306: north and south

I may have mentioned once or twice how much I love London, and part of that is the sheer variety of things to do when you’re in it. Recently, thanks to an excellent organisation called Tickets for Good (I work for a charity) and being part of various arts networks, I have been trying to do a few more of those things – Amanda and I went to see the excellent production of Othello just before Christmas, for example. There’s been two nights out this week!

Wednesday

The first evening out was also with Amanda, to a venue called Lafayette London near Kings Cross – a basement venue styled as a saloon with a lot of wood and extremely expensive drinks. The show was Sabrage, which is when you open a wine bottle with a sabre and this did indeed happen at the begining and end. Everything in between was…unexpected.

The venue was pretty full, and our wobbly table and bentwood chairs were surrounded by a whole variety of people – from a pair of elderly couples in front of us to two lone gentlemen behind us, one of whom left before the interval and the other of whom was having an absolute whale of a time and who recommended a similar event to us. Several people left before the interval, in fact – perhaps the unexpected was a little too unexpected. It’s for over-18s only for a reason.

The show is described as “a decadent world where high-octane spectacle and intoxicating allure meets titillating humour” which pretty much nails it. The comperes, who amp up the energy from the moment they take the stage with comedy and audience participation (which continues throughout) are highly entertaining and have their own spots in the show as well. I haven’t laughed so much in a while, which is much needed.

There are slinky singers in sequins, one of whom sat of the lap of the elderly gentleman in front while singing – prior to this he hadn’t looked as if he was enjoying himself, and his wife was highly amused. There’s cheeky burlesque, perfectly timed and occasionally outrageous physical comedy, amazing aerial work, rollerskates, bubbles, people flying around and climbing walls, and Amanda was still emptying gold foil out of her handbag the following day.

We had dinner at Caravan in Granary Square beforehand – sharing plates including pizza, smashed cucumber, kale and croquettes, and entertainment was provided initially by the adjacent table where an ex-couple were picking over the bones of their relationship. Well, he was – she couldn’t get a word in between him mansplaining her feelings to her. He was drinking heavily and she was trying not to, and after two hours of him we were somewhat concerned for her welfare as he was not taking hints. She had her coat on and was trying to gather her things – at which point her phone mysteriously disappeared and reappeared where he’d been sitting – and he was trying to convince her to go to the bar and keep drinking which she’d agreed to. As they got up we nabbed her and checked she was OK, and she was very much done but too nice to abandon him. We suggested she went to the ladies and snuck out by the back door, and before we left we asked the waitress who’d been covering our tables to keep an eye on her. We do hope she got home OK, and without him in tow. Trying to be active bystanders is a good thing, and both of us have benefited from these in our younger days. I hope if any of my Horde find themselves in similar situations someone would look out for their welfare too.

The evening was somewhat marred by the Central Line being suspended between Liverpool Street and Leytonstone, which meant I had to get a mainline train to Harlow and then a cab back to the village, but there we are. I thought I’d try Uber, as Thing 1 seems to use them a lot successfully, but thanks to the Central Line and their surge pricing policy they wanted £85 for a 7.5 mile journey. Luckily the local taxi firm were more reasonable!

Friday

Friday night’s outing was with Rhiannon and we went to see Gerry and Sewell at the Aldwych Theatre. Based on Jonathan Tulloch’s sadly out of print (and not available on Kindle) novel The Season Ticket, which was also made into the brilliant film Purely Belter, this was a free ticket offer from the Participatory Arts London network. A five o’clock performance is also a very civilised time for those of us who live outside the TfL network.

I loved the film, so was looking forward to the play, and we weren’t disappointed – funny, poignant and at times shocking, with Geordie actors in the main roles and a good supporting cast including some puppetry. AC/DC and a lot of Sam Fender feature in the soundtrack with some dance sequences including the explosive opening moment involving a lot of flags in the audience. The set was bleak, as was a lot of the action – the north east after the closure of the shipyards was not a happy place – but the overarching message of the story is hope which does come through. Highly recommended if the production tours. If not, go and find the film.

Things making me happy this week

  • The social media algorithm showing me a lot of Pallas’s Cats
  • Finishing the second Lego bouquet
  • Meeting nearly 100 people wanting to work at our Centre at one of our information evenings
  • interviewing several excellent candidates for our Community Gardener role
  • Breakfast and a mooch round the charity shops with Miriam on Saturday morning
  • A really interesting meeting in Kentish Town (though the mansplaining that followed my sharing of the picture below was tiresome)
  • Haggis

And that’s it from me. I don’t know what this week has in store but am fairly confident it won’t involve flying men on rollerskates and audience participation….or if it does I’ll be very surprised!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

The Retired Assassin’s Guide to Orchid Hunting – Naomi Kuttner

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe/Life, The Universe and Everything/So Long and Thanks For All The Fish/Mostly Harmless – Douglas Adams (Audible)

The Ornithologist’s Field Guide to Love – India Holton

The Enchanted Greenhouse – Sarah Beth Durst

Direct Descendant – Tanya Huff

An Inheritance of Magic – Benedict Jacka

305: deliver us from Evri*

*Other, equally useless, courier companies are available.

