taking stock

I've decided that  the language associated with new year's resolutions - "aims" "goals" and so on is not to my liking.  It's altogether too sports orientated . So I decided a few years back that I would have gentle aspirations instead, generally relating to "being" rather than "doing" which would result in subtle changes of behaviour.   That's the idea anyway.

I spent a while thinking about this year's aspiration.  One thing that was really irritating me was my absent mindedness - not being able to find things around the house,  turning up at places on the wrong day for meetings and so on.  It was not just about being organised, it was about focusing on what I was doing or who I was listening to.  I decided after much looking at definitions, that I would simply try to be attentive.  The idea is to both pay attention, be more deliberate and to be more thoughtful, and the only way you know whether you have been successful is to stop and think about it.

So how has it been going?  Erm, not all that well actually.  I've turned up a week early for appointments twice in the last fortnight.  I totally muddled up the date for meeting a friend and turned up a week late.  And I've ended up with four cakes instead of the two I planned to make because I quadrupled the amount of water in this recipe instead of doubling it, hence the cake jenga above.  I'm still losing things.

So I need some help. Would a more sophisticated  web enabled phone with an e-diary make me more or less attentive?  Do I need more or less lists to organise myself, and should they be on paper?  How do I stop losing my (3 pairs of different prescription) specs and would I be better off with just one pair;  or contact lens; or laser surgery?  And where's my blooming earring?

mostly

Mostly I've been busy doing stuff.  I look guiltily at the laptop and think, well, it can wait while other things can't.

I came across the woman with the big slippers at a potter's wheel when I went to enroll for an upholstery class.  There's an air of worthiness about the old Victorian school with its wooden benches and slightly oily scent.  It's all webbing and wood and woolly stuffing.

I'm very excited, but will make an E for effort to come here more often.

no great expectations

I suppose he should not have asked me to cut his hair after I'd been watching Great Expectations (still on i-player atthe time of writing).  By the end of a walk round Rainham Marshes on Sunday, he rather resembled Magwich emerging from the water.  My tweed coat just acted as a wick and little rivulets ran out of the corners of the hem.  It was a good start to the new year.

The next day, the last day of the holidays, we followed the Walbrook from Shoreditch to the Thames. Of all of Tom Bolton's route, this is the shortest and in possibly most elusive, for there is very little evidence of a river.  No surprise really.  Even though the routes were only published last year, buildings have already disappeared, routes blocked by new building sites.  It's the nature of the City, ever changing.  Bolton suggests standing beneath Richard Serra's Fulcrum at Broadgate and thinking about the "echoing subterranean spaces of the Walbrook in its sewer pipe below".  We did, of course.

Even though it was a bright day, it was chilly in the narrow lanes and wider streets where taller buildings created wind tunnels.  There was a sighting of the join between the old London Wall and newer bricks; the opportunity to pay homage to Vesta and an appropriately fluvial Neptune clone in the faux temple on the corner of Bank; interesting rustication on Throgmorton Avenue; an unusual viewpoint of St Paul's Cathedral above a building site, soon to disappear.

The walk took us through streets I've walked through scores of times on the way to work but without thinking about a river below.  We ended where the Thames Path meets Cousin Lane. With the tide low, we checked the foreshore and examined bits of river-glass,  pottery shards, flints and bones. Then we looked down Three Cranes Wharf into the storm drain outflow below without seeing even a trickle of the secret river.

It didn't rain though.  And Tate Modern does a decent pot of tea and a good line in surrealism.

and a happy new year to you too

We stayed in and enjoyed an evening by the fire.  The clock was broken years ago when my son, intrigued, decided to see what happened if you opened the window and twisted the hands.  One fell off and we've had trouble telling the time ever since.  Thank goodness for Apple.  Just before midnight  we poured the whiskies, turned on the telly, and watched the fireworks with no sound because we could hear the enormous bangs resounding all the way across London, mingled in with local fireworks.  As  soon as they died down we could hear sirens.  It is London after all.  The candles and the tree in the front window lit the way, the door was open to welcome in the New Year and my brother first footed with a glass of champagne in his hand.  We raised a glass and ignored the fierce eyebrows in the background.

Wishing you a happy, healthy and hope-filled 2012.

coming up for air

Coming up for air,  St Christopher's Place

One of my favoured remedies for the excesses of Christmas is a port and brandy, recommended many years ago by an elderly barmaid in a pub overlooking the sea at Cromer;  we remember her with affection whenever indigestion demands a cure.  The other remedy is a long walk, preferably one through unfamiliar territory or familiar places seen from a slightly different angle.  So to speak.  On Boxing Day we stuck to the familiar circuit - Regent's Canal,  Victoria Park, Hertford Cut, Mile End Park, home, cup of tea.  A few days later, up for an adventure, we decided to follow the course of the River Tyburn, courtesy of Tom Bolton's Lost Rivers of London, from the heights of leafy Hampstead to the infilled marshes of Pimlico.

