleaning out the stove, and irritatingly this lack of passion doesn’t seem to make such tasks disappear.

So. Procrastination. You and I are going to need to spend some time apart. I need to spend more time doing the things I’m always whinging about not having time for. You know, the knitting, the painting, the cooking (though have I whinged yet about our sodding cooker only having one of two elements in operation at present? Bastard thing can smell my pain), the starting of a seasonal collection for the witchling (for some reason, my heart revolts at the phrase ‘nature table’, perhaps because I seem to encounter it all over the place and it reads in a sort of hackneyed manner to me now, but that’s by the bye.)

And on that note, I shall go and Do Something now.

(Procrastination takes a seat in the corner, settles himself with a nice magazine, and asks if there’s any Earl Grey while he’s waiting. He doesn’t look defeated. He hasn’t even got the decency to look vaguely ashamed.)

* This pattern, according to SouleMama, comes out at a true 0-3 months size; as the witchling will be nine months old tomorrow (and that’s a whole other post, come to think of it), I’m adapting to the extent that my attempt will be quite a step away from the original. Also, did I mention that I’ve never done buttonholes before, and I’m utterly shit at counting? Meh. Should be fun. When I find myself in the middle of a hideously large ball of knotted wool, I’ll rethink, doubtless.

Sometimes, I think I am quite alright about it all, really. Well, not alright, exactly, but, you know, adjusted. Or something. I have accepted that it is a fact, and I have accepted that the sun still gets up in the morning, and the weather still changes, and the year still cycles around, and the spring flowers continue to come up as the days lengthen once more and the summer draws closer, even though it seems to me as if there should be some permanent sense of change, some reflection of the fact that you are no longer in this world. And then… then I hear a piece on the radio (today it was Ravel’s ‘Le Tombeau de Couperin’, which you spent so many hours learning when you were preparing for your performing diploma while I was being a teenage delinquent and leaning out of the bathroom window, cigarette in hand) and I’m floored once more by the overwhelming unfairness of it all, an incomprehensible sense of loss, of sorrow, of pity. It’s as if it happened last week, yet at the same time it seems like another lifetime since I saw your face, heard your voice, looked into your eyes. I can’t believe this is really it – you’re never coming back, and, if such things happen, the next time I see you, an entire lifetime – my lifetime – will have passed between us, and I shall, if I avoid joining you in your fate, have become an old woman.

I worry, too, about what may yet happen. Not just for me, though I admit that as I get older, that frightens me more than it once did – I am not a hero, and pain is not something I relish. No: my fear is for my daughter. Will I too do this to her? Will she sit, a twenty-something child, watching her mother die and knowing there is nothing to be done, no way out, despite trying as hard as one possibly could? And will she talk to her daughter, telling her of the things that we did together when she was little, when I was alive, before that daughter was even thought of? Will that be my end? I know that part of your anguish as you realised what was coming was the horrible sense of déjà-vu – your mother, when you were fifteen and she was thirty-nine. I have had the tests that made sense. I carry neither BRCA1 nor 2. Yet the geneticists tell me that new genes may still be discovered. Where does that leave me? Will these breasts, which now nourish my daughter, comforting her when she is ill or unhappy or just lonely, be the thing which carries me off this mortal coil, dividing us for who knows how long? Will cancer ever just fuck the hell off, and will it do so without having taken me out in the process?

It’s been a long day, and I miss you. And, too, I miss my father. Sometimes I feel so very grown-up, and it’s not altogether a good thing.

(This post brought to you courtesy of an exceptionally maudlin moment which will pass shortly, no doubt; I don’t normally give in to this sort of feeling, but some days, it just gets me while I’m not looking, if you see what I mean.)

About a week ago, I came across Organix apple and plum cereal bars for small people; they are sort of like flapjacky things, but without sugar, or at least without sugar as sugar, if that makes sense. The sweetness comes from raisins and fruit concentrate. Anyhoo, the witchling nibbled one down quite cheerily and I realised that if she were to continue nibbling at that rate, we would soon need a second mortgage. So, I fiddled aboot a bit this weekend and came up with the following:

Flapjacky Whatsits
Get mits on:
A large handful of sultanas
A large splash of fruit juice concentrate (we had some of this one in; the large splash was probably about, say, ten tablespoons’ worth)
Probably about 5 oz of oats
Probably about 2 oz plain wholemeal flour
A grabbing of dessicated coconut (and by grabbing, I mean a fistful, I suppose)
A splash of sunflower oil (say, five tablespoons’ worth)

Then…
Blend the sultanas together with the juice concentrate and the oil, then whack the other stuff in and mix it all together into a reasonably flapjack-like consistency; I threw in a bit more oil and a few more oats here and there, just to get it to the right whatsit. Then stick it in some sort of tray (I used a rather odd little muffin tray thing that I found in the back of the cupboard, looking rather forlorn), and bake the bugger for about twenty minutes at 180°c. I was very surprised by how well the first attempt turned out; definitely means I won’t buy the Organix ones again, as lovely though they are, they’re also £2.65 or something similarly hideous.