Over the last couple of weeks I have been ordering a lot of things for the access trolleys and the quiet space at our new site: from fidget toys and ear defenders to weighted shoulder wraps, twiddle muffs and friendly puppets. Families arriving with children who have additional needs will be able to pick up a sensory bag to take on their journey around the galleries, and adults will be able to choose the items they need to support their visit. In the quiet space there will be calming things for people feeling overwhelmed or reflective.

All of the things have had to be delivered by people who are paid (admittedly extremely badly, in some cases) to do exactly this: deliver things. It is their job. It is the sole reason for the existence of their employers: DHL, Evri, Royal Mail, Yodel and so on. I buy something on a website. The company dispatches the item, either by taking their parcels to the appropriate parcel place or by handing them over to the courier company when they come to collect them. The parcels are taken to a hub. They are sent from the hub to local delivery depots for collection by the local courier. The local courier picks them up and (ideally, in theory) delivers them to the person who ordered them: in this case, me.

This seems simple, yes? Order thing, thing sent, thing received. Unless something goes wrong between point A (the company) and point B (me), this should be the end of things. Things do go wrong, often with Evri in my experience: things disappear in transit, they experience ‘shrinkage’ in the warehouse, the courier throws all the parcels in a ditch in protest at being paid 50p a day or something, the parcel is ripped open in transit and arrives damaged and missing some bits which point A then has to make good so point B can start her new crochet project (for example), the parcels go back five paces, miss a turn and do not pass Go, that sort of thing. These things can often be resolved although not in the case of shrinkage/eddies in the space-time continuinuinuinuum when there is no hope and one must attempt to deal with customer service. The company has my money and I have the goods I have paid for. Like I say, this should be the end of things.

Ah, if only. If only.

I had two days off earlier in the week courtesy of the Grandtwins, who shared a particularly virulent bug with the family last weekend and which knocked out me, my Beloved, Things 2 and 3 like skittles on Sunday night. When I opened my emails on Wednesday the full horror of ordering things online (from UK companies, not even the big river) dawned in the shape of messages from Evri, DHL, Yodel, Royal Mail asking ‘how did we do?*’. Well, you did your job. Jolly well done. That’s really the very least we can expect.

Readers, I work in a ground floor office in the middle of Islington. Drivers can pull up literally outside, step from van to door, ring the buzzer and someone will come and relieve them of the parcel within 30 seconds. It is not rocket science. It is not even normal science. Not a single one of these drivers is ever required to abseil through a skylight, steer a speedboat through shark-infested waters, climb a mountain, freeclimb over a precipitous balcony and confront a vicious chihuahua armed with only a balaclava in order to leave a box of mediocre chocolates parcel on my desk. So why, therefore, should I be expected to rate their ability to hand a box to someone?

I am, of course, aware that these pesky emails are autogenerated. They’re also unsolicited, as I opt out of all of these things – when given the option. Any complaints made via this system aren’t read anyway and it tells you this from the off – especially in the case of the larger companies whose customer service is provided by bots until you accidentally enter the day’s prize password which grants you your wish to engage briefly and usually unsatisfactorily with an alleged human. In the cultural sector we talk about not doing evaluation for the sake of evaluation: ratings collected and input into some spreadsheet which is filed away and occasionally used to say things like ‘90% of our sessions are rated as excellent’ in a funding bid. Nothing is acted upon, so nothing improves, and the world (at least in my opinion) is made just a little bit worse by having to waste time deleting these unasked for, resource-wasting, AI-generated emails from your inbox.

The one that particularly annoyed me this week was nothing to do with work, however. It was from Evri, relating to a Wool Warehouse parcel they had mostly delivered. The new Attic 24 blanket CAL (crochet-a-long) started last Friday so I opened the yarn pack I’d ordered ready to start. I have never taken part in a CAL before so I was looking forward to it.

Six balls of yarn were missing, including the second colour needed from the pattern, some of the bands were ripped and the yarn was unravelling, so I emailed the yarn company who were wonderful as always. On Monday the WW team responded by 9am and despatched the missing yarn. Evri had damaged the original parcel and shoved most of the contents back in any-which-way before taping it up, sticking a new label on and delivering it to me (a day later than expected). The replacement yarn was sent on Monday, next-day delivery. It turned up two days later. So, a parcel that should never have been necessary, delivered late….and they ask you ‘how did we do?’ It doesn’t matter how amazing an online retailer is, how fast they send your parcel and how beautifully packaged it is, if the customer experience is marred by the delivery experience. Royal Mail is now so expensive to send parcels with that the courier companies have customers and retailers over a barrel. Or at least they would, if the barrel had been delivered on time.