I'm not sure I can convey how stupidly exhilarating this walk was.  It may have been the slight stir-craziness of Christmas, or possibly the heady Hampstead air or, as I like to think, the sheer delight of a quest for something largely unseen.   It was a fascinating journey through the physical and human landscape carved by a small river, now hidden in culverts and pipes, where you can still see the dips and slopes left behind as the river meandered its way to the Thames.

The walk starts near Spring Path and Shepherd's Well, past the gothic villas and mansions that, thanks to Sigmund Freud's choice of home, now seem to house the greatest density of psychiatrists in the country.

Shepherd's Well, Spring Path and Fitzjohn's Avenue, Hampstead

At some points you come across manholes in the road where you can hear the hidden water - murkiness unseen - if you brave the middle of the road and put your ear to the vents. As I did.

Colleen listens to running water

One of the pleasures of a walk like this, following on from days of languor, is that you know you are in for an easy time as it is going to be downhill.  Below Hampstead and Swiss Cottage, you cross the Regent's Canal taking you into the Regent's Park. An aqueduct built into Charlbert Bridge carries the Tyburn across. The river runs into the Boating Lake with exotic ducks fenced in, too soppy to venture across.  John identified scorp, smew, pochard, mallard, shelduck, mandarin and tufted ducks, as well as Hooper swans and ubiquitous herons lurking like predatory clergymen.   Another manhole in the middle of the Outer Circle gurgled obligingly from the depths below.

Across the Canal, Regent's Park and Paddington Street Gardens

South of Marylebone Road the route became more interesting because, despite the greater number of people, you actually follow the serpentine course of the river in some places like Marylebone Lane - "a winding, contrary route".  According to Tom Bolton "it was once a country lane running through fields alongside the Tyburn before eighteenth century London hid the lane and the river among newer, grander roads".   Going through St Christopher's Place and looking up at the decorations, you might even feel like a fish gaping up for air.

Across Oxford Street - surging through shoppers - there are more meanders down back streets behind posh shops.  The gentle slopes and occasional cast iron grilles confirm the course.  Brook Street is raised to cross the Tyburn below, then curves gently downwards again through narrow Avery Row.  Crossing Piccadilly into Green Park you can see where the river has carved a valley which graduates gently through the park down towards Victoria.

The last section of the walk again takes you beyond Victoria through back streets like King's Scholars Lane, towards the flatlands of Pimlico,  Aylesford Street and the Tachbrook Estate, where the last exposed area of the Tyburn was finally put undercover in the 1960s.   Opening the gate under the arch of the appropriately named Marsh House, you finally come to the point where the Tyburn trickles into the Thames.

By the time we arrived it was dark.  We looked across to the south bank where the River Effra flows in.  I like the name.  It may well be the next quest.

We made do with a cup of tea at the Tate before we followed the Thames homewards.  By Tube.

peace at last

Cambridge, this Thursday

It was sunny.  We sneaked off to Cambridge for a quiet time together, my friend and I, and enjoyed ourselves very much indeed.  Now I'm listening to the replay of the Nine Lessons and Carols. The others are asleep.  A firework has just gone off to mark the turn of the day.  There's just a bit to finish off, not much.  Maybe I'll have a small glass of something.  Then I'll be off to bed too.

Wishing all you lovely people, wherever you are, a joyful and peaceful Christmas.

respite

Sometimes you need a break in the run up to Christmas.  I know I do.  Round about the solstice I can find myself getting quite overwhelmed by the busy-ness.  This year I have been more organised not by the to-do list type of stuff, but by scheduling in some quiet time.  So it was that Veronika came round yesterday for a crochet lesson, and Elizabeth came to join us.  We had an altogether relaxing time with our hooks, mince pies and fruity spelt loaf, and a bowl of home-made pumpkin soup  before going off to meet our mates at the pub where we ended up making a communal fourteen pointed star with some pretty paper that E just happened to have in her bag.  V, who was an exemplary student and very diligent about holding the yarn properly, dropped me a line today declaring herself a crochet addict: "I crocheted my way home last night, on the central line, then onto the Waterloo and City Line, then on the train trying to remember to not miss my stop.  Then I got home and had to do just a little bit more in bed... "  she said.  


