Quicunque

So, I've had this last week off work and it's been a good time for me. I needed a reprieve from the dull daily mundanities that slowly wear me down like water dripping on stone. This has been my breathing and stretching time, and since even the gods have smiled on my leisure and blessed us with summerlike warmth and sunshine, I've been able to return to my daily commune with nature in the woods and winding lanes, even if only for this brief span.

My woods are russet and gold, filled with that peculiarly golden autumn sunlight that makes it feel like you're walking through molten honey. I've returned with stems of honesty's translucent seed-pods (some people think they look like silver coins, I think they look like full moons) and pockets full of cobnuts, pinecones, acorns and conkers.

I haven't been entirely lazy at home either. I've set in a good store of preserves made from the free harvest of the hedgerows, including some sloe and crabapple jelly, damson and elderberry jelly and rowan and rosehip jelly. Some of the jars will be given away as seasonal gifts, others have been carefully dated and stored in the wooden chest next to the damson gin and wild plums in brandy.

I have cut back old dead growth in the garden and cleared it away, That's always such a satisfying, even liberating, task. I suppose it resonates with some kind of symbolism. Anyway, the spiders were undoubtedly annoyed with me for ruining their careful constructs, but since I've noticed a new curtaining of cobwebs across the trimmed shrubbery this morning, I think they have resigned themselves with good grace.

I have been devilled by so much negativity this year, from the constant petty financial worries, the work frustrations, worry over friends and niggling little health issues. I can't say I've successed in banishing it all, since the causes and events are mostly out of my control, but at least I've managed to sweep some fresh air through the channels.

I half expected this to bite my leg as I stepped over it...

The arrival of the New Year was marked for us not by fireworks, but by a bonfire of negativity.

It was a subdued turn of the year, all told. Missing were the fireworks habitually sent up from neighbouring villages to welcome the New Year. There was no joyous blaring of car horns or factory sirens. No sense of revelry or optimism for the year ahead. Wishes for the new year were tempered with "It's got to be better than the last one, hasn't it?" with the underlying implication that we didn't believe it would be. No one seemed to have the heart for celebration, knowing that 2011 is likely to be as tough, if not tougher, than 2010 was. The politicians and economic pundits have made sure we're all very well aware the the austerity period is set to continue or even deepen. I woke this morning to David Cameron warning us "2011 is going to be a difficult year" and the Archbishop of Canterbury urging us to turn to the Bible to help us through the troubled times. Oi.

Still, one has to look on the Bright Side of Life, no? One of the benefits of being prepared for tough times is that one cherishes and appreciates the small good things all the more, and I'm determined to wring the last possible ounce of goodness out of the small things this year!

The bonfire of negativity I referred to was the ceremonial burning at midnight of a list of all the things that held us back and dragged us down last year. My partner and I each wrote out our own lists, then settled back with the last of the homemade damson gin and watched them curl up in flames - maybe wishing it was one or two people whose names were on that list that were consigned to the bonfire, but hey, we never claimed to be perfect.

I'm not making New Years resolutions. I stopped that years ago when I realised most of them were vague and unfeasible idealisms. Instead, I'm just going to try and make this year one I can look back over with some satisfaction and say, "Yeah, sumbitch, we did it despite youl!"

My heating is fixed!! I have hot water again!!!

The plumber arrived with today's snowfall* and worked and cussed for a few hours until we were rewarded with the crank and grind of the boiler firing back to life. You don't realise how much you take heat and hot water for granted until you spend a week without either in sub-freezing temperatures at a time of year when plumbers are booked up with weeks of work. Now I have the radiators switched high to drive off the lingering cold and melt the ice inside the bathroom windows. The cats are passed out on the bed like hot little rags and the household is happy again - see how we're easy to please with a few basic creature comforts?


* this reminds me of a character I write at PE, a spirit whose appearance is conveniently heralded by snow storms - theatrical maybe, but I do like a bit of theatre in my stories.

Thanks to several unforeseen domestic disasters, including the death of my heating boiler during the coldest week in 30 years and subsequent inability to stay in the unheated computer den for any period of time, I'm falling behind with Reverb 10. Can't say I'm all that eager to tackle the couple of prompts I've missed so far, but I did so want to complete something I started this year that I'll likely catch up as soon as my fingers thaw enough.

Summer made liars of the Met Office guys again this year, turning their optimistic forecast of long, hot barbeque days into little more than wishful thinking. A few random weeks of sunshine, followed by rain, more rain, wind, and an early descent into autumn. Beans and strawberries remained obdurately green and rotted, while blackberries swelled and ripened early in the hedgerows.

But then, just when we had accepted the chance of the promised barbeque summer was over and were mentally prepared to follow the days into a damp, blustery autumn, laying down jams and preserves and syrups and wines for the months ahead, the elusive summer decided to give us one last hurrah after all. A week of mild, calm, warm weather. Halcyon weather, my father used to call it*. It lifts the spirits immeasurably to see blue sky instead of grey, and feel the sun's kiss on one's cheek instead of the rain. It's all the more precious because soon we'll be immersed in the long, dreary British winter again.

However, this year I'm carrying a little of Summer's Last Hurrah through into the winter with me. For the last few weeks I've been busy bottling and brewing, boiling fruit and sieving syrups, all produce made from wild food harvested from the hedgerows and lanes within walking distance of my house. Making blackberry and rosehip cordials and damson and elderberry wines have been regular annual events for a few years, but this autumn for the first time I've been experimentally making some jams and chutneys, and without false modesty I think I can say they're damned good for first attempts!