*This isn’t even considering the emails from the companies supplying the actual products, who also emailed me. And heaven forbid you leave something in your basket, or put something in your basket and then remove it – that’s a whole new inbox of wheedling, passive-aggressive emails trying to tempt you back.

Things making me happy this week

  • Getting lots of reading done, which at least makes being ill more bearable
  • Deciding what to do with the enormous pile of 4-ply granny squares I’ve been glaring at for months
  • The first ridiculous amigurumi of the year. He’s a KING prawn!
  • Making a skirt with cargo pockets. Not sure they’re sewed on quite right but they do the job!

It’s been a creative week, as you can see – later today I am off to Heather’s for a crafty afternoon as we’re not going to the wool show this weekend. This week I have a couple of evenings with friends planned which I’m very much looking forward to!

I’ll leave you with a picture of Bailey looking singularly unimpressed….

Same time next week, everyone. How did I do?

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Mudlarking – Lara Maiklem (Audible)

Cold Shoulder Road/Midwinter Nightingale/The Witch of Clatteringshaws – Joan Aiken

There Will Be Bodies – Lindsey Davis

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy/The Restaurant at the End of the Universe – Douglas Adams (Audible)

The Retired Assassin’s Guide to Orchid Hunting – Naomi Kuttner

Vagabond – Tim Curry

304: literary loves

Last week I mentioned that I was reading The Wolves of Willoughby Chase sequence again and quite a few of you lovely people have commented in various places about how they’d loved these books (well, obvs, as I have excellent taste). So, in the spirit of this I shall be sharing more of my childhood favourite series for your education and entertainment or something. I still have all of them on my shelves upstairs or on my Kindle. What have I missed though?

The Dark is Rising sequence – Susan Cooper. Quite Arthurian, set in Cornwall, Wales and Buckinghamshire. Do not watch the film, which was bloody awful despite a good cast.

Little House series – Laura Ingalls Wilder. Pioneering America, heavily romanticised. As an adult all that moving around must have been quite stressful for poor Ma, but it seemed exciting at the time.

The Maggie books – Joan Lingard. For older children, set in Scotland with a side quest to Canada.

Anne of Green Gables series – L. M. Montgomery. Poor Anne-with-an-E, with the carrotty hair and the trials and tribulations.

The Moomins series – Tove Jansson. Family-oriented trolls living in Moominvalley, hibernating through the winter and surviving Hemulens, Grokes and the Hobgoblin. If I ever have a craft shop it’ll be called The Hobgoblin’s Hat. I already named one of the Things after the author.

The Narnia books – C.S.Lewis. I spent a lot of time looking in old wardrobes but failed to find the lamp-post.

The Worst Witch series – Jill Murphy. Poor Mildred Hubble. I don’t blame her for turning Ethel into a pig. She deserved it.

Nancy Drew mysteries – Carolyn Keene. All of these were returned to me a couple of years ago and there will be a full reread. Nancy Drew is still about in various forms but I’m very old school about these and have no truck with them.

The Green Knowe books – Lucy M. Boston. Still haven’t managed to visit.

Willard Price’s Adventure series. So exciting. Everything I know about how to capture birds of paradise is thanks to Hal and Roger Hunt. So far I haven’t had a chance to use this knowledge. I don’t still have these, and suspect that they may not have aged well.

There were many more, of course, and lots of standalone novels that live in my memory and occasionally bubble up (meaning I need to go and find them again and re-read) – but that will be a post for another day.

Other things making me happy this week:

  • Chilly walk with friends and hounds
  • Lurking in my lair
  • Booking in things to look forward to in what’s turning out to be a gloomy January (no snow here!)
  • Family snow-watch – the one in NI won
  • Optimistic graffiti in Angel
  • Catching up with the work gang
  • Other people cooking dinner

This week has a private view at the Soane, Thing 2 promising to cook on Monday, shortlisting for our Community Gardener, starting the Attic24 Wildshore Blanket CAL – it’s all go!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Is/Cold Shoulder Road – Joan Aiken

All of a Winter’s Night – Phil Rickman (Audible)

The Lost Paths – Jack Cornish

The Great Deception – Syd Moore

The Dead of Winter – Sarah Clegg

303: make, read, sleep, repeat

Making stuff

This has been a very therapeutic week, making the most of the end of the year and the beginning of the new one before diving back into the inevitable maelstrom of the last phase of a capital project. I’ve spent many hours in my attic lair surrounded by piles of fabric, reading lots of books, dipping in and out of Grey’s Anatomy with Thing 1, and eating way too much of the Christmas cake.

