snowdrop

 

In the garden this morning, in between picking up poo and scattering mealworms, I've made conversation with the slip between winter and spring.

Is anything more appropriately named than the snowdrop? 

Crocuses always a happy second to arrive.

The current granny square total is 7. That is a seventh of the total I'll need. I laid them in a row to check, yes, they should cover Moo's knees, or make a nice splodge of home in the middle of her bed, or chucked over a chair. 

The ole ginger arsehole Mojo Beans, Mighty of Battlesqueak (checker of crochet and stealer of workspace), is her cat. Found cold, thin, and hungry by a postbox in Leeds, he followed students into their warm, tuna-ed house, and never left. Spayed, not chipped, cared for at one time although wary of big men, except, now, for G, whom he adores. Posters and social media were actively ignored by his wise ex-owner so across the border he came. And stayed, when she moved into a rental that wasn't suitable for pets. If he didn't square up to the dog and my beloved Mr. Bailey (also spayed, large, tabby, stealer of morning bed book space) all would be well. But the ginger arsehole is, indeed, an arsehole.

I can't imagine ever being acquired by a cat by any means other than need or accident. Cats just happen. I think all my formative years of Nanna, who was systematically similarly acquired, plonking me in charge of the book stall at Bury Stray Cat Fund and Cats' Protection League jumble sales marked me out as a shortcut.

goal

 

Today, I have made a goal.

No, that's an untruth: I made the goal yesterday evening. Today, I'm making a little bit of progress on it.

The granny squares I make will be stitched together, given a border, and given to my daughter on her birthday. She turns 25 late March.

Moo's 25th has been stuck in my head since she arrived, a few weeks after my 25th. When she turns 25, I realised, I will have just turned 50. 50. Wowsers. Nearly there, chaps.

Moo moved into a flat with a friend last summer. It's in a brilliant part of Manchester to be mid-twenties, in usual times. Still not terrible pandemically, however the pandemic is a cold metal restraint between here and her that we both feel. Sometimes she struggles and when she struggles, here should be a soft place to return to for a breather.

I'm doing my best. Last week she had a struggle and, whereas I could normally feed here, I jumped on d*liveroo and within half an hour had Booths feed her there instead: salad hummous wraps, clotted cream rice pud, fresh berries, that sort of thing. A mix of health and comfort to sustain. It worked.

This higgledy first try at granny square warmth will go to her to. It won't be as large as the one in the pattern, but I estimate if I make another 46 1/2 of them she'll have something large enough for her legs, which could warm something infinitely larger.

Things would be easier if a certain ginger arsehole didn't claim workspace as ginger arse space.

cornered

 

Today I made a cock-up of the corner, but I completed my first granny square. 

That noise you can hear? That's The Pogues Fiesta.

 Just look at that corner. Behold the might of that cock-up. 

I sort-of completely know what I cocked-up*, which is hopeful regarding not cocking-up the next one. I am sort-of completely confident that I can fudge it into nothing when I stitch squares together. This I will accomplish by the gift of the simple ineptitude of my stitching, which is mighty, and is sort-of completely guaranteed to remove attention from the corner cock-up. 

Am genius.

*summink summink, joined colours when pattern said to snip one off and tie new one in, summink summink started at a different part which felt more suitable for the join, summink summink QUASH future feelings QUASH THEM FLAT.

Right, am off. I need a wee. I always need a wee.

nor so wide as a church-door

 

Today I have made an effort to follow instructions.

Not sure about the greeny grey next to the blue, but my choice of wooly stuff that's not sickly sixties baby cardigan is limited, because I bought a pack of mixed acrylic to see if I took to the crochet thing. (Geniuses will be flexing their mighty minds to anticipate near future moves here.)  

Circles in squares. Next stitch steps are to finish the circle stuff in the blue, then switch to a proper grey for the outside square. I'm the Greynaissance's bitch as much as the next bitch, and grey is my first and so far only single colour batch buy.

Today I've also made: a discovery about stopping glasses from sliding down my nose, without making that slippery slope miraculously matte; a big hole in the snow for the birds' mealworms; an inroad into user-testing some font accessibility thing; myself more than a little queasy on mini stroopwafel, and shortly I'll make tea. 

