The news diet

I stumbled across this summary by Rolf Dobelli of his thoughts on why 'the news' is bad for us,  ironically, whilst catching up on dreadful events unfolding an ocean away in Boston. Dreadful events that I have no personal connection to and can do absolutely nothing to alleviate, yet felt enough of a mix of compassion (good) and morbid intellectual curiosity (not good) towards that I was reading a live blog about it.

An awareness of world events is useful up to a point; and once upon a time that would have meant a morning newspaper of yesterday's news and a 10 minute evening radio bulletin. Now we have 24 hour news channels, online newspapers updated every minute and a plethora of DIY media where anyone can put their experience out there (including me). And sometimes, this is a force for good. Mostly, we don't see the wood for the trees.

Whilst I disagree with many of his assertions, I can't disagree with the thrust of Dobelli's article regarding 'the news' . We haven't had regular access to TV news for several years now - and when I do find myself watching it, I find it overwhelming. Too much graphic detail, so much negativity. Horrible things happen every single day and humans can be complete shits to each other. But I also know that good things happen, every second of everyday, and humans can be awesome. That experience is not reflected back to me in the news. In the wake of Boston, the speculation surrounding the mechanics, the motives and dynamics of the plot and plotters far outweigh the coverage of the people that came together to help. This stuff is bad for our mental heath.

The day we realised the TV aerial on our new house was not wired in changed our lives. We watch less news and instead of mindless channel surfing we watch a handful of shows and films on DVD. We get to choose where we focus our attention - even if I do occasionally get sidetracked by live blogs. I have more time to be a productive kind human. I am taking a break from my remaining news outlets - one week, cold turkey, no 'news'. I have done it before and after a few false starts (it is an almost automatic reaction to check a news website in the morning with my coffee). I suspect that I might enjoy it more this time and extend it for a little longer.

Happily, this gives me more reading time to devote to my favourite blogs - the majority of which catalogue  human adventures in trying to be productive and kind human beings. Keep them coming please :)

Useful weeds

Exhibit A:

This plant is the bane of our allotment. None of our more seasoned allotment neighbours ever identified it past 'THAT BLOODY THING!'. I suspected it was some sort of mallow, but all I and anybody else care to know about it is how to fully remove the two foot long, furcated root to stop it coming back month after month. Top tip? I have taken to digging as deep as I can and cutting the root with pruning shears followed by (repeatedly) pulling out the resulting weak stemmed plant that pops up a few weeks later. I hope that the root will eventually run out of juice and wither away.

I finally identified this plant having bought a gardening weekly with a free packet of Malva sylvestris 'Merlin' seeds. I have developed the habit of running any plant I cultivate or that piques my interest through the Plants for a Future Database. This is an excellent way to assess usefulness, adaptations and most importantly to me, omnomableness. In this case the pictures allowed me to identify the 'mallow' on my allotment - I didn't realize the very pretty flower that I planned to sow was a more ornamental variety of the very same weed that has been the bane of my life for two years.

The common mallow, according to PFAF, is used to treat coughs and respiratory infections. I wish I had known that before I worsened my thick, irritating cough trying to dig this very plant out on a cold, damp day last week. It is also edible and can be used to thicken soups and stews. I did try a tea made from a handful of steeped leaves. An hour or so later, for about two hours, my cough did indeed loosen up, not unlike the effect of taking an expectorant cough medicine. Placebo or otherwise I do not mind. I can also vouch for the fact that this plant does indeed taste like young spinach leaves and I wish I had at least harvested the tops of the plants that I pulled out.

My cough remains and my experiment is cut short, unfortunately, but I have learnt something new. My interest in the medicinal properties of plants is growing again and perhaps this is something I will look into further over the coming year. I also suspect that it is a plant I will forage for as opposed to intentionally cultivate. Perhaps my pretty Malva sylvestris seeds will find their way onto an abandoned plot somewhere in the city, ready for future use. 

