August 19, 2021

A fun feature of my brain is that it equates leaving the house for anywhere new with certain death or some other nameless horror.

It didn't used to be like this.

The result of this glitch is that I now have to a) spend a considerable amount of time in a state of panic while b) thinking of EVERYTHING - I can't leave until I've pre-empted and thoroughly mitigated for all possible disasters. 

Which c) takes time. And obviously there are certain disasters you can't prepare for, which is why a) is necessary.

Happy days. Anyway, I've finally got everything ready to take out to the van, so I'll spend tonight finishing off a half-bottle of wine while watching a Simon Amstell DVD, enjoying home comforts while I can and taking my mind of the impending doom of tomorrow.

Transcribing everywhere relevant from my Places To Go spreadsheet into my Travel notebook, I realised I'd be passing close to the geographical centre of England. Places like this are irresistible to a geek like me. I googled it to find out where it was, and learned that it used to be in Meriden, just outside Coventry (which is my first stop, for the 2-Tone exhibitions), but is now slightly further north, at Fenny Drayton in Leicestershire, in the middle of a field on private land.

I'll detour to Meriden, but skip Fenny Drayton, despite Google offering me a flight there from Cardiff airport with Air France for a mere £2,171 and taking only 16 hours and 20 minutes. Um, cheers.

When I'm away, I'll be offline, so unless I luck upon a wifi connection, I won't be able to blog. I'll catch up when I can.

I found this piece of nature writing via Twitter today and thought it was beautiful; you might enjoy it too.

Today's Photo (with apologies for the grubby nails): Breathe

August 18, 2021

I'm no more ready to get in my car and drive to Scotland tomorrow than I was yesterday. 

I'm getting there, but I needed to go to the launderette this morning, meet Charlie in Bristol for a long lunch at noon, get some shopping on the way home, then complete the paperwork for changing my working hours. So the packing has only reached the stage of gathering together of everything I think I might want or need for the trip and dumping it onto either the floor or the sofa so I can't move around or sit anywhere.

This evening I was going to wash the car because it's got greenery growing on the roof and in the crevasses and I'd like it to look tidy for its journey, but I got sidetracked watching Sean Lock clips on YouTube. Such a loss.

 Today's Photo: Blue Sky Thinking

August 17, 2021

I won't be going on holiday tomorrow, but for happy reasons. Think I've found a workable solution to my work/study situation, so need to hang around to complete some paperwork. 

After a day of anguish yesterday, going round and round in circles trying and failing yet again to come to a decison that didn't feel like the absolute end of the world, in the evening I wrote my manager a long, despairing email.

After sending it I realised I had eaten only a cinnamon bagel and a Welsh cake all day, which probably hadn't helped with the despair. I'd been in such turmoil I hadn't felt hungry.

Thinking about the cringeworthy stuff I'd put in the email kept me awake, until I finally got up at 1.30am and tried to recall it. That didn't work, so I got up at 7am and sent her another, simpler, email apologising for the first: "The decision I need to make feels like frying pan/fire, and I don't know what to do for the best."

Then I made myself a hearty vegan fishfinger sandwich breakfast, and went out to keep busy well away from the inbox so I didn't sit at home fretting waiting for her to reply.

Bless her kind heart - when I got home there was the nicest email ever, saying if I wanted to reduce my hours down to the minimum of nine hours a week that would be straightforward and she could even make it happen before I'm due back in September. I'd imagined in my stupid head that this process would take three months at least and I'd be floundering with full time work on top of full time study until Christmas.

I know in my heart of hearts I don't really want to go back to the job OR the degree (I want to travel and generally have a nice time), but the difficulty - difficulty? sheer terror - of trying to decide what to do these last few weeks, and the relief I felt when she gave me this option, makes me think I've made an appropriate decision for now. 

(There's also the small matter of an ugly pandemic to keep the travel plans on hold.)

I used to be able to embark on new lives with barely a backward glance. This current decision should have been much easier to make, so I suspect the difficulty was simply not being ready for a big life change just yet. The last 18 months have been horrendous, and for now I want a familiar and predictable routine, some stability, IRL interactions with actual humans, even, to help me regroup and rebalance. I do not want to lose my flat, which, if I resigned and then the degree went tits up, would have been a possibility.

Time will tell if I can pull off work and studying. But nothing's forever and I can change my mind again if I need to. For now, the pressure's gone, and I'm quietly bumbling around getting ready to go on holiday on Thursday. I'm even looking forward to it.

Today's Photo: A Room With A Moo

August 16, 2021

Dinosaurs!

 Today's Photo: Dinosaurs! 