That's a small cluster of makes, but twill suffice. It'll do. In these days and weeks and months of wheels falling off, it'll do.

knot

 This morning I’ve made a pile of every scrap of crochet I’ve attempted.

I’m not a natural crafter. As I type that I can feel a tumble of sharp thoughts. Thoughts with hard, straight edges and stabby corners. Geometric weaponry. Left it too late to start. Slow, stiff arthriticy fingers. Glasses forever sliding down my nose. Should be doing something more productive. Keep forgetting what you’ve learnt and having to go back and relearn it again. That neck light’s a pain in the arse. Why aren’t you knitting instead? Why don’t you know how to use your sewing machine? You’ll only give it up after splurging a load of cash.

Instagram says I did my first yarn over, pull through on the 23^rd of October last year. I kept company with youtube videos and did… okay. A lovely friend did a lovely thing and sent a book on Granny Squares to me instead of to the charity shop. She said they were really easy. My head blocked up. Christmas arrived and I packed up the stuff on the kitchen table. This included, of course, the crochet. Of course it did. And of course it stayed packed up until this morning.

So, I’m slow, I’m uncertain, with a full head of sharp, bouncing plastic geometry. I would like a head of soft wool. Of colours and patterns. Of warm things to give. Let’s see how it goes.

yarn over, pull through

My refusal to acknowledge a shift from 2020 to 2021 has nothing to do with covid yet everything to do with loss. 

No auld lang syne. No opening the back door to let out the old before opening the front door to welcome the new. 

No bubbles. This evening I'll sip a glass of Italian or Spanish or Portuguese or French red, and pour one out for our bond with the EU. Brexit can get to fuck.

soap

 I think maybe what I need is to live in a soap. When you live in a soap you turn up with a career, or pick one up over two episodes (so within a week). When you change careers you get another job top speed: usually working in a cafe. Were I in a soap, instead of still wondering what the hell I want to do when I grow up (I'm fifty in Feb) I would be working in a cafe. In Roy's Rolls. With Roy. (Currently take-away only: Tier 4 tomorrow.) Roy. I would rock that.

Also, when you live in a soap, your house decorates its sweet self. In between episodes. I would sit at my kitchen table with a brew and the feature wall would shift and shape around me. Like Bradbury's jungle wallpaper, but with a floral yet geometric repeat design you could never acutally choose, but why be picky? It's done for you, whilst you dunk the last of the Danish butter cookies into your PG Tips (now compostable plastic-free).

When you live in a soap you have to take your turn with seventeen divorces, three spousal deaths, one spousal re-appearance, a daughter who believes you are her big sister, a big sister who is your mother, a brother who steals your laptop for drugs, your own drug habit that ends with a beard and homelessness, three train crashes, a tram crash, two plane crashes, too many hospital stays with a beep beep machine to count, twelve court appearances (eight aquittals), three prison terms, a body under the patio, and at least one stint as a landlady. At the very least. Fair doos. But alongside all that soap life gubbins you get regular employment and a quickly decorated residence. I could do soap life.

scrap

 I got locked out of my head. I'd noted the password down on a scrap. I'd put that scrap between the pages of a story. I forgot which.

I stared at all the stories, with all the pages, and all the scraps. To flick through would cause disruption at a time when things need a flick of tidy. Blimey, though, I could use a good story. One with wolves which curl up to sleep deeply, ogres which become distracted by flickering lights, and flickering lights which susurrate as starlings.

I looked away from the stories. The password, a docile thing which avoids a direct gaze, rose on its soggy scrap, and softly, silently, I think I picked it up. Did I pick it up? Can I?

trip hazard

 

Over there today the tangerine cretin continues to claim he has evidence of anomalies in the Dominion Voting Systems machines, dead people voting, and corruption in Democrat-run cities that were won comfortably by Biden/Harris but you don't know her, she goes to a different school.

Over here today the craven entitleds bray that a vaccine co-developed by the German biotech firm of the child of Turkish immigrants and manufactured in Belgium is a British triumph, and that grabbing it first is a feat of Brexit, even though the supply was authorised using provisions under European law. 