R&R

Well, sitting in the garden didn't work - I have spent the best part of three weeks off of work with what appears to be a post viral syndrome. Two weeks of that I was mostly housebound - and unable to do  anything that would ordinarily make that a pleasant experience - no crochet, no gardening, the barest minimum of housework before muscle fatigue set in and I sat down, tremor wracked. Even reading for long periods was impossible through the soupy haze that has been my brain.

Things are a little better and I can now leave the house without my legs collapsing under me after just a few paces - all good. But this disconcerting experience has left a lasting impression. With far too much down time to mull things over, I realized that my basic level of organisation in this little house isn't good enough to carry us through periods of incapacity or extreme stress. Which is a little irksome as I had had an inkling of this before and had just begun my spring cleaning when forced idleness struck. My Beloved did his very best to corral the kids and keep on top of things, but we are still playing catch up now.

Our decluttering efforts of the past few years have worked wonders and we still regularly reassess our possessions and delete as needed. We are left however with a marked lack of beauty and coordination, which is very noticeable when you are staring at four walls for days on end. Especially the bits of wall with subtle never before noticed crayon scribbles. And the slightly chipped skirting boards...that connect to the very chipped door frame. Also that annoying frayed carpet edge that the cat keeps pulling. And what is with those CURTAINS?

In the absence of action, I have begun reading Home Comforts by Cheryl Mendelson - it is a fabulous book, a bit like an intensive home economics course for those who were born into a time of food technology GCSEs. Everything you need to know about keeping house is in here and whilst much of it is advanced finickety housekeeping I will never use, all the basics are covered - routine setting, cleaning, menu planning, pantry stocking and laundry techniques are all in there.

There have been bright spots too. The Kalanchoe that we were given when we discovered we were expecting Gus 5 years ago has flowered once again - for the second time ever. I have cut it back to its base, watered it, de-aphided it, cut it back again; and finally a few months ago moved it from the dingy east facing kitchen window to the last chance saloon that is the west facing living room. It flowered last week and has earned its keep.  If everything else has got on top of me, the fact that I have managed to keep a houseplant alive for five whole years - and that it sits on a windowsill amongst several other very much alive houseplants - is a symbol of my ever increasing domestication.

I bought a cyclamen to celebrate.

Balm

Some of us are beginning to show our age. I noticed my hands this year are looking particularly elderly for a 27 year old - dry, wrinkly creases have appeared across the back of my hands and up over my wrists. Too many summers of baking my pale English rose skin under a hot Norfolk sun have caught up with me - not that I wanted to tan, I just had far better things to do back then than stopping to apply sun lotion. Lesson learnt.

I am trying my best to drink my eight glasses of water a day. A moisturising barrier between my papery skin and the biting wind would also be helpful. We still have a few litres of olive pomace oil left over from soap making and some beeswax of forgotten prior purpose (perhaps just because it smells so nice?), more than sufficient to make something soothing.

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Winter balm

1 30g bar of beeswax, grated

1 cup olive oil

Geranium essential oil

1 clean prewarmed glass jar (1 1/4 cup capacity)

Heat the oil in a bain marie over a a gentle heat. Stir in the beeswax until completely dissolved. Remove from the heat and stir in the essential oil. Pour into the jar and leave to cool. 

* * * * * *

My hands are supple once again. I applied no less than four coats to my lips this morning, each coat being sucked into my skin almost immediately until they were back to their former plumpness. In this short space of time it has been pressed into service not only as a body, hand and lip balm but also as a shaving oil  - and a lubricating oil for the tension knob on my spinning wheel. I suspect it could be used as wood polish too. I love having one jar in the place of many, two ingredients in the place of potentially hundreds. 

I used geranium oil simply because we had it, but doing a little research suggests that it has some application in balancing oily skin, which is very handy for someone whose skin varies between filo dry and butter pastry. Most importantly though, geranium oil is the smell of spring and summer. It reminds me of  one of the happiest moments of my life, sitting drinking tea on the lawn of a hotel in Kathmandu, the walls, window sills and beds riotous with red trailing geraniums. Before that moment, I think, I had actively disliked the smell; now I love the 'greeness' of it. In our garden we had a geranium, 'Attar of Roses', with small delicate pink flowers that appeared at the height of summer and smelt of Turkish delight - I wonder if I were to invest in a bottle of rose oil, the two oils combined might recreate that smell?