August 15, 2021

Nothing to report, other than for something to do I attempted a slapdash, whatever-happened-to-be-in-the-cupboard version of this spinach and butterbean recipe and it came out soupy but very flavoursome:

And then later I went for a walk where I saw these excellent ducks:

I'm still battling fear and confusion over the job/university choice, but am seeing a sensible friend tomorrow who might help me reach a decision.

I'm also battling the pre-holiday terrors, where I wake up at 4am convinced that the act of going on holiday will bring about certain death or else I'll fall prey to some terrible, painful or expensive catastrophe. But I've just promised to meet another friend for lunch in Bristol on Wednesday, so unfortunately that's going to have to be the start of the holiday. I would truly hate myself if I chickened out and drove back to Cardiff again after seeing him when the M5's right there.

I went through all this anxiety business prior to my 2019 European road trip. So much so that I put it off for a couple of years before finally forcing myself to go. The weeks leading up to departure were terrible - I have never been so afraid. The fear came with me all the way to Dover, to Calais, to Gravelines, along the entire coast of Belgium, and didn't depart until I'd spent a few days in the Netherlands. Then it was a doddle, I loved it, and I wondered why I'd been so scared.

I'm hoping it will be the same this time. Please be kind to me, Scotland, and try not to rain too much.

Today's Photo: Unexpected Sunflower in the Quacking Area

August 14, 2021

Bored with Twitter, last night I ventured over to Reddit to idlebrowse there instead, and found this lovely thing:

 It's based on this photo, 'These birds look like musical notes':

I love stuff like that.

Didn't know what to do with myself today - completed the to do list by 10am and was consumed by listlessness thereafter. I couldn't go anywhere because the car's still being repaired, am bored sick of screens, and having spent the last year and a half pacing every stretch of pavement in the vicinity, 'going for a walk' felt about as appealing as banging my head against a wall. 

In the end I took myself off to the park to read a book and look at dogs and trees and clouds. It helped, but I worried that I don't seem to have that one thing I can turn to to reliably pull me through moods like this. Then I remembered the camera in my bag. I spent a while trying to get damselflies to pose for photos, and it did the trick; I went home happy.

Realising my diet this week had mostly been bread-based, I got a beef & veg takeaway from Wok To Walk on the way back for an early dinner, washed it down with an Amstel, came back to life like a plant that had just been watered by its neglectful owner, then promptly fell asleep for four hours. 

It's gonna be a long night.

Today's Photo: Morning Cobweb

August 13, 2021

Today brought yet another Graun piece about walking from Lands End to John O'Groats. They seem to have moved on from last year's obsession with wild swimming.

The reason I lap these articles up is because that walk is one I'd love to do. I don't have the courage, the fitness, the camping equipment or the back-up team, but a girl can dream.

From the latest book I'm reading, Walking the Woods and the Water by Nick Hunt:

"The exhilaration of aloneness, of wandering through unknown landscapes, was another form of love taking shape inside me." 

Today's Photo: & Sugar

 

August 12, 2021

Much happier today, after the first thing I saw when I clicked on The Graun this morning was an article called Ready To Quit Your Job? Here are the 17 questions to ask yourself first.

Running through the checklist, I emerged entirely confident that I should not go back to the library. The 'how did I get here?', 'how long have I been feeling this way?' and 'what do I actually want to do?' questions were especially clarifying (the answers being 'by accident', 'six years', and 'ideally, nothing; realistically, anything that doesn't involve management-speak and customer service'.)

The final question - 'why can't I make a decision?' - sealed it. “There will never be a moment when everything aligns and every box is ticked,” says Tweddell. “At some point you have to just decide and trust yourself to make it work.”

Yes. I know this; in fact I used to be really really good at this. But twelve years of working in the same place has left me out of practice and afraid. It was good to be reminded that in the olden days I took this stuff in my stride.

None of this translated into actual action, of course, although I did email uni and ask them some questions about the re-enrolment process that have been bugging me. Like, when am I going to KNOW anything, when is anything going to be CONFIRMED? At the start of the summer break, a tutor said that next year's modules will be filled on a first come first served basis, and we needed to get our choices in by 10 July. I sent mine in late. How can I sleep at night if I don't know I got my choices? How do I know if it's safe to resign from my job?

Fortunately, I found another article to help with this train of thought: Why Uncertainty Freaks You Out. 

(NB uncertainty is even worse when you're autistic.)

That done, I got stuck into planning a holiday. The van should be fixed by next week, so as long as I've sorted out the abovementioned life admin prior to departure, there's no reason not to go. Fear is not a reason!