The sewing hasn’t always been successful. Monday’s project – the Sewing Therapy Hanbok Skirt (a reversible pleated wrap skirt) turned into Tuesday’s project as well, when I unmade it, removed a third of the width and used the removed panel to add seven inches to the length. Floofy skirts that sit just below the knee are really not me, and this one made me feel like a Victorian tea table which I am sure was not the intention. I used a black pinstriped fabric that was perhaps too bulky for the style. I may make a summer version with something much lighter.

The written sewing instructions are sparse but useable, as the designer offers detailed video tutorials instead. As I discovered previously when making the Stitchless TV Bucket Coat, I don’t like video tutorials. Pausing and restarting and faffing about with laptops when I want to sew is a pain. Old style sewing patterns with all their nice clear illustrations and written instructions are much more me and a designer who offered both old-school and video would probably be very popular (definitely with me).

The second make was the Madswick Ginkgo Pinafore, a wrap dress (there may be a theme here) which can be worn several ways and which is a version of a black linen pinafore I use for layering when I am in need of extra pocketses. I used a king sized duvet cover for fabric, with a print of stars and fireflies so this will be for days when I require whimsical pocketses. This had good instructions although I cheated on the last step as burrito-ing the skirt panels felt unnecessarily complicated when a good stitch-in-the-ditch would do the job nicely.

I haven’t been able to do any sewing for ages so I also have a pile of unfinished quilting projects which I now have the space (and will find the time) to get to! The lair is going to be a productive place. I have also stocked up on biscuits.

Reading stuff

I’ve been indulging in a bit of nostalgia over Christmas, working my way through Joan Aiken’s wonderful Wolves of Willoughby Chase sequence, which is set in an alternative history where all those King Georges never made it to the throne. Following the adventures of Dido Twite and her friend Simon, it takes in wolves who’ve made it through the Channel Tunnel, dastardly Hanoverian plots, Arthurian legends, evil fake aunties and much more. When I started to re-collect these novels as an adult I was thrilled to discover that Aiken had filled in some of the gaps in Dido’s story and carried it on past the books I’d loved when younger. Pat Marriott’s dark, scratchy illustrations bring a sense of menace to the early novels, with their looming villains. I can feel a reread of the Dark is Rising sequence coming on afterwards.

I’ve also been learning about the history of footpaths in England and Wales with Jack Cornish’s The Lost Paths – long term readers will know that I love a long walk, and look forward to wandering down new footpaths when I’m out and about. This book looks at why and how many of our footpaths developed across time, what impact events like war and enclosure as well as natural events have on our access to the countryside, and why some paths just stop for no logical reason. It’s taken me ages to get through it (it’s not really a pick up and put down book) but having time off has hooked me right in.

Happy stuff

  • Seeing in the New Year surrounded by the usual friends and family, ridiculous trivia quizzes and Jill retaining her cereal box game crown despite competition from the teens…
  • Meeting an excellent kitten (who I didn’t kidnap as Lulu would probably have eaten him)
  • Snuggling babies in the form of sleepy twins on Saturday morning
  • Frosty walks with friends and hounds
  • The final episode of Stranger Things, and yes I cried.
  • The Holdovers – a film recommended by a work colleague, which manages to look as if it was filmed in the 70s.
  • Thing 2 making dinner on Saturday night
  • Resolving not to make any resolutions I can’t keep

Tomorrow is back to work, although at least from home for the first couple of days to ease back in! Happy New Year all.

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

The Stolen Lake/Limbo Lodge/The Cuckoo Tree/Dido and Pa – Joan Aiken

Strange Days – Violet Fenn

The Dead of Winter – Sarah Clegg

The Magus of Hay/Friends of the Dusk/All of a Winter’s Night – Phil Rickman (Audible)

The Lost Paths – Jack Cornish

302: Dracula doesn’t count

What do Just Like Heaven, Last Christmas, The Sixth Sense and Donnie Darko have in common? Only one of them has a giant bunny. All of them have hot male protagonists (yes, Bruce Willis counts. Don’t argue). One of them is set at Christmas. They don’t have actors in common or similar plot lines.

The answer is, of course, that they are all ‘dead guy movies’, which is a debate my bestie and I have been having for a large part of the past week. These are movies where a character has been dead all along, not just died in the early part of the movie (which means Truly Madly Deeply is but Ghost isn’t) or been part of the action despite being dead (Weekend at Bernie’s is not). Muppets’ Christmas Carol is, since it clearly states that ‘the Marleys were dead to begin with’. There are lots of horror genre examples too, I expect, but I’m less likely to watch those.