I expected the tory sonic boom as misdirection of the cliff edge of the 31st of December that is some Thomas Hardy shit, but the lies, the straight-up deceit? Why do these... perfidious, I'll say perfidious, it's a cracking word... lies still shock? Why, when we've lived this since we tripped over the cat into that rip in the space time continuum that was 2016, does my stomach still cement in an impotent fury that really can't be healthy? 

Summon the court physician. Call an intermission.

Why did Danny Kay not add a verse noting that the boy who observed that the king was in the altogether was strung up on a lamppost and left, spit-soaked, until his small, decayed limbs dropped off one by one?

It's altogether too chilly a morn.

troll

FuckSAKE

what has she done now?

She says she hates using icing sugar with a passion. She's only saying that because she saw on my gingerbread Instagram that I hate using icing sugar with a passion.

that must be the answer

She's got my Lakrids. Only she calls them bonbons. Bonbons, I ask you.

what's she making with those?

Nothing. They are in her liquorice case, next to the dragees... I had no idea you said it that way... and the pellets she's using to make a sauce for the burnt Basque cheesecake I was going to make next week before she stepped in and made it this week for everyone to see.

you can still make it. it would be nice.

It Won't Be The Same. And there was my crispy chilli, the same jar, my sweet smoked paprika, the same tin, my kimchi, and my posh tinned toms, and I keep those right at the back of the cupboard. She must be coming in at night and having a right old ruttle. I think she hides out the back in a hedge and peers in through the door.

like julianne moore?

Would that make you happy, love?

yes. very happy.

Just like Julianne Moore, but with the exact same Danish dough whisk I just gave to Mrs Parker for her birthday.

is there no end to it?

Then, just to rub it in, she put black banana peels in a curry. She knows I can't eat ripe/cooked bananas because ripe/cooked bananas give me sinus ache.

what a cow.

And she eats what she does, like she does, yet looks like she does, and says she never diets. She's sent to try me. I tell you, if she comes for the fairylights, she's a goner.

that'll show her.

Zig has got me her book for Christmas, like I hinted, hasn't he?

expansion joint

It’s definitely moving.

He wasn’t much cop at keeping his mask on straight, and even worse at the two metres thing, but he knew when a house wasn’t for staying put.

Yup, it’s definitely moving, that.

Underpinning is drastic and too hasty. Doing nothing will make the crack gape wider. ‘You cannot solder an abyss with air’, but you can fit an expansion joint. Who knew. Did you, Emily?

First off: an expansion joint between the old and the new. Something that should have been fitted when the work was done, but not to worry, a retrofit is doable, if more inconvenient, messier, than fitting it from the off. An expansion joint allows for movement, because houses move. It could be seasonal, it could be water, it could be worms. Could it be worms? I think I made that bit up. Importantly, If you add what’s new to what’s always been there, the movement isn’t always in the same direction. Obvious, once he said it.

That I have no foundations makes me flinch, and sometimes stare at, sometimes wince at, the thinner crack in the front wall with that permanent line of wet. No foundations are, the man said, surprisingly common.

You wouldn't think it. Curtains will cover that crack.

So, he’ll email the report, with the invoice. He grappled his mask as he left.

I’ll see about fitting an expansion joint. To absorb the gap between old and new. First off.

tight

If I don’t get up right now to mix some flour with some sugar and fruit and butter and cherries and spices and nuts and wet stuff and then line a tin and heat an oven and add one to another and pop in the third, if I don’t get up to do that then Christmas won’t come and I won’t have to admit how little of the stuff to be done this year I have done or have started to do.

Perhaps I could do all of that and still be a Christmas denier. So long as I don’t turn the thing over, peel away the greaseproof paper, prick it all over and pour over the Marsala. So long as I don’t do that last bit and repeat it over and again, I — and the year — might be saved.

