It’s all about the pipes you know. The bloody pipes in the downstairs cloakroom have got the better of me for the 9 months since we ripped everything out ready to renovate it. How could it possibly have taken me 9 months to have sorted out the smallest room in the house? 9 months later nothing has been done beyond moving the pipes down to floor level.  The pipes have paralysed me, more specifically trying to work out how to hide the pipes without resorting to ugly boxing. And, worse, how to work out in which order the work needs to be done … floor first? Plumbing? Tiles? Or should I box the pipes in even though I don’t want to and, if so, when does that happen? Oh, and what about decorating the door and window frame – and what colour, what finish? And then what loo and basin? Wall hung, would that solve the ever present issue of ‘the pipes’? What about a vanity unit, that would hide the pipes but aren’t they ugly and a bit 1970s? A friend asked me what ‘look’ I was trying to achieve and I nearly fainted from the stress of it – I literally have no idea what ‘look’ I am after. I just want it to look lovely, is that too much to ask?

Round and round and round it all went in my head but finally after an embarrassing amount of help from friends, plumbers, tilers and carpenters we are about to start putting the downstairs cloakroom back together again. The decorating has been done. I don’t like the colour and I’m going to have to repaint it myself tomorrow but let’s not split hairs shall we? Tomorrow the vertical pipes will be boxed, that’s a given. Wednesday the wall and floor tiles go on. The loo/vanity (yup, went for it in the end) arrive Thursday and then I will start begging the plumbers to come round and install them. Once that is done, MrSpud will be happy. He doesn’t care what it looks like, he just wants the damn thing done.

I however, will not be happy. Oh no, that is nowhere near the end of my woes. The horizontal pipes will still be lurking on the floor, laughing in my general direction. At least they are no longer knee height, but they are still there.  I’m sure it’s not recommended but in the end I just couldn’t decide what to do with them. So I decided to do nothing, get everything else done and then sort them out. I might live to regret this. I have been up til 4am more than once chewing over the options. If I box them, will it look awful and should I tile them with the floor tiles or the wall tiles? If I have a skirting made to hide them will it look too chunky? What colour would I paint it? Do I take the skirting all round the room, or just the part where the pipes are? And OH MY GOD what about the radiator pipes?

Round and round it goes. I am nervous for this week. What if the tiles look awful, what if I haven’t measured properly and the sanitary fittings don’t, in fact, fit. What if what if what if…..

….what if I just stopped worrying about something so trivial as where the bloody pipes go and whether you can see them or not.  What if I could just get over myself and be grateful that I have access to clean, piped water, hot and cold, in my own home and any time I like. I just turn on the taps and there it is.  884 million people in the world do not have access to clean water. That’s almost 3 times the population of the USA. And it’s 884 million reasons to just…shut…up.

22 366 Then and now

Bertie went to party today which gave me some quality Lego building time with Diggy. We made the camper van on the left which was only mildly satisfying. It’s a sweet little thing but rather sparse to be honest. It might be cool to have a board and a bike up on top, but there are few creature comforts in the Lego van…two seats, a TV, one mug, a frying pan and a mug. It’s hardly the Ritz.

Compare and contrast with Katie’s Camper Van, to the right. Katie has been a beloved toy since Bertie was 2 and has been our present of choice for many of our friends children over the years. WOW toys no longer make Katie, she has gone to the big toy cupboard in the sky. Alas she has been usurped by ‘Casey camper van’, a more gender neutral version I suppose though neither of my boys were bothered by such nonsense. I digress.

Katie has got loads more going on that Lego van, she’s a high end kind of van. Inside she’s fitted out with a bed, a sink, vanity unit and a chest of drawers. Her matching luggage sits neatly on top, and the top flips down to reveal a garden AND hopscotch. Totally wonderous.She also has a picnic table and chairs, complete with a big fat cake on the table. And when you’re all caked up and you really want to get the party started, there’s a BBQ. Katie also has a trailer and I must say that this is where Katie gets….her edge. The top of the trailer comes off and is a tent for those unexpected guests. The bottom part is a swimming pool. Yes, an actual swimming pool. The fun just never stops when you’re out and about in Katie, it’s so hard to know what to do first..hopscotch, scoff cake, break open the BBQ or have a swim? The choices are almost endless.