Dead guy movie
Not a dead guy movie

Where it gets sticky is when the undead (or mostly dead) get brought into the equation. There was a lively debate about Dracula, for example: he’s dead but undead so is still walking around the place, thus very much a grey area. Her family say it counts, mine disagree. Frankenstein is another grey area, as all the various bits of the Monster were dead to begin with but then get reanimated. Zombie movies are mostly not, as often they’re wandering about the place having been brought back to life. It’s more complicated than you’d think….

The difference 34 years makes

That same bestie was also my companion for a Christmas afternoon out on Tuesday, when we went to see Othello at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, starring David Harewood as Othello, Caitlin Fitzgerald as Desdemona and Toby Jones as Iago.

Toby Jones, after his performance in Mr Bates vs The Post Office, his gentle nerdiness in Detectorists and understated excellence in Mr Burton is in grave danger of becoming a national treasure. He was positively malevolent as Iago, manipulating everyone around him and driving Othello to jealous madness, culminating in a great pile of dead bodies at the end. David Harewood made a very angsty Othello, and Caitlin Fitzgerald was sparky and joyful as Desdemona. It’s easy to forget how much humour there is even in the tragedies, and Toby Jones broke the fourth wall quite frequently while confiding his plans to the audience, with his usual comic timing. Costumes were modernish, the set was minimal and elegant, and PJ Harvey’s score was understated. Highly recommended if you get the chance.

Both of us had ‘done’ Othello at A-level and had written essays on the ‘noble savage’ tropes. 34 years later we both felt Mr O needed to do a bit less listening to Iago and a bit more thinking for himself.

We went to the matinee performance after lunch at Rudy’s in Wardour Street. We shared a pizza and a salad – the pizzas are huge and if we’d had a whole one each we’d have slept through the performance. After the show we walked back through a Christmassy London (well, fought our way past the tourists) to Kings Cross St Pancras to catch our trains – we saw the latest probably Banksy, a lot of festive lights and a complete set of Mario Bros in the station for some reason. An excellent day out altogether, and home in time for bed!

Other things making me happy this week

  • A session at the new David Lloyd in Harlow with Miriam – a mix of yoga, pilates and meditation. Just what I needed but bits of me were most unhappy the following day.
  • Coffee and stollen with Sue, Jill and Heather on Monday
  • Christmas cake
  • Various early morning walks with dogs and people
  • Christmas Mass at All Saints Epping Upland with Miriam and our Thing 2s. I got to light the advent wreath!
  • Finally making the Lego bouquet that my Beloved gave me for our anniversary last February. Just under 1000 very small pieces, but a permanent vase (or coffee jar) of flowers in my lair
  • Finishing these little ‘reel mice’ that I’ve had in my mind for ages. I think they need scarves though.
  • Saturday at TT1s with many cuddles from the twins, and Christmas Day with TT2 and the mad two year old
  • Christmas Amazon vouchers to spend. Hurray!

This morning I may go for a walk, and then have every intention of lurking in my lair for a few hours. Same time next week!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Night Birds on Nantucket/The Stolen Lake – Joan Aiken

A World of Curiosities/The Black Wolf – Louise Penny

The Dead of Winter – Sarah Clegg

Murder at Martingale Manor – Jodi Taylor

Strange Days – Violet Fenn

Nemi, vols I & II – Lise Myhre

301: Inconceivable

This week started with the terrible news that actor, director and all-round good egg Rob Reiner and his wife, the filmmaker, photographer and also all-round good egg Michele Singer Reiner had been found dead in their home in LA. Their son Nick was later charged with their murder. He has struggled with addiction, and there are reports that he’s been diagnosed with schizophrenia.

You might be wondering why the deaths of a couple I’ve never met are the subject of this week’s blog instead of whatever I’ve been up to this week. Well, Reiner – among his many other achievements – was the man who took a chance on William Goldman’s The Princess Bride and in so doing created the greatest film ever made. He was also the man who introduced me to Stephen King with his adaptation of King’s novella The Body, in the form of Stand By Me. He was also responsible for When Harry Met Sally (“I’ll have what she’s having”), This is Spinal Tap (“These go to eleven”) and The Sure Thing (which triggered my long-standing love for John Cusack). He and Michele also ran Castle Rock Entertainment, responsible for more Stephen King adaptations – The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile. Misery was a Reiner film too but despite James Caan and Kathy Bates I can’t love that one. Stephen King will probably be the subject of another blog, another day (but not for many years, please). A Few Good Men is another, but as it’s got the loathsome Cruise in it I can’t watch it.

The Princess Bride will always, always be my favourite. It didn’t do well at the box office but became a cult success, and people who recognise a quote when it’s dropped into conversation are kindred spirits. I remember the first time we watched it – it was Bonfire Night in 1988, and we’d rented the video from Apollo in Monmouth and watched it as a family. We all still have copies of the film on DVD and watch it whenever it’s on TV. Reiner’s films changed the way we talk, inspired endless memes and even a socially-distanced version of the movie in lockdown where Reiner appeared as The Grandson, with his father Carl as The Grandfather. The words may have been written by Goldman, Nora Ephron, Stephen King and others but Reiner brought them to life with love and humour. I have loved listening to his reading of The Princess Bride on Audible this week.