I dug out all my bookmarks, scraps of paper, magazine cuttings, notes and jottings filed under 'Places I Want To Go', collated it all into a spreadsheet, then plotted points of interest onto a shonkily-drawn diagram of the UK so I know roughly where everything is in relation to everything else:

And no I don't have (or want) a sat nav; no I don't have (or want) a smartphone. Shut up - doing it this way makes me happy. I drove around north-western Europe navigating by the sun, a list like this, and a Philip's road atlas, and it suited me just fine, thank you.

This trip will include Beatle pilgrimages to Durness and Campbeltown. Other must-see destinations are the Branxton cement menagerie, Seaham to look for sea glass, the Kelpies, the Bridge over the Atlantic, the Dundee penguins, and the Milton Keynes light pyramid either on the way out or on the way home. Other than that, anything goes. It's very exciting. I haven't done an extended UK road trip since 2012.

After the holiday planning, I went online to buy someone a birthday gift and browse for ( - whisper it - ) Christmas presents. What usually happens is I start panicking about Christmas around now, get a few bits in, then think that task is complete, until I realise it isn't around the third week of December.

Today's Photo: Shadow Lands

August 11, 2021

Felt as flat as a pancake today. A pity, as I'd been pootling along quite nicely this week. 

I suspect the reason for the mood dip is that I haven't yet taken concrete action about what to do in September, when I have to either go back to university, or go back to my job in the library. 

Neither option appeals, and September is suddenly right there staring me in the face. But I have to do one or the other (or - worse - find an entirely new job), and I have to decide what to do soon. 

When I say 'soon', I mean last week. This week. Today, ideally. All right then, tomorrow.

Along with the trauma of having to make this huge decision, there's also the trauma of getting the car fixed, and the trauma of trying to summon up the courage to go on holiday for the remainder of the summer break.

Astonishingly, fixing the car has proved to be the easy bit. You'd think that'd be the holiday, wouldn't you? Ha.

I tried somewhere new for coffee this afternoon, just to practice feeling 100% out of my comfort zone, which is what campervanning by yourself is all about (when you're me).

Today's Photo:  Out

August 10, 2021

I liked Austin Kleon's recent post about surprise being the enabler of seeing.

It reminded me of two recent occasions I saw things my brain failed to comprehend.

The time I saw someone with no face. I was driving down a dark, rainy street, there was a person on the pavement walking towards me, and their face consisted of dark and light horizontal stripes, with no discernable features. Logic said it was just a trick of the streetlights, but no matter how hard I looked my startled eyes could only take in a flat stripy surface under some hair and above a body.

The time I saw a car that was a colour that didn't exist. It was some indiscernable tone between beige and pink, and it felt deeply uncomfortable trying to pin down what this hue was, and come up with nothing.

The dress was blue and black though, I'm not a wally.

Today's Photo: Portal

August 9, 2021

I watched Being John Malkovitch for the first time last night. Had no idea what to expect. Happy to report that I totally loved it, after making a conscious decision just to take the weirdness at face value and enjoy the ride.

(For context: things need to make sense to me. Trying to get my logical head around the time travel in Back To The Future nearly gave me an aneurysm).

I adored all the dark, twisted humour in BJM, and how dreadful all the characters were. Howled at how everyone just carried on as normal on Floor Seven and a Half. Enjoyed the surprise appearance of Charlie Sheen. I love it when a film you're not expecting to be funny is not just funny but very, very funny. 

One of my favourite bits was the fleeting appearance of Brad and Jen:

Maximum snark in a millisecond of screen time - brilliant. I also liked waiting for Cameron Diaz to put in an appearance, and then realising, "Oh!"

Plus there was this gorgeous thing playing over the closing credits:

Good shit.

When I'm at home I never want to go out, and when I'm out, I never want to go home. Stretched my legs around the lake this afternoon, then found a sunny bench to daydream on, and could have stayed there forever.

Today's Photo: WildFlower Power

August 8, 2021

Word reaches me that it IS apparently possible to draw a horse, although I still find that difficult to believe. 

It only got worse after I got the pastels out:

After starting to suspect that maybe horses didn't even exist and I'd just made them up in a fever dream (where do their eyes go? Do they even have mouths?) I decided to look at pictures of horses online to see if that helped. 

It didn't, so I put the drawing stuff away and made a stop-motion with Terry the Tapir instead:

Almost indistinguishable from Eadweard Muybridge's The Horse In Motion, I think you'll agree:

Started a new book this morning, Stiff by Mary Roach. While it's as interesting as yesterday's, it doesn't lend itself quite as well to being quoted on here due to the grisly contents. I'm fascinated by real-life gory stuff but even so, some bits still put me off my lunch. 