Katie also comes with with a friendly dog, with its own basket and water bowl. The dog is, however, proportionally the size of a mutant brown bear when compared with Katie camper van man. But let’s gloss over that shall we? Katie camper van man is WELL UP for everything life can offer, just see his chirpy expression and thumbs up let’s goooooooooo stance. Very pleasing to see he’s a snapper too. I do hope that’s a Nikon round his neck.

Katie camper van woman has gone awol. It’s not impossible she’s in the bin as she suffered a serious attack of the Toddler Chews a while back. But Katie camper van man isn’t going to let that put a damper on things, no way. He might be single and in possession of the world’s largest mutant dog but, hey, he’s got a pool out back and a vanity unit. Life is sweet.

23 366 Up

I absolutely did not lie on the floor of my writing room to take this shot. Nope. Not at all.

24 366 Dragon Dance

Not seen: Diggy at the front of the green dragon…

Reception performed the most lovely dragon dance today, as part of their celebration of the Chinese New Year. They’d written a beautiful story to accompany the dance, a tale of friendship, battles and caves.

I was so impressed with the elegance and coordination of the dancing. No one fell over, neither dragon went the wrong way and nor did they bump in to each other. No mean feat with 12 4-5 year olds at the helm. Afterwards they wished us a Happy New Year in Chinese, and distributed red envelopes which they’d decorated with Chinese symbols and stuffed with chocolate coins and a ‘wish’.

They were all so excited to take part in the performance, and so proud of the costumes they’d made and rightly so. Not a dry eye in the house.

25 366 Contained

Spotted this very studious looking chap in Starbucks today, looking so contained. I wonder what he was working on? Laptop, notebook full of notes, ipod and coffee. He was still there 2 hours later when I walked past again. That’s free wifi for you.

First of this year’s ‘street photography’ shots, something I’d like to do more of though I’m very shy about it.

26 366 Work in progress

Lots of fantastic photo opportunities today…a perfect, complete rainbow complete with twin straddling the road on the way home from school and a wonderful golden crescent moon tonight. Somehow I ended up with an iphone snap of my current crochet project, a Babette blanket.

I’ve had a Babette in mind for a while, but finally decided to tackle it last week. Ideally I’d have splashed out on Yet More Yarn but the stash frowned and shook its wooly head and decreed otherwise. So I’m making it using only my stash. I’m appalled at the very small percentage that the blanket is going to make in the stash. I’ve resolved not to buy any more wool until I am destashed, but that’s going to take all year at this rate.

I love the pattern, but am dreading sewing in all the ends and sewing the 130ish squares together.

27 366 For sale

Introducing Frances, our boat. We’ve owned her for 4 years. We’ve never sailed her, set foot in her or even seen her until today. I know. Crazy.

The husband and I had lunch together today in town, and even sat outside by the river enjoying the lovely winter sun. Afterwards we pottered along the river admiring the boats and then remembered ‘Frances’ our boat. The husband said, ‘I wonder where she is” and then happened to peer over the wall of the local boatyard and there – finally – we spied our boat. She’s not looking very pretty here, she’s a proper Swallows & Amazons boat…14 foot clinker with red sails. Pity we (a) can’t sail and (b) clearly never had any intention of doing so.

No doubt we’ll sell her and then the boys will really get in to sailing and will never forgive us and will need therapy forever.

28 366 Dog cat

Not the shot I’d planned and not taken by me either. I went out in to the garden to shoot, Parker accompanied in his dog like fashion. I bent down to shoot, Parker said ‘why thank you I don’t mind if I do have a piggy back’ … and proceeding to cuddle and nuzzle me for 10 minutes. I gave up attempting a self-portrait and handed the camera to a delighted looking Bertie who took 1,000 shots.