Somehow this week has been quite busy; I’ve been drafting two articles for this and that, and sorting out things like applications to go part-time (Quercus), as well as going in to work for half a day, which felt very strange after so long away, and not entirely good, predictably. I don’t really want to go back; people keep telling me that I’ll enjoy the adult company (they’ve obviously never worked in an IT-related job…) and it’ll do me good – I remain unconvinced thus far. We’ll see, I guess. It’s a necessary evil given the £6000-odd I’d have to repay in maternity money otherwise, but it didn’t make it any easier to leave the witchling, even though it was Quercus who was looking after her.

Right – must go and rootle pizza out of the oven; tonight: sweetcorn, mushroom, pepperoni, various bits and bobs of cheese, and the essential ingredient – sunflower seeds.

- Bought new car. New car needs clutch doing, but got £400 off agreed price (which was bloody good anyway), so am OK with that, not least as I think it’s going to be A LONG TIME before it really needs doing. New car has blinds in back, so witchling much less cross as no longer poked in eye by sun. Also has CD changer, and climate control. Oh, and Xenon headlights. Feel like am driving limo (though bet bits of trim don’t fall off limos quite so easily).

- Car seat arrived for the witchling. Is good. And blue.

- Few dodgy nights with the witchling lately. This morning she woke at 5.20 and that was it, basically, for sleep. She’s still waking on average twice a night, which is fine, but twice a night plus a hideously early start is a bit ghastly. Still not up for leaving her to cry, though, and just hoping is passing phase caused in part by…

- Bastard nappy rash which just won’t fuck off. The witchling is in cloth nappies, and we change her frequently; we also use camomile tea and a drop or two of oil (sometimes olive, sometimes sweet almond, sometimes lavender) in her wipe water (we use washable wipes) as well as calendula cream. Normally this has meant she didn’t really get a rash at all, but lately we just can’t get rid of it – she got sore when teething and now we’re plastering the poor child with Kamillosan, a camomile-based ointment, Sudocreme, castor oil and zinc cream, and, for two applications at the doctor’s insistence, an anti-fungal cream which made things MUCH worse, so much so that it’s taken about a week to get back to ‘just’ nappy rash. Am not sure where to go from here, really – don’t want to take her back to the GP as frankly don’t think he knows which end to blow down, but poor bot is very red still. Suggestions gratefully received, though as waiting until nine months before offering egg-including food, think will hold off on egg white solution have heard of, just in case. Would be just our luck that she’d be allergic to it.

- Sad that things with my father aren’t changing. Really sad, if honest. Talked for fifteen minutes on phone last night, and he didn’t even ask how the witchling was. He just isn’t interested. Saddens me very much, and don’t seem to be able to simply put it to one side and move on, which is what I’d hoped to learn to do. Learning curve = clearly too steep for me. Shows no sign of wanting to see her or, really, me, though quite happy to pick brains re techy challenges of ISP woes and whatnot. Couldn’t even remember how old the witchling is. Know is pointless and awful thing to think, but just sometimes can’t help reflecting how different things would be if it my mother had been the one to survive. Just. So. Sick of hearing about how marvellous his new wife is, and how clever/resourceful/hard-working/ingenious she is, and isn’t it all just so incredible and haven’t they got a lot on their plates, and aren’t they busy/clever/hard-up/artistic/musical/diverse. Know is childish/pathetic/ridiculous to feel this, but just can’t help it. Also, sick of jibes about my mother, particularly when taking place in front of new wife, and, worse still, step-children.

- Going to write an article for Juno Magazine. Very excited about it.

- Quercus applying to work part-time so we can look after the witchling without using a nursery. Worked out will be £20 worse off a month than if we were getting tax credits towards childcare, so fuck it – is much our preference anyway, and would do Quercus world of good to get out of work environment full-time. Have I ever mentioned that Quercus would like to be a composer? Well, he would. And he should. One of his pieces is being performed by one of the orchestras he plays with in the not-too-distant future; will be v. g. for him as reminds him that house and work and whatnot Is Not Be-All And End-All. Maybe once extension hell over, Quercus could write when the witchling naps, or something. Is nice idea. Like that. (Of course, then will write own bestseller novel and never have to work again. Would like that too. V. nice idea. Have lots of ideas, and 20,000 words of novel written during PhD, but thus far bugger-all else; really must change that.)