Prince Humperdinck’s To-do list
I designed and made this in 2020, inspired by TPB

The Reiners were also activists, campaigning for gay marriage, for tobacco taxes to be used to pay for early childhood causes, for child development, and he was outspoken against Trump whose tasteless, egotistical, offensive response to the news of their deaths may become a nail in his coffin. I can say this as I have no intention of going to the US in the near future. The outpouring of respect and grief across social media and the news, from people who knew them and people who didn’t but whose lives have been touched by their words and actions, has been enormous.

Rest in peace, Rob and Michele Reiner. “Death cannot stop true love. It can only delay it for a while.”

Things cheering me up this week

  • The Borough of Sanctuary Christmas Party, which was surreal and joyful in turn.
  • My clever daughter making marshmallows which melt beautifully and artistically in my hot chocolate (Poulain 1848, on this occasion)
  • Making the front room look all festive
  • Finishing this army of pigs
  • Finding some festive reading
  • Lunch with London sister and brother in law at Turtle Bay. Two for one cocktails at lunchtime, bad idea.
  • Finishing work until the New Year

Today I’ll be making stollen, marzipanning the cake and pottering about in my lair. It’s Christmas this week, and we have TT2, her partner and GT2 coming for lunch.

As you wish, faithful readers.

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

The Wolves of Willoughby Chase/Black Hearts in Battersea/Night Birds on Nantucket – Joan Aiken

The Madness of Crowds/A World of Curiosities – Louise Penny

The Princess Bride – William Goldman (Audible, read by Rob Reiner)

The Secrets of Pain/The Magus of Hay – Phil Rickman (Audible)

A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens (Audible)

300: Marley was dead to begin with…

…possibly one of the most excellent opening lines in literature (kind of spooky and oooh, as Rizzo the Rat says) and one I was very pleased to find on an enamel pin by Laura Crow which I wore to work this week in festive fashion. It is, after all, the season for this sort of thing – currently I am watching The Muppets’ Christmas Carol with GT2, one of my favourite festive films. Coincidentally my second favourite Christmas movie is also an adaptation of the Dickens classic: Scrooged, with Bill Murray. Murray’s ruthless TV exec brought to see the error of his ways by the always bonkers Carol Kane and her toaster (among other spirits) is classic viewing.

This week I’ll be doing my annual listen of Hugh Grant reading the original Dickens version, which was a freebie on Audible a couple of years ago and which is an excellent way to spend a couple of hours. The Muppet version is apparently the version with the most of Dickens’ original text in the script, which is fortunate since the Horde have all had to do the book for GCSE and they’ve been subjected to the film MANY times.

My festive mood has been helped considerably by walking back to Farringdon station via Sekforde Street and Clerkenwell Green. Dickens lived quite close to Clerkenwell – there’s a plaque to him in the gloriously Gothic Waterhouse Square/Prudential Building (Holborn Bars) on High Holborn, and his home on Doughty Street is about ten minutes’ walk away. Clerkenwell, on the edges of the City, still has a lot of Victorian streets and alleyways and at this time of year it’s adorned with wreaths. Even when it’s not Christmas it’s pretty – I love all the doorknockers on Sekforde Street, especially the bear with its cub and the cat with kitten on the old Finsbury Savings Bank (which Dickens actually used, I’ve just this minute discovered).

The denizens of Hatton Garden are a bit less festive, though the cigar-smoking skeleton Santa in the window of one of the offices made me laugh, as did the sign on ScooterTech round the corner.

Continuing this week’s obsession with Mr Dickens’ classic, I took Thing 2 and Thing 2a to see ZooNation’s hiphop version at Sadlers Wells East, Ebony Scrooge. A blend of hiphop, comedy and theatre it was very different to the last show we saw – Quadrophenia – but all of us loved it. It was noisy and joyful and funny, and the audience was encouraged to make noise and enjoy it. There was a short ‘Curtain Raiser’ performance by Boy Blue’s East London Dance School beforehand, called Sinnerman and which made excellent use of Nina Simone. The rapping narrators were great, and the animations were beautifully done and added to the evening. Highly recommended, if you’re after a festive night out with a difference.

Other things making me happy this week

  • Dinner at Kung Fu Mama with lovely friend Rhiannon on Wednesday, putting the world to some sort of rights while eating excellent noodles. The place is tiny and has a small street food menu, and it was packed – I had the traditional beef noodle soup which was delicious but messy. Pak choi is really hard to eat with chopsticks.
  • A swim on Saturday morning with Jill – it was c-c-c-c-c-cold in the water as we haven’t been often this autumn. We followed up with hot chocolates at Costa and a mooch round Hobbycraft.