Snow falling on toddlers

It was someone's first snow day today...

I expected our 18 month old daughter to appreciate the white stuff a little. She did, babbling inquisitive but accepting noises from her warm windowside seat. Then we decided to take her for a walk. Wrapped in many layers we set out for less slushy pavements and white spaces. She didn't smile through any of it. We set her down on the ground and she fell forward into deep snow. Turns out snow is cold and wet and she really doesn't like cold and wet. We carried her around for half an hour in an ever increasing state of grump until it was time to collect her brother from preschool. The magic was lost on this one.

We the parents had fun though. We met a few new local residents:

 

My beloved nearly fell down a fox hole, taking Elsa with him:

I took lots of photos of pretty snow covered trees:

We also lamented the loss of childhood. Where were all the ruddy faced munchkins who should have been out building snowmen and throwing snowballs at passing strangers (us)? We saw a handful on our short trek, though the local school was closed, and many a vast expanse of snow lay pristine where it fell.

After picking Gus up from preschool, we stopped to build a snowman and to have a snowball fight of our own. And then it was business as usual - time to settle down inside to thaw out slowly, time for lunch and time for me to go to work.

Today was a good day and once again the fresh air did me good and sharpened my mind. But the snow, the snow added something magical. It was impossible not to be mindful - of every step lest I slipped, of every branch and roof and car in a landscape that had been made new by a covering of white snow and every crisp breath of air that I drew. And whilst it made the urban landscape beautiful, it reiterated that I really was made for wide open spaces and a slower, rural pace of life. One day. 

I hope you also enjoyed your day, whatever the weather!

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Welcome Sam and louisemeiklem, thank you for following!

The longest month

Every winter I am melancholy, usually more intensely so after the winter solstice. My rational mind tells me that the darkest days are now behind, but by that point the damage is done and the dull wet landscape particularly dispiriting. I find myself wanting to sleep for 14 hours a day (if only!) and to lock myself away for the rest of the time. My brain slows down and everything is a little fuzzy until well into February. By March, I am quite content again.

This year I resolved to get outside more. Every day I need to get outside and see sunlight; not just on my way to someplace, but to really get out and see. A walk, a good long potter around the yard, sitting in the park. Not just to soak up the light but to find something in this grey urban landscape to be inspired by.

I 'borrowed' my neighbour's dog a couple of days ago and headed out for a walk around the grounds of the mental hospital. This is one of the most beautiful corners of my neighbourhood, sprawling Victorian landscaping, no flower beds, just trees and shrubs and lawns. Everything is a little wild and overgrown and if you stray from the main road, you could be in the countryside.  I ran with her through the muddy grounds, she was happy, as was I when I dropped her home. 

On Monday I didn't make it anywhere, but made up for it yesterday.  I spent 15 minutes pottering in the garden an hour after the sun rose. The yard is a mess - less pottering and photography and more tidying next time!

Spring comes early to our patio yard. It hasn't seen a killing frost yet. The annual geraniums have stood through the winter, the chard is looking majestic as opposed to standing-but-battered. There are random bulb plantings left over from previous occupants that spring up every year and this year they have started particularly early. Most  importantly of all, the rhubarb is on its way.

Later we took an afternoon stroll to the beach. We sat and had a cup of tea from The Coffee Cup and then wandered along the prom, then back through the gardens, which is a whole other post, because we found yet more nooks and crannies of Portsmouth that we never knew existed, hidden in plain view.

Fresh air and greenery are the very best medicine for a funk; add a little exercise in and I feel a thousand times better. I had a solid seven hours of unbroken sleep, a rarity these days.

Dogs are also good medicine. Have I ever mentioned how much I wish I had a dog of my own? A huge, shaggy house-bear of a dog, like a Newfoundland. A house bear that could drag me out of the house in the depths of winter. Oh for a bigger house and a large garden. One day, one day.