But where’s the fun in that.

draw

Okay Baubles, are you all listening? Right. I am thinking of a shape with four corners and four sides. All of its sides are the same length. What shape am I thinking of? Brilliant! Well done! So Baubles, you now have nine points, Christmas Trees, it’s your turn. I have ten pence in my pocket. I buy a cake for three pence. How much money do I have left over? Oo, nearly right, would another Christmas Tree like to use your team’s other go? Yes! Well done! Right, it’s neck and neck. Baubles, this is your last question. Are you ready? What is our largest value coin, the coin that is worth the most money? No, not a pound, but good try, which Bauble would like to take the last go at your last question? Yes! Well done! This is so close, everyone. Christmas Trees, this is your last go. Think really carefully before you put your hands up. I buy some sweets for eight pence and some toothpaste for thirteen pence — cos I’ll be needing it after all those sweets. How much money do I need all together? Think carefully. If you want to, put the biggest number in your head and use your fingers to count on. Yes? Fantastic! Well done!

Baubles and Christmas Trees, you’ve both got ten points. Ten points each. That means we’ll have to have a tiebreak question. This one isn’t a Numeracy question because all the best quizzes have General Knowledge tiebreak questions. That means it could be about anything. Anything at all.

Are you ready? This time — just this time — you don’t have to put your hand up. If you know the answer you can shout it out. Are you listening really carefully? Right, here we go.

Who ...


... lives in a pineapple under the sea?

Rehearsal

Cumulatively it’s twelve partridges, twelve pear trees, twelve drummers, at least twelve drums, twenty-two turtle doves, thirty French hens, thirty lords, thirty-six calling birds, thirty-six ladies, forty gold rings, forty maids, forty cows, forty buckets, forty-two straining geese, at least forty-two goose eggs, forty-two swans, and an unspecified amount of unspecified liquid deep enough for swan legs.

With actions, it all adds up.

as above

also to be found here:

http://distractedastrologer.wordpress.com/

funk

Pah. It's work shadowing day for Mol. She chose to go with G, not me, although this involved getting up at 4:30 and she won't be back before 8pm. She began the day by meeting an astronaut on the breakfast radio show, and is currently being taught how to read the news by the presenters of the local news telly programme.

I could have given her a book about astronauts to put back on the right shelf, and she could have read to Year 1.

Perhaps one day she will learn to choose wisely.

cheater

Fuck you, David Chaytor. Just fuck you.

You claimed for a mortgage you'd paid, you paid your daughter under an assumed name, you employ your wife for an undisclosed amount, you falsify invoices for thousands, AND YOU SEND ME SPAM.

Mr Chaytor, you, yes you, will continue to get paid to represent me until the next election, when you stand down. Here, let my boot give you a hand with that.

Mr Cheater, that wasn't your money, it was ours. And now you've made me cry. Fuck you.

Green

The Today programme says current apocalypse warning is two horsemen and a velvet-soft pony nose.

Garden is full of sun, birds, strawberries ripening to pink, and taddies ripening to frogs.

Bump nose boy - victim of a cubs-related incident - back tomorrow, me with him. I forecast the low-key anxiety of NOT BEING AT MY TINY JOB will shred in a tumble of SEN maintenance and scattered library shelves.

sixteen

Note to self.

Look, just snog him already. And ignore the one with the Burnley postmark.

Don’t drop History. You like History, history likes you. Plant more things.

Carry on with the nerds, soon they will start to be called geeks and their t-shirts will get better.

Buy the red dress, cut off the buttons. Buy the red velvet trousers, and the red velvet coat. Don’t buy the rat, buy two. And walk dogs. Keep writing with a black fine line.

Walk the curve in Central Library. Listen to your footsteps.

You don’t have to pull pints in a pub off Albert Square in the summer of 94, but it helps.

It’s not your fault. It’s just not. Keep that one safe: push it down deep down inside a warm pocket. Give it back when you see me.

grey and lightly brown

Holiday here today, with a brown and loaded sky. We had the thrill of trying to find shoes to fit over splints.

Mol has a friend round; their idea of getting lunch while we were out was scarfing five bags of crisps and most of a giant bag of doritos. We were back just in time to save the party rings.

Mol has a new look on her face these days. A blocked teen look I'm feeling less than comfortable with. I've just realised it reminds me of the blank, unresponsive eyes of an unspayed tom at the bottom of your garden. The love hasn't a clue she's wearing it, the way the tom hasn't a clue he's just a spraying bastard.

I will drink St John's Wort tea and make fish pie to politely summon a metaphoric sun.