Dresser

Not snappy. Just beautiful, and off-white, and FULL: glasses, special crockery, everyday plates. And cookbooks? Did I mention the cookbooks? And the fruit bowls.

And, currently, the money box for copper coins that, one day a year, disgorges its contents into something easy to carry so that I can trade them in for a money off voucher in a supermarket.

With cereal packets crammed down one side, and the Large But Useful Piece of Cardboard down the other. And a couple more recipe files on top of that. And my collection of jugs on the top ledge.

And, normally, a large tray underneath, ready to be captured for jigsaws or board games, or any other game that might be played on the floor but can perfectly well be put between two people on the sofa, to Save On The Knees.

And fairy lights at the top? Did I mention those? They live there most of the year, and make an annual trip onto the Christmas tree.

A couple of years ago, trimming the lower branches of the tree to make time for a guest bed alongside the tree in the study, I managed to cut through the string of lights. So now we have a new string of fairy lights, all white, that also flash off and on. In a low-key way.

Yes, yes, I know I can take a photo of it, and show you that. But I wanted to savour the words that take in the dresser and its contents, because it is an object I love – practical, beautiful, soothing in its paleness. And fitting just right in that alcove.

I sat tonight, and was less sure what to write about tonight. It was wet today. All day, pretty much. There were some chats with mums during a sports class, and those were good.

I sat in the armchair tonight and read some other people’s posts, enjoying, still pondering for my own. I decided to stop. So I looked up – and took in the dresser. And decided to make it my post for the night.

I sat and read advice about writing today. While I don’t remember all of it, I do remember that I am allowed to start sentences with and or but. I tend to do so from time to time, but, with that rush of joy in looking lingeringly at my dresser, it came out as a stream of ands.

And when you have a piece of furniture you quietly delight in, something that sums up your home, what you are about – why not?

Hunt the moment

A different feeling today. The sickness and the cold have been (mostly) banished. It’s back to school, back to the morning school run for one parent – and time for the other to get the house back again.

Except that it’s been rather lovely, the weekend extending by two days. Once the obligatory school phone call has been made (ie why we’re not there), the rest of the day rolls out invitingly, even when your companion is not at their best. It’s the avoidance of the school pick up that really helps…

So, is it easier to find the moment on the days with company, or the days you can be solitary again? Both, I would think. But I probably find it easier on the solitary days.

More space to think, to notice things, without any ‘Guess WHAT?’s, requirements to watch/approve/repeat. So today, I go moment hunting – and somehow, I do not come home with something for the pot.

Part of the issue is that it’s not enough to hunt the moment. It’s also about capturing it. These blogs I am reading, they use words to capture (or I would no doubt be off rather sharpish), but they use photos too. Lots of them.

The main one I am gulping my way through has a weekly photo, on a Friday, as a way to capture a moment. I rather like that – regularity, but not too much required of you.

Can I take pictures too? Yes. I enjoy it, too. We take lots. Various boxes testify to how many I’ve taken over the years, especially as a student, but since then too. But when my first laptop coughed and spluttered, earlier in the year, I lost the access to a laptop you could just slot a memory card into.

I’ve got used to the Mac, and generally like it, but I am still a PC girl in a Mac world, it seems. I lack that ‘just do it!’ aspect that the PC vs Mac ads were about. So, clearly, I haven’t been loading up photos to go with my blog posts.

Dan and I know how we work. I’m the words, he’s the pictures. True, I too can take photos, he too can write (and well), but we have our favourite ways of relating to the world – plus we know which ones we do best.

So, I am working my way round to explaining: what I really wanted to capture today was the afternoon sun. We have had some wonderful pockets of late autumnal sun this year, including today. There it was over the coast; there too, illuminating the rugby pitches we travel past on the bus.

And really, it would have been wisest to capture that sun in a series of photos, as well as words. But I did not. Because part of me still thinks that words are the main deal, always have been, always will be. And I am unsure whether or not to overcome that, whether to do pictures as well as words.

I will leave you to imagine the sun for yourself – perhaps from your own autumnal recollections, if you were able to be out in it today.

I think I will go hunting again tomorrow. But perhaps I will consider extending my apparatus for the future, packing a camera spear as well as a word net.

T’internet

That’s what my brother refers to it as. Being based in Yorkshire as he is, you’ve got to get in your t’s while you can. It seems a strange one to put in the box, when it’s also work, rest, and a speedy route to Christmas present decision making, but there it is.

Why today? Because of what it made possible. In consultation, and with audience, I was able to make a couple of charity donations (a ‘swap’ with another section of the family, where we donate on each other’s behalf each Christmas time). Find out that one child was nearing getting better, and another had new challenges. Catch up with the successes of friends in new ventures.

The best use of t’internet today was in looking together at a blog site I discovered recently. SouleMama is stateside (as most of my current blog reading seems to be), recommended through another blog I’m following, and charts the progress of the Soule family in running a smallholding, and collating a magazine called TapRoot.