The cure

I haven't spun since late last year, not for lack of desire but rather time and spindle. Mine finally cracked along the shaft that was already held together with particularly fetching holographic gift tape. This occurred just as I spun up my last roving; and at a particularly difficult period of my life and so that was that. Since then, I have missed the spinning, but a new spindle was the last thing on my mind. A series of stressful, anxiety inducing events against a backdrop of pregnancy, work stress and the arrival of a daughter, from the spring of last year to Christmas finally brought me crashing headlong into a wall.  I finally found myself in a therapist's office shining a light on the darkest, mustiest corners of my mind.

This difficult period, I realize now was simply the endgame of a trajectory I have been on since I was 15, one that has manifested as anxiety, panic attacks and depression since then. That the spindle cracked finally from an injury sustained long ago, just as I finally did, makes me all the more attached to that particular craft and I wish I had kept my first, imperfect spindle. I am that spindle.

It is a shame, that when I first presented to my doctor at the age of fifteen, feeling a bit low after a prolonged viral illness, that he didn't dig a bit deeper instead of throwing a diazepam (an anti-anxiety drug that I recently found out will worsen depression) prescription at me. If he had dug a little deeper, he would have referred me to a mental health team - although I realise that this was not commonplace in the early noughties. That mental health team would have probed a bit deeper and my diagnoses would not have been that I needed to pull myself together. That generalized anxiety,  bad dreams, flashbacks and the feeling - no, make that certain knowledge - that I somehow don't belong or deserve to be in this world is actually PTSD  - post traumatic stress disorder. I would never have suspected this, thinking that you had to actually be the victim of a particularly traumatic events to acquire it, but it turns out witnessing a traumatic event, even hearing about it third hand can trigger it. If you have, like me, witnessed several; you have good odds of developing it.

Well, the therapy helped. Just unpacking it all helped, painful and triggering as it all was. I have a lot of work to do and in all honesty I will probably never be fully cured - there are chemical pathways that were laid down when I witnessed those events that will continue to trigger that fight or flight response for many years to come. Now I have the tools to deal with it. I feel the most consistent level of peace I have in years.

I really recommend if you have been feeling low or anxious or paranoid or any other mental malady, that you don't try to just pull yourself together. I realise now that this process of unpacking actually begun a few years ago, with the birth of Gus, with my becoming a parent. This was the time we really began to simplify our lives. Even if I didn't believe that I could ever have a good life filled with good experiences, I could set my family up to have that. The appeal of this quiet pace of life I have wanted for myself, for all of us, I realise, was just my trying to find a little peace when tornadoes were tearing up my mental and emotional landscape. The focus, the mindfulness of a deliberate life, the wanting to contribute something beautiful and lasting to the world. In a way, our son was my saving grace, although that grace took several years to fully infiltrate my mind.

This month I finally bought a new spindle. I never realized just what spinning gave me that all my other crafts did not. Spinning beautifully dyed roving into yarn absorbs my attention like no other craft can. Everything else fades away as I try to perfect my technique (long way to go on that front by BTW) and control the weight and consistency of my yarn. This is what we humans have always done, provided for our own and our families' and our communities' most basic of needs with our own hands and creativity. I have hope that I will eventually get to the point where I can take a sheep, shear it, clean and scour the wool, dye it, card it and spin it and then give that hank of yarn or a finished knitted object to another. That process will link me to the deep time of my human ancestry and the awareness that all situations are temporary. That awareness will bring relief in times of grief and bittersweet grief should it arise in happier moments. Either way, it is a reminder to make best use of the time we have now, right now, because the next moment may never come. I have finally begun to make my peace with that.

This is my cure.