For the record, I'd like a natural burial, no fuss, no embalming, ta.

Today's Photo: Leopard Fruit

 

August 7, 2021

Today I read a book, tried to do some drawing, then fulfilled the prophecy in Oliver Burkeman's At best, we're on Earth for around 4,000 weeks - so why do we lose so much time to online distraction?

The book was Reading The Oxford English Dictionary: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages by Ammon Shea.

In it, he reveals many delicious words unearthed during his epic quest to read the OED in its entirety, provides a little lexographical background, and explains how it felt to slog your way through all twenty volumes (spoiler: headachey).

It would be rude of me, a kindred spirit, not to share my favourite words from each chapter:

APRICITY - the warmth of the sun in winter

BALTER - to dance clumsily

CONSTULT - to act stupidly together

DIEPNOPHOBIA - fear of dinner parties

EUMORPHOUS - well-formed in a pleasing way

FINIFUGAL - shunning or avoiding endings

GOVE - to stare stupidly

HAMARTIA - the flaw that precipitates the destruction of a tragic hero

IMPLUVIOUS - wet with rain

JENTACULAR - of or pertaining to breakfast

KECK - to make a sound like you are about to vomit

LETABUND - filled with joy

MUMPISH - sullenly angry

NATIFORM - buttock-shaped

OPSIMATH - one who starts learning late in life

PHILODOX - a person in love with their own opinions

QUISQUILIOUS - having the nature of trash or rubbish

RAPIN - an unruly art student

SOLIVAGANT - a person who wanders about on their own

TARDILOQUENT - talking slowly

UMBRIPHILOUS - loving shade

VELLEITY - wishing for something without taking steps to achieve it

WONDERCLOUT - something showy but worthless

XENIUM - a gift given to a guest

YEPSEN - what can be held in your cupped hands; your cupped hands

ZUGZWANG - [chess] unable to move without disadvantaging yourself

 

Honourable mention too for PAVONISE (to act like a peacock) and PERISTERONIC (suggestive of pigeons).

 

I also loved these time words:

HESTERNAL - of or relating to yesterday

NUDIUSTERTIAN - of or relating to the day before yesterday

OVERMORROW - the day after tomorrow

POSTRIDUAN - done the next day

SESQUIHORAL - lasting 90 minutes

YESTERMORN - yesterday morning

YESTERNEVE - yesterday evening

 

As an anonymuncule, ploitering through life, who keeps a jocoserious blog, and is sometimes forplaint, usually latibulating in her lectory, and always heterophemising, the book was very enjoyable, although I wondered if there is a word for an author of non-fiction inadvertantly revealing enough of his personality to make you feel a little bit sorry for his girlfriend.

I just had a bouffage, by the way.

The drawing was a response to a set of drawing prompts from my friend Charlie. His suggestions:

1. Hair

2. The back of your head

3. A miniature

4. A horse

5. The air in a balloon

6. A blank sheet of paper

7. The shadow of a lit-up lightbulb

8. A sneeze

Well, I had a go, but need to publicly state that nobody in the whole world can draw a horse. Furthermore, the drawing of horses should be illegal.

(I'll have another go tomorrow.)

Forgot to pick up the camera today except to take a snap of the thing I bought from a charity shop yesterday (or should I say, my hesternal purchase *twirls moustache*). 

I have no idea what it is - possibly a paperweight? - but it's shiny, and very eumorphous.

Today's Photo: Shine Bright Like A Diamond

 

PS If further proof is needed that nobody in the whole world can draw horses, I present this panel from the replica Bayeux Tapestry in Reading Museum:

I rest my case. 

(Mine wasn't even as good as that.)

August 6, 2021

I'm continuing tired.

Thought about how nice it would be to escape on the Eurostar for a few days, while I wait for the welding appointment to come through (he's booked solid for a couple of weeks). Then thought about how other countries aren't being as weirdly complacent about foreign travel as Britain is, so revised plans down from Amsterdam or Brussels to an overnighter in Coventry, for the various 2-Tone exhibitions, perhaps.

Today's Photo: Walls Have Ears AND Sharp Pointy Teeth

 

August 5, 2021

I skipped doing the blog last night because I was too drained. Couldn't summon the energy to crack open the laptop and copy the photos over from the camera. So here I am on Friday morning, cheating by changing the posting time.

The day began early - anxiety woke me at 3.30am. I had to make a cup of tea and some toast and read a book for a while before I could drop off again. Then it was up again soon after to take the car to the garage for a 9am MOT. 

I don't know why MOTs are so stressful. I think it's because I interpret them as some sort of value judgement - if the car fails, I've failed. It feels personal. 