Our fluffy cat is a crochet addict too.  Except she waits until the work is done and just sits on it.

carmen fluminum

Hammersmith Bridge

"The Thames has more than fifty tributaries between source and sea.  Twenty one (depending on what qualifies as a river) are on the tidal Thames within Greater London;  the Black Ditch, Beverley Brook, the Brent, Counter's Creek, the Crane, the Darent, the Earl's Sluice, the Effra, the Falcon, the Fleet, the Ingrebourne, the Lea, the Neckinger, the Ravensbourne, the Roding, the Rom, Stamford Brook, the Tyburn, the Wallbrook, the Wandle, the Westbourne,  And these London rivers have their own tributaries: Bollo Brook, the Ching, Dollis Brook, the Graveney, Hackney Brook, the Kidbrooke, the Quaggy, the Moselle, Mutton Brook, Pool River, Pyl Brook, the Silk Stream, the Slade, Wealdstone Brook among many." Tom Bolton, London's Lost Rivers, A Walker's Guide, Introduction.


When I picked this up and read it the other day, I was so captivated by the sound in my head of that list of rivers, brooks and bournes I wanted to recite them aloud like poetry.   Reading Joanna's paean to grey, Esther's lovely exploration of Adeste Fideles, and then listening to a programme -only available for a couple more days  - about Ted Hughes , reminded me again of how much I like this list.  And that learning Latin as a girl I took a fancy to the words carmen and flumen.

All this takes my mind off the other lists in my head, though now I think there may be a new one entitled "things I want to do next year".

warming

Spelt fruit loaf

It's not surprising that as the cold weather finally started to bite I found myself longing for spicier, sweeter food, but short of the full cake and pie fest that is about to start, if indeed it has not already. This coincided with a decision to branch out a bit from my everyday wholemeal and use some of the spelt that I bought on impulse a while ago.  I can only think that the reason I waited so long was down to inertia.  When I finally put my arse in gear, my spelt fruit loaf turned out to be a soft and sweet bread, heavily spiced, without all the fat and sugar that comes with cake, and absolutely perfect for a banana sandwich pick-me-up indoor picnic on a dull day.  I am a total convert.  Unfortunately, I  can't offer a perfect recipe to suit everyone because I used my breadmaker (yes, I'm still using it everyday and it has a rye programme that can be used for spelt.)  I haven't tried the recipe by hand, though if you are interested there are plenty of recipes here, and more around the interweb that you might want to try, and Dan Lepard gives one or two in Short and Sweet (untested by me).  Spelt costs more than other flours, but it can be worth paying that bit more for something that tastes so good,  somehow makes you feel in touch with a bit of the past, and prepares you for the spicy days to come.

Ingredients: 1.5tsp quick yeast; 500g spelt flour; 1 tsp honey; 3 tbsp oil ( I use walnut or a mix of walnut and sunflower)' 1 tsp salt; 150 mixed dried fruit (I use those pre-mixed bags); 3 tsp mixed spice (sounds a lot, but keep faith); 360ml water.  Mix and bake on the rye programme, if you have one, three and a half hours on my machine.  The loaf has a slightly sunken top and may be slightly floury at the sides.

to do or not to do, that is the question*

I cannot be the only person having to decide what moves from the to do list to the not to do list, if indeed there such a thing exists in a place other than my own head.  Thus I decided that I would not do my advent countdown to Christmas this year.  I am missing it, of course, as one does when one decides not to do something.  I just thought I needed a break this year.  I am, however, delighted to see that both Lara and Joanna are both blogging their way daily through Advent.  And then there is the quirky little  Geffrye Musuem calendar for a visit.  (I am particularly fond of what is behind the door of 4th December which reminds me of days out at the seaside and Sunday morning breakfasts.)

Now here I am at tea time, having done some things on the to do list  and some that aren't-  a ride on the canal, a yoga lesson with a great teacher, popping in to the doctor's surgery, pestering the man who has had my sewing maching to service for 5 weeks, delivering an electric urn, popping in to my mum with a new duvet, hearing on the radio Annie Lennox singing the Holly and the Ivy and joining in a bit croakily, looking at new printers, planning our  WI Christmas market next Tuesday, mending a couple of moth holes in a charity shop skirt, and written this post (now I've listed them I know I've done more than I thought).  There are lots of things not done that are on the to do list too.   Including sweeping up the stars on the kitchen floor, though it may be several days until I get round to that because I like to see them.  And just looking at this strange picture reminds me of Perry Como, one of my dad's favourites, singing Catch a Falling Star.


I hope you find time to catch some falling stars in the next couple of weeks.

*My trip to see the Comedy of Errors tonight may be what has put me in Shakespearean mood.