My favourite and best thing this week though has been the completion of my very own lair in the attic – thanks to my Beloved who has been building tables and shelves for me, although I did have to assemble my own chairs. The contents of my frivolous shelves from the Shed have migrated upstairs and I had a happy Saturday afternoon pottering about and singing along to Christmas songs, especially Kate Rusby. I have a whole collection of things to go on the ‘walls’ – postcards and prints – and I’ll be able to work without having to put up my folding table, and leave projects out over a weekend. There’s a wide surface for cutting and sticking, space for my ironing board, and other flat surfaces. They may never see me downstairs again. All three of the Things popped up to see me while I was pottering, which was nice!

And that’s it for me for this week – if anyone needs me I’ll be in the attic finishing off some projects….

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

A Better Man/All The Devils Are Here/The Madness of Crowds- Louise Penny

The Secrets of Pain – Phil Rickman (Audible)

299: coming around again already

Well, apologies for those of you who usually like to read my ramblings over their morning coffee – WKDN is late today for no good reason. Festive torpor, perhaps, setting in earlier than expected due to Christmassy things landing all at once.

Tuesday kicked the week off with a lovely moment organised by our fab Development team. Sparkling fairy lights on the safety barriers and the pile of pallets, a candelit Windmill Base filled with friends and the Centre team, and joyful winter songs from the Angel Shed Singers. The Windmill Base is the oldest structure on the new site, and will become a space for artist residencies and community handovers when we open, so it was lovely to see it in use for something other than putting on our hard hats and hi vis. Not many festive events feature a deconstructed maquette, a toilet and bicycle lamps for lighting! The plan was to hold it outdoors but the weather had other ideas….

On Thursday we had our work Christmas lunch, at Taqueria Exmouth Market – so many little tacos brought out that we were admitting defeat and it was quite a relief to leave and walk down to Holborn Community Association for the MillerKnoll We Care event. I wish I’d been able to try the Tiramisu Martini as well as the Strawberry Margarita but then I’d have been tipsy in charge of a stapler and small children. Probably for the best. This was also the scene of the Secret Santa gift exchange – the felted Christmas Pudding Snail I was given was perfect.

The We Care event was fun too – we were making pyramid lanterns for the children to take home as presents, alongside The Museum of the Order of St John making lavender scented playdough, and MillerKnoll staff making string art, friendship bracelets and bird feeders. Two hours of utter chaos, then back to the office to catch the last half hour of Christmas drinks with our freelancers, architects, and other friends. Busy day…

Yesterday was Epping Christmas Market, where I was ably assisted by Thing 2 and where the rain did not stop play. The little Chris Mouses and the pigs in blankets flew off the stall, as usual, and it was so nice to see various friends and regulars popping up. Less nice was the visit from our badly-spelled local Reform creep, handing out Christmas cards with their logo and the names of local councillors on. I gave it back as I want nothing from them, except for them to go away. In the 16 years I have been doing the market no one has tried to use it for political gain, and in a year when their actions have done more to divide the community than anyone else it was bad taste to leverage a community event.

Our stall was way too close to the PA system hosted by Forest Radio with their selection on Alan Partridge-worthy jingles and a lot of school choirs, but close to Costa and Starbucks with their hot chocolates. The jingles were truly, truly awful. It was a good day, and I like the slightly later run into the evening.

We’ve watched the Muppet Christmas Carol and The Christmas Chronicles so far – what will this week bring?

Now Thing 2 has just appeared with her amazing apple and cinnamon rolls and a coffee, so I am signing off….

Kirsty

What I’ve been reading:

Kingdom of the Blind/A Better Man – Louise Penny

The Secrets of Pain/To Dream of the Dead – Phil Rickman

298: good skills

Here I am, back from a week in Cardiff in which I spoke to about a zillion people, added ‘soothing stressed Romanians’ to my skillset along with troubleshooting live web feeds, managing operations for five competitions and generally being the little ray of sunshine that you all know and love.

Yes, it was the WorldSkills UK National Finals again – last year we were in the frozen North (well, Manchester in the snow), and this year it was my hometown. I was placed at University of South Wales (turns out the neighbours are prisoners, not student halls…) looking after 3D Game Art, Graphic Design, Digital Media Production, Accountancy Technicians and Web Development. It’s such a great way to get some perspective, and I also managed to meet a lot of Illustration, Graphic Design and Animation tutors, someone from OfQual (we need to talk, I said) and the head of Inspiring Excellence in Wales. I convinced the library to do a National Illustration Day display, and saw live Welsh music at the launch of the Ymgolli/Immersed 2026 Festival. Students are still wearing Stone Roses and Nirvana T-shirts – nothing changes!