“Mummy. I’m really enjoying The Secret Seven but I’m worried about The Famous Five because if no-one is reading them or listening to them then, well, they’re not really that famous are they?”

I think it’s the 6 year old version of ‘If a tree falls in a forrest and there’s no one around to hear it, did it happen?’. I think I prefer Bertie’s version and I’m certain Enid Blyton would agree.

I was slow to get to this book. A friend thrust it in to my hand back in the Autumn with a cheery, “I think you’ll love it”. That’s all the recommendation I need from a trusted source. I stashed it away and promptly lost it. Just as I was becoming mildly anxious about it, it revealed itself to me on the bookshelf and I took that as a sign that its turn had come.

There’s a quietness to Out Stealing Horses, a stillness that puts me in mind of Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow, Cold Mountain and The Girl with Glass Feet (oh I loved that book, must re-read). Naturally, being unable to recall the details of any book that I’ve read within weeks of having finished it, I can’t tell you why. But if you’ve read any of those books, then you’ll understand what I mean about the stillness, the long lines. Out Stealing Horses is set in Norway, and weaves its story between the present day and immediately after WWII. The story is narrated by Trond, a teenager in the post-war years and now a man in his late 60s. Trond’s relationship with his father is the focus of the plot, and the life-long influence and implications of a tragedy to which both Trond and his father are party to (albeit indirectly). Actually the plot seems secondary to the beautiful, lyrical language of the book and its thoughtful observations. It’s far from purple prose, but the parred down descriptions of the Norwegian countryside together with the lack of any substantial analysis of the protagonists’ personalities and motives make for a very spare, elegant novel.

The other book on the go at the moment is ‘Stop what you’re doing and read this‘, which I mentioned last week. In it, Mark Haddon (he of ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time) mentions that the pleasure of reading is “rarely about plot, which is probably why I can’t remember what happens even in some of my favourite novels”. Ah, perhaps that’s my issue too? Certainly Out Stealing Horses isn’t plot driven, though what it is that pushes it along instead is hard to define. Very possibly its elegant language. Haddon, in the same essay, says that find its hard to “fall utterly in love with novels in translation”. He says that a novel in which the words are used “merely to convey a story seems to me a waste of words. I want to hear the instrument cherished and played exquisitely”. Of course I can’t know if Out Shooting Horses is a fine translation or not but, regardless, it’s certainly not a waste of words.

I’m now half way through The Reader (Bernhard Schlink), again a translation. The translation seems more apparent than in Out Shooting Horses, or perhaps I’m more attuned to it with Haddon’s thoughts rattling around in my mind. But the plot is more engaging, and the language less compelling.

Out Stealing Horses…B++

Street photography. That’s my photography resolution for 2012. It would be easy to fill up another year with photos of my boys, our home, our life ….and  much of my 366 will be that as I’ve also resolved to make this year’s Photo A Day more of a diary. But I love street photography. I’ve dabbled with it, but I am shy and I do it by stealth. Lots of shots from afar, shots of shoes and legs. But I’d really like to suck it up and go for it, and make 2012 a little bit about the strangers around me. Che-buraska is my favourite street photographer, check out her e-books here. I’m in awe.

I often lust over a super-secret spy lens but I wonder if that’s cheating? I live in a small, very small town. I don’t think the residents are ready to have my big girl camera shoved in their faces. Perhaps that lens is the way forward? In the meantime it’s me and my iphone.

The shot above is my Photo For Today. A chap I sat next to in Starbucks. He looked so quiet and absorbed..’contained’ is what I called this shot. There he sat in splendid isolation with his laptop, his notebook filled with elegant handwritten notes, his ipod and his coffee. What you can’t see is his stripy scarf in muted tones, wire glass round spectacles and mustard waistcoat. I passed by the same place 2 hours later and he was still there, perched in the window and tapping away.