Rainy days

We have had torrential rain for the past few days. Rainy days are wonderful if you don't have to go out in them. To be snug at home watching the rain falling outside is one of the most comforting feelings a human can experience. Unfortunately, I was silly and stepped out in the rain unprepared a few days ago; and now I have a sore throat, fuzzy head and generally ache all over. Even so, I have whiled away a few days ignoring the housework. Instead I have been knitting, reading, watching films, drinking tea and cocoa and trying to ignore the sore throat.


The jumper is going well and I have now started knitting the front. I want to have it ready for OH's birthday in November. I also have plans to whip up a Christmas jumper for the boy and some accessories for me (to protect me from the weather so that I don't suffer again as I am suffering now). I will no doubt find my rhythm between now and then. As the nights draw in I find myself wanting to sit and be productive indoors.

Tomorrow, I have to go to work and then catch up on all the chores. It has been nice to relax for a just a few days with my little boy, who has been wonderfully understanding about it all and hasn't protested about the snuggling, film watching, book reading and cake and biscuit breakfasts even one bit...

Back home

I have been away for a week visiting relatives in sunny Derbyshire. OK, it really isn't very sunny, but it is fairly picturesque in the moments when the cloud cover breaks and the sun illuminates the peaks. Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera, so I can't show you. It is well worth a visit if ever you pass that way.

A week away from the city calms and clarifies the mind beautifully. As a child I used to wander for hours in the countryside if I had a decision to make or was feeling out of sorts. I never realised until last week how much I missed the opportunity to roam free, physically and mentally, for just a few hours.

Which leads me to the decision I made whilst we were away and my mind was peacefully rambling. I am not an urban girl, I never will be. Sure I can cope, but I don't thrive. Too much noise, too much commotion, too much competition - and for want of a better word, too much fronting. So when we move, as the darling OH is also not overly enamoured with city living, we will be leaving the city. This will be in a few years when he has finished his nursing training, but I have made peace with that and will throw myself into enjoying to the full all the pluses of living in the most densely populated city in the UK (awesome 'Indian' restaurants and takeaways, for one) and of course, spending time with all of the lovely people here that we call our friends and neighbours.

We are still undecided  just how rural we will go. At the moment I am keen on the outskirts of a town. Being landlocked in Derbyshire, followed by a stopover in the equally pretty-but-landlocked Oxfordshire, also taught me that reservoirs and lakes and streams are no substitute for the open sea and a beach nearby - and therefore we will not be heading too far inland anytime soon.

But knowing where our eventual patch of the earth will not be is a step in the right direction, don't you think?

Holiday

This week has been a holiday week. I actually worked my regular hours whilst my OH took the week off and entertained family who came down for Goodwood. Whilst wistfully staring out of my office window, thinking about the rest of my family (and it seems, the rest of the nation) who were out picnicing and paddling and generally chilling, I had time to mull a few things over.

First, I realised that I am rubbish at booking holiday. I have used about 3 days of my allowance this year so far and have nothing booked. I always end up saving it because I know it causes my boss hassle to cover it and it generally causes grief to whichever colleagues get left short staffed that partcular day. It sucks, however, because I know deep down I prioritise not wanting to cause a little bit of work for others way above taking time out for myself and my family.

I also thought long and hard about how much I enjoy the days off I have; and I realise that the answer is actually 'very little'.  I end up focusing on the things I hate doing and seem to have very little time for the things that I would love to do. My life is filled with too much routine and drabness, which is about as far as you can get from the life I always envisioned for myself and my family when I was growing up. Whilst I am beginning to appreciate the importance of some routines (life is more enjoyable, for example, when you keep on top of the housework and laundry pile), I realise that days can go by without me learning anything new.

I have now requested some holiday for later in the year and resolve to be less kind to my (admittedly lovely) boss and request holiday to suit myself and not feel guilty about it. I still managed a few trips out this week, which were fun, because I was forced to actually do things that were life and knowledge expanding; and spent time in good company. My 22 month old son sees the world with such wonder (his current most used word is 'Wowwwwww') and is always looking for new things to explore; I don't see why adults should be any different. If we were focused on the things that matter and were seeing the world clearly, we should probably be saying 'Wow' several times a day. Anything else is a waste of a life.