WorldSkills is a brilliant scheme embedding technical and professional education into the skills economy. There’s UK finals, Euros and Internationals and taking part opens a lot of industry doors for young people, building confidence and benchmarking against the rest of the world. My Graphic Design team, for example, were working to a real-life brief set by a marketing agency. Competitors come from FE colleges, apprenticeships, the army and industry, and the two competition days are intense.

I love Cardiff – even after 28 years in London/Essex, Wales is my hearthome – and I especially loved the reactions of my colleagues to normal Welsh interactions. They were initially a bit perturbed that every time anyone came to register, it became a full-on chat. It’s what we do in Wales – we talk to people, we like to know what’s occurring. It’s a habit that’s served me well over the years.

I also loved….

  • Seeing the Medal Ceremony: my favourite 3D Digital Game Art geek won, I got to escort some overwhelmed winners, got a hug from my stressed Romanian, and met several very proud parents (‘We’ve been divorced 9 years and we’ve been holding hands the whole time!)
  • Catching up with some of the competitors, tutors and competition leads from last year – sad not to have Cyber Security again though!
  • Being told ‘Have a lush day, love!’ by someone exiting a lift.
  • Hearing Welsh and the Cardiff accent everywhere I went.
  • Dragons. Someone abandoned a flag at the end of the ceremony – I adopted it and brought it back to Essex with me.
  • Dinner and a good gossip with my friend Jen, who I don’t get to see nearly enough. Fat Hippo burger and a Cherry Negroni, in case you wondered.
  • Pho with Isla when we’d had enough of hotel food
  • Happy nighttime buskers under a clock on St Mary Street
  • The magical projections on Cardiff Central Station, animating Dylan Thomas’s A Child’s Christmas in Wales. I did let Jen off sitting through the whole thing with me
  • Lunchtime coffee with cousins
  • Wandering around Cardiff looking at lights and clocks
  • Late night putting the world to rights and singing along to classic rock when we decided to bomb back to London on Friday night
  • Cackling gangs of Welsh women out on a girls’ day – ‘we’ve only had one!’ – insisting on a selfie with a passing stag group.
  • A quiet hot chocolate in the sunshine, reading my book on Friday morning waiting for Miriam. Peace….
  • Taking my family out to dinner last night. I missed them, and I’m pretty sure at least some of them noticed I was gone.

That’s been my week! Looking forward to next year back in Cardiff again.

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading

The Fabric of Sin/To Dream of the Dead – Phil Rickman (Audible)

The Kingdom of the Blind- Louise Penny

297: is it time for the big coat?

Way back in the late 90s when I was a primary school teacher, we were talking one morning about how we celebrated Christmas/Eid (other celebrations are available, of course). There was a child in my class who I was pretty sure was a 70 year old man in a 5 year old’s body, and we sat bemused as he described Christmas where he and his cousin woke up and after they’d opened their stockings they went outside every year to play in the snow. He was adamant that this was what they did every year, because it snowed every year where they live (round the corner from the school, as it happened). Mind you, he was also firmly convinced that I lived in the school, and when I had my hair cut he asked which scissors I’d used.

Anyway. The point of that story was that it’s not even nearly Christmas but while we were waiting for a bus on Wednesday there was snow falling from the sky, but not enough to play in. Winter does seem to have landed though, with several hard frosts and serious contemplation of the Big Coat. Our new office turns out to be quite chilly, too – the downside of the lovely big windows – so the work blanket and wrist warmers are at the ready.

I do like winter, but not when it’s raining – wind and cold yes, wet and cold no. Cold and sunny is best, with clear skies in the morning when I go to work and the stars are still out. Good views of Mars at this time of year, which tells me it’s too damn early…

Apparently it’s going to be double figures and damp again this week, at least in Cardiff where I’m working on the World Skills UK Championships. Maybe not quite time for the Big Coat yet!

Other things making me happy this week

  • The British Library’s family festival on Saturday – creating imaginary worlds with families using Beth Suzanna’s gorgeous backdrop collages
  • Dark evenings walking back through Clerkenwell and the City. The route back to various stations passes through some very old bits of London.
  • Finishing all the Christmas puddings for Epping Xmas Market
  • Making plans to catch up with old friends next week
  • Not the Central

Now I’d better go and pack before Miriam comes to get me!

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

The Legacy of Arniston House – T.L.Huchu

A Slowly Dying Cause – Elizabeth George

The Remains of an Altar/The Fabric of Sin – Phil Rickman (Audible)

The Retired Assassin’s Guide to Country Gardening – Naomi Kuttner

A Fellowship of Librarians and Dragons/A Fellowship of Bakers and Magic – J. Penner, These are described as ‘cozy fantasy’. I should know better.