Contained.

15 366 Mary Mary quite contrary

Very busy planning my cutting garden. Cleome is ready to be planted, and the rest is plotted and planned. 20 or so different varieties of flowers and foliage which, in theory, will give me a bucket of flowers or so a week throughout late Spring in to Autumn. It’s the first time I’ve ever tackled this kind of project so we’ll see. Lovely to spend time dreaming of warm summer days and heavily scented flowers on such a drab, cold January day.

17 366 My view (front) I

In addition to My Field, I’m planning on shooting the view from the front of our house and the back once a month. Kind of CHEATY but, hey, I know from experience that this 365/366 thing is a marathon not a sprint. Besides these are all views I adore and cherish the way they change through the year.

So here’s the view from the half way point on our staircase as it stops and then turns back on itself upstairs. I love to pause here and admire the way the light falls on the field across the road. The area off to the right is wooded, and generally filled with birds, pheasants, squirrels, visiting cats. There’s a vast swath of snowdrops there, and later there will be daffs, bluebells and those little yellow woodland flowers that I just can’t remember right now.

I risk my life several times a day getting out of the gates. We are on the summit of a sneaky small hill, and the exit is blind on both sides. I have perfected the art of finding the sweet spot where I get the best view, then I wind down the windows and frantically SHUSHHHHH the children as I listen for the approach of vehicles. Eventually I have no option but to edge out, take a deep breath and go for it. Living dangerously here people, living dangerously.

17 366 My view (back) I

Top of my list of things I love about our house are (1) the light and (2) the view. Wish I had a wider lens because the view from the back of the house is quite, quite lovely. I hope I will see out the rest of my days in this house because I will never tire of this wonderful view down the valley. It’s so special and it’s such a perfect spot for sunrise, sundown and star gazing.

This is the third of the views I plan to shoot once a month to track the passing of the seasons. Shot early this morning, the hardest frost of this winter, a beautiful sunrise and a pretty wee moon up there to boot.

18 366 Diggy’s blanket

I started this a while ago, quite a long while ago now I stop to think about it. I started it the day I shrank the first blanket I made for Diggy in the wash. A gorgeous, jewel coloured ripple stripe blanket in silk/merino mix yarn…reduced to the size of a very small bathmat. Howl.

I used the same kind of yarn for his replacement blanket (Mirasol Tupa for the yarnaholics) but went classic Granny for the design. I crocheted them together to form the ridge which divides each square from the next which I think has turned out well. I’m debating adding an edge, but I think that less is probably more in this case.

19 365 Snowdrops and housekeh

Snowdrops in our garden with house-bokeh to boot. I don’t think I’ve ever done house bokeh before, it’s kind of groovy?

Taken using a very advanced photographic technique known as ‘broken back dropsy’. I urge you not to attempt this without supervision but, in short, it involves wrecking your back so much that you can barely walk never mind crouch down to get ‘the shot’. Instead you wrecklessly drop your camera down as near to the ground as your back will allow you to bed and then repeatedly press the shutter and hope for the best. Don’t try this at home folks.

The snowdrops were so early this year. They pushed their way up in November and the first ones were flowering by Christmas Day. I noticed today that the bluebells are on their way too. Crazy weather.

20 366 Bag Lady

I’ve never done one of these before. Not the most interesting of shots but I always enjoy nosing in other people’s bags, so here’s mine. If you’re bored enough to want to know even more detail about the minutiae of my life, click on the photo to go to Flickr to read notes about each item. You have you be really, really bored to want to do that by the way.

21 366 Twinkle Toes

Bertie’s ballet shoes – with entirely redundant name tags. He’s the only boy in the class so his shoes are rather unique in the sea of pale pink ones!