Then there's the phone calls. I find phone calls impossible, and MOTs always seem to involve a lot of them, and once you've navigated those you then have to run the gauntlet of speaking to terrifying mechanics in person (and they are always terrifying, even when they're trying to be nice to you.)

The car failed, of course, on brakes and welding (with my unerring instinct for a bargain, I bought a self-consuming rust bucket). Which involved yet more phone calls.

My friend Matt once had a kitten whose front and back legs did not work in tandem. Molly would attempt to scamper, and her front half would manage this successfully, but her back legs would swing off in a different direction, on their own inscrutable journey. And then she'd fall over. Her front half and back half were only vaguely connected in a neurological way. 

I loved Molly with all my heart. Despite her disability she never stopped trying, and was the sweetest little thing. And I thought of her yesterday while attempting to book a welding appointment over the phone. There was absolutely no connection between what was going on my brain and what was coming out of my mouth. I knew what I wanted to say, but it was simply not happening. At one point I had to stop speaking because I was making no sense - there were several equally important points to mention all trying to come out at once. I paused, took a deep breath, and started again. But I still couldn't formulate what I wanted to say before I said it. It's like turning a tap on - the water just comes out.

He must've thought I was insane. I was just staring at myself in horror, remembering Molly.

Anyway, after all that I retired to the safety of the sofa, until it was time for bed.

Today's Photo: Danger of Death

August 4, 2021

Just some art borrowed from Twitter today, because I am knackered.

Spent the afternoon with my friend Sam. Two solid days of people energy! It's lovely but I'm not used to it. I went to bed at 7pm, but got woken up a couple of hours later by my phone ringing (ignored it, obvs, but the damage was done).

First up some gorgeous architectural art from Helen Shulkin. I adore these pastel sketches of buildings in Hamburg, and how she's revealed her process:

I also really loved her painting of the Elbphilharmonie:

Rabih Alameddine posts art, poetry and general good stuff every day. I was mesmerised by these artworks he shared by Norwegian painter Tor-Arne Moen:

They look like dreams.

Rabih also posted a link to an article showcasing the evocative work of French photographer Lise Sarfati, catchily entitled These Photos Will Blow Your Mind - Russia In The 90s Through The Lens With French Photographer Lise Sarfati:

The article's well worth a look.

As for me, I didn't take the camera out today. So Photo du Jour will have to be this one, taken on the tablet after being rudely awakened at the crack of dawn by the magpies demanding their breakfast:

August 3, 2021

My sister-in-law drove from Bristol to Cardiff just to hang out with me today.

It was wonderful - she's the world's best person.

We walked through the park, had lunch at the cafe. 

Strolled round the lake, soaked up some sunshine on a bench.

Sniffed roses in the rose garden. Saw lots of fish.

Back at my flat, I made her gigantes plaki for dinner - she's vegan, and that's the only vegan thing I know how to cook, after beans on toast - and we sat on the floor and ate, mopping up the juice with fresh-baked olive bread. She's the kind of person who doesn't bat an eyelid about someone not having a table, or mismatched cutlery, or only two bowls and one of them's chipped.

After we ate she drove home again, after the rush hour but before it got dark.

We've never done a one-on-one before; our paths usually cross at family gatherings. But my brother bought her a small orange car for her 50th birthday in July, and despite being scared to drive on her own between the ages of 17 and 49, here she was.

My sister-in-law is everything I'm not - beautiful, vibrant, and an incredibly loud extrovert. While a person with these qualities would normally have me running away very fast in the opposite direction, her authenticity is irresistible. There's nothing fake about her - she doesn't even wear make up. She's blunt, she's earthy, she hates (and regularly calls out) bullshit. Her EQ is off the scale. She's pure female power-energy. And it's all genuine. She has the biggest heart.

Man, we did some talking today. What a tonic, to connect like that. She's sunshine in human form, she is. I love her. Everybody does - even her teenage daughter. It's impossible not to. She's a people magnet.

But even while every moment in her company was easy, and the whole day overflowed with love, after she left I felt like I'd been put through a threshing machine. 

I had to zone out on the sofa with Spider Solitaire for an hour until I could self-regulate again, then take two paracetamol and go for another walk to relieve the muscle tension that was making my whole body ache. In my twenties I used to have occasional grand mal seizures in my sleep, and when I woke up my body would feel like I'd done ten rounds with Joe Bugner - I felt like that. From experience I know I'll be exhausted tomorrow too.

Damn you, autism.

All that aside, you know when you've had a really nice day and you feel lucky to know someone? That.

Today's Photo: Watcher