I’m a bit hooked on it at the moment, partly as they are based in Maine, and I rather like the notion of north + coast that Maine evokes for me. It was what was on the screen when I opened the laptop today, and so after we’d done our other stuff, we went back to it.

Part of my progress with others’ blogs seems to be starting with current posts, and reading back through previous posts. It’s a reverse chronology, but still effective, especially when the blogger posts regularly, as SouleMama does.

What captured us both today was the farm pictures: the look of baby turkeys, being admired and passed round by the kids in the family; sheep being shorn, and some amazing pictures of a bird’s nest that had the feel of timelapse photography.

You can query whether this is the Good Life for the 21st century: reading someone else’s Grow Your Own story. Whether it’s too easy to see all the lovely pictures and scroll through in 3rd gear. But the bird’s nest stopped us: we had to go back, and see each photo individually.

The nest, a thing of amazing beauty in its shape and materials. Later, the speckled eggs, all neatly tucked in. The sudden realisation in the next picture that you are seeing tiny heads in the nest, so they must have hatched.

The archetypal picture of baby birds wanting to be fed – heads tilted back until you’re sure they can manage 180 degrees of open. Catching sight of a worm or two in the next picture, and realising the feeding going on, without seeing the adult bird.

For the days when we forget the marvel of seeing/acting/doing on a world stage, with speed, with convenience…a bird’s nest. Nature happening right in front of us.

Albeit at a distance. Several thousand miles, a few months back, and so on. But right there – and relevant for us here, in that moment.

Imagineering

I have a feeling that this is what the creatives at Walt Disney are called: imagineers? The ones who get to think up rides, plot lines – I’m not sure what is theirs, and what’s not. But I love the combination of imagination and engineer: through some practical application of impractical (but wonderful) thinking, we arrive somewhere new.

We’re at a slightly low ebb today: one very sore throat, one tummy bug. I try to stay afloat between the menu requirements for the two, which may converge (jelly, anyone?) but may not (a pre-teatime meltdown when the unfairness (and portion sizes) of other’s meals came to a head for the one with the tummy bug).

But between the resting, reading aloud, being read to, use of story tapes (audio CDs to you), and other sundry activities, there was enough energy for some imagineering.

Take 1: pile of Duplo, accessorised with some Playmobil pirates. The two pirates fight it out for the possession of a golden pistol, hidden in a pile of (very small) coins in the treasure chest. Sit with your knees up and you can make hills to run up, and caves at the back.

Add in the fabled blue blanket, and there’s a lagoon to stash the treasure in when your enemy comes too close. And for a quick deus ex machina moment, one pirate escapes in our newly acquired Tardis, along with the treasure, and sundry plastic vegetables that happened to be in there already.

Take 2: a picnic cum family meal, courtesy of blue blanket. A pretend tin of cat food gets opened up and spooned into bowls ‘for our two cats’. When I query which these are, out come the soft toy lion cub and snow leopard. Later, Optimus Prime decides to join us (though it is never revealed what he is actually eating). I try to capture this on the camera, but with low lighting, it doesn’t quite do it justice.

Take 3: bring in iPod and mini speaker, do something fancy to the iPod. Cue A-ha, and later, Pet Shop Boys. We suddenly have an impromptu 80s disco, complete with big smiles, some hip wiggling, and attempts to turn the main light out and find something that will do in place of disco lights.

Clearly our need of a glitter ball is greater than I anticipated. Sadly my affections are won by the need to cook tea and call an insurance company, but the disco lasts a bit longer (and has to be sent back to the bedroom when it threatens to be louder than the ‘on hold’ music).

All very satisfactory – and no doubt part of the recuperation process. Please: do try this at home. Your way.

Comfort viewing

Time for the Sunday afternoon film. It’s become a bit of a ritual, post-lunch and before the Sunday evening downhill dash to get ready for a new week. Much of the time, it’s the others watching, while I either catch up on stuff, or fit in a crafty nap if I can. Today, we settled for watching a film all together.

Comfort viewing can mean a number of things, from my perspective. Maybe it’s things I’ve seen before, and know how I’ll feel about. Maybe things I like in general, and can take another episode or three of, aka box sets. But the greatest treat is doing so from the comfiest place in the house – our bed.

Given the winter looming, the rise in fuel prices, snuggling up together with a big blanket to tuck your toes under is one way to avoid putting the heating on. And one more of those comforts is watching together, finding something we all enjoy. Three cheers, then, for Pixar, made to appeal to everyone while simultaneously flattering you with all the references you manage to spot. On this viewing.

Comfort viewing is giving up on the to do list for a while, and doing the thing you actually want to do. Evade housework. Ignore proposal writing. Leave the Playmobil untidied. Doing down time, doing together time. And as a bonus, you get to watch a masterpiece. Smiles all round.