I’m not totally sure where I’m going with this. I’m no book reviewer, and I don’t particularly enjoy reading book reviews if I’m honest. I much prefer it when someone I know and love thrusts a book in my hand and says, ‘Try this. I think you’ll enjoy it’. Or, ideally, I find an author I adore and then I read everything they’ve ever written. The latter is a poor strategy for new/dead/slow writers but it’s a reasonably rewarding strategy.

So why am I even contemplating a kind of book review? Because I’m hopeless at remembering the details of books I’ve read, regardless of whether I loved/hated/tolerated them. I can categorise books I’ve read according to those groups, but I can very rarely tell you why. I’m only ever left with the impression of a book, or the whisper of a feeling, but the details escape me within days of having finished it. That’s never unduly bothered me until I decided to buy my mother-in-law my favourite reads of 2011 for her birthday a few weeks back. My plan had been to write a few notes on a postcard slipped in to each book, explaining why I loved it and why I thought she’d enjoy it. The truth was I just couldn’t bloody remember anything beyond having loved the book and an urgency to share it with fellow bookworms.

‘Book of the Week’ on Radio 4 last week was ‘Stop what you are doing and read this’, a collection of essays about reading and why it’s important and what it means. Five of the ten essays were abridged and read by the authors for Radio 4. I was fixed to the sofa today by a very poorly back, and it was compelling listening. The book is now on its way to me courtesy Mr Amazon. I think I enjoyed Jeannette Winterson’s essay the most, she spoke so simply and honestly about the power of the written word to elate us. In particular she talked about how reading isn’t ‘down time’ it’s ‘up time’. I’ve never really considered that. Reading, for me, is what I do at bedtime, on trains or (in my old life) on the beach. I wouldn’t dream of reading during the day as my ‘quick pit stop’ activity. Somehow crochet, blogging or generally mucking about on the internet don’t count as ‘downtime’ in my twisted mind. I haven’t especially enjoyed any of the Winterson books I’ve read, but her words struck me powerfully enough to want to buy the book of essays and pore over hers in particular. I’ve picked out her programme of the five because it’s the one that struck me most powerfully, but the other four were stunning too … each in their own particular way. iplayer is your friend if you fancy it but be quick! Only a few days left.

But how do you review a book if you don’t like reading them and aren’t very good at it? The answer, I would think, is that you don’t. You leave it well alone. Or you perfect the art of the quick and dirty review. Here’s mine of Good Behaiour by Molly Keane:

“Set in 1930s Ireland and narrated by Aroon, the less loved awkward daughter of an increasingly impoverished aristocratic family. A book that improves as you read it, tackling parental disappointment, upstairs/downstairs relationships, homosexuality, infidelity, maternal coolness and – especially – the destructive power of self-deception. It’s a quiet kind of book. I didn’t learn much about Anglo/English relations though that’s the backdrop to the novel and nor was it especially well observed. But I enjoyed it nonetheless and it was worthy of a read. It’s a Persephone kind of book, akin to Whipple but less elegantly perceptive ”

I can’t imagine it’s a book I would rush to recommend, but it’s a good solid novel. I’d give it a B.

8 366 Thank you

Finished off the boys’ Christmas thank you letters today. Not an experience I’m looking forward to again any time soon I have to say. But then Christmas isn’t Christmas without the traditional moaning and groaning over the thank you letters. Right?

9 366 Busted

Hmmm. Lots of banging and crashing around at bedtime. This is how I found Diggy when I went to bed. I call it ‘The Wall of Teddies’. Or ‘Someone to watch over me’.

10 366 Hooky

Black and white because I shot this appallingly. A huge, chunky yarn scarf made for my sister-in-law for Christmas. Alas I forgot that she’s really short and it swamped her. So I frogged about a foot of it (seriously) and used what I frogged to make a hat. I didn’t enjoy working with chunky yarn one bit, though an adult sized hat in an hour is pretty good going.

11 Sleep of the just

Yet more bedroom gymnastics from Mr Diggy. His gigantic group of ‘friends’ are buried under the duvet. Oh, and he was upside down too. Funny chap.

13 Sleep of the just II

Continuing my series of shots taken by sneaking in to the boys’ room, snapping on all the lights and shooting in haste. Mr Bertie, looking so serene. Those lashes, that perfect cupid’s bow. He will break hearts and the first one will be mine I’m sure. xx

13 Farewell then, Duplo

A sad day as Famille Spud bade farewell to our large collection of Duplo. The boys do still play with it sometimes but Mount Toys means that some things had to be on their way. Happily the boys’ school were very willing to take it all off my hands for Friday afternoon free play sessions. WIN!

I couldn’t resist a final tableau as I packed it all up. Regard the sneaky croc behind the ticket booth, pondering the freakishly large seal. Note the slightly anxious looking killer whales who, presumably, are equally fraught at the thought of tackling that vast seal. The giraffes look absolutely furious, but are probably just anxious that they’ve been separated from their young by a vast expanse of water and a curious collection of animals that aren’t part of their natural habitat.

Also please note the comedy large penguin on top of the ticket booth. I put him there for Old Time’s Sake as the boys always had to put some animal or other up there. There’s no one manning the ticket booth. Perhaps the penguin had them for lunch?

Perched at the back on an elephant is a brave soul who is eyeing up a couple of stray dinos. Most anxious making. And the whole crazy collection of overseen by two Zoo keepers…one of whom hasn’t noticed that his jeep doesn’t actually have a steering wheel (aww, bless) and, HELLO, the other is standing up with absolutely no regard for health and safety or the law of the land. Tush and fie.

14 Mind the gap

Howl. He’s 6 and 1/3 and he finally, very late, lost a tooth. Cry. Bring on the big ugly horse teeth then I suppose, even though the dentist told me it’s good for them to lose their baby teeth late. That’s the best chance of a beautiful, even smile. But CRY for the ugly horse teeth, I’m cool with those pearly whites.

Phone photo? Oh too hard to choose. I’m consistently amazed at the quality of photos I can get with my phone, some of my favourite shots have been taken with my phone. I particularly love my camera phone for street photography, something I’d like to do a lot more of this year. Like everyone else on the planet I love Instagram, but I also use the Best Camera and CameraBag apps just as frequently.

Here are some of my favourites, and a trip down memory lane for me.

It’s strange how stars align sometimes, isn’t it. In the days that I was gearing up to start blogging again I had two ‘signs’ that the time had come. Firstly, an email from a stranger complimenting me on my photos of Freston Wood (above) seen on my Bluebell Wood Walk post back last Spring. The gentleman had lived just next to the wood as a boy, and had been searching for images of it to share with a friend of his as part of a broader email discussion about the innocence and hopefulness of youth, as described in the novel Le Grand Meaulnes. It’s not a book I know, but I will definitely read it on the recommendation of my new friend. I’d also quite forgotten about those pictures of Freston which have a rather ethereal quality about them. Just re-reading my post brought back to heady smell of wild garlic, and the soft spring light trickling through the trees. Quite a treat on a dark, cold winter night.

Shortly afterwards I found a comment on my Facebook page from a young (very!) composer I blogged about here in 2010, having heard his stunning composition Rondo for 2 guitars and marimba on the radio.

“Hello, it’s Michael Anthony Hughes here, you wrote a absolutly lovely blog about my piece you heard on the radio about a year ago, Rondo for 2 guitars and marimba. Just found it, thank you so much, i’m so glad you liked it!”

Of course I never dreamt that he would find or read my, frankly, rather gushing post but it’s always pleasing to receive unprompted praise so I’m rather chuffed for him that he did. Will he remember me when he’s famous I wonder? ;-) At the time I wrote my post there was no recording of the work available, but I just found it on YouTube: claps hands! And so I share it here with you, my friends, in celebration of blogging and the little things, the small pleasures that it can bring … even to strangers.