The funny thing is, I know I'm not alone in venturing into jam-making and suchlike for the first time this year. Maybe its a sign of the economic times, the influence of River Cottage and big name chefs on TV extolling the virtues of home-grown and home-preserved, or that more people are turning away from unhealthy manufactured foods, but I've read on many blogs, and heard from many equally unlikely people both in real life and online, that they too are starting to dabble with jellybags and Kilner jars. As usual, I am but one mote in a growing trend!

Actually, I think it's easy enough to find an explanation for my own hitherto uncharacteristic kitchen forays. I have an inherent need to do something productive and creative, and one of things that first got me interested in the internet and becoming a web designer was the creative angle of it. I can't write, or make music, or paint, but I discovered I could design and build websites that people liked, and that fact gave me a great deal of satisfaction. It was something I could take pleasure and pride in. Nowdays, I find web "design" as creatively satisfying as a paint-by-numbers kit. It just doesn't push my buttons anymore, and I'm tired of coloring within the lines. Circumstances led to me having more time at home this year and to get my creative buzz I'm increasingly finding myself straying down avenues I would never have previously imagined myself exploring. And I have to say, it's a very interesting journey!


* Halcyon days were 14 days of calm weather at the winter solstice, when the halcyon, a mythical bird identified with the kingfisher that had the ability to calm the wind and the waves, was said to breed in a nest floating on calm seas. The story of the halcyon's origins and attributes is in Ovid's Metamorphoses, which I had to study as part of my Classics course. Yes, I had that kind of an education, I'm afraid.

Time for a few updates on what's going on right now, methinks! Actually, that's not a lot really...

On the job front, my redundancy notice period remains terribly vague, and though I thought I would have finished or at least have a more definite idea by now about when I would actually finish, it could still be any time between now and November, and probably at short notice in the end. I dislike the uncertainty, but although I've been looking for jobs to apply for (and believe me, I am not proud or fussy), there's been nothing so far.

On the home front, the hovel desperately needs more in the way of essential maintenance doing before winter. The leaking guttering and land drainage are the two most important issues at the moment - at least until something else falls off the roof. Ah, the jobs of living in a 200-year-old house! If we can get at least one of the problems tackled before winter comes along and creates more for us, that will be something at least.

Now, about a month ago I posted my intention to try and read some of the books I owe that I've never got around to yet. I forgot to report back but so far I have managed to read Nathaniel's Nutmeg by Giles Milton from my list (I should write a mini-review, shouldn't I? Later!), and added another book as its replacement. So, my current selection at the moment, not in reading order, is:

1. History Play by Rodney Bolt
2. The Pirate Hunter by Richard Zacks
3. Dreamfall by Joan D. Vinge
4. Strange Devices of the Sun and Moon by Lisa Goldstein (currently reading)

I’ve never been one for pouring my guts out even to fleshspace friends, much less relative strangers (often accused of being almost obsessively private) but sometimes I do get the urge to talk just for the sake of it. Sometimes it’s a restorative exercise.

This last year has seen many changes for me. I had a dragging illness, which because I’ve always been a disgusting healthy person and was totally unprepared for the psychological impact, threw me totally off course. It made me re-evaluate a lot of things I’d been taking for granted too, or had been too lethargic to address. The result of it has been that while I am as involved as ever with some of the online activities and places I’ve been involved in for the last 5-6 years, I’ve also let go of others and opened up more space to let the light in. My personal priorities have shifted, and after having spent so long in what now seems like a self-imposed closed bubble, I’m starting to discover different things again.

There’s been my work situation too. The last few years have not been kind in that respect. I’m now earning a quarter of what I was doing 4 years ago, when we had a portfolio of 40 or so small-to-medium business clients and a couple of big globals on the books. The SMEs have dissolved away one-by-one, either victims themselves of tough times, or because what we offered them was no longer an arcane art they had to employ outside specialists to do. And in times of economic hardship, the first thing even global businesses shed is non-essential “luxuries” like website maintenance. However I shouldn't complain about the quarter-pay, because I got the final confirmation this morning that my job will definitely cease to exist at all in a few months time, and I’ll be just another statistic of the recession.

Now losing my job is not such a bad thing, probably. Over the last couple of years I’ve grown to hate the work I do. Seems inconceivable sometimes that it was ever something I used to do as a hobby, for fun. Trust me – think carefully before making your leisure hobby into your job, it can kill your pleasure in it when you no longer have just yourself to amuse or please.

So even though I am nervous of stepping back into the world, this is a change I need, and while the job existed, I would remain stuck in it. Yes, I am unavoidably concerned about how my partner and I will manage financially, but I’m not going to worry too much about that yet. It’s no big deal; it happens to other people all the time. When one door closes, often another opens up. Maybe I’ll be panicking and screaming tomorrow, but today instead of thinking of this as the end of something, I’m trying to look at it as the beginning of something else.

Oh, and happy Midsummer Day! According to folklore, Midsummer was a time when one could look into the future, for both good or bad. I’m not sure I dare look at all….

Mood: Solipsist
What I'm listening to: The Byrds - Turn! Turn! Turn! (to Everything There Is a Season)

To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven

A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep

To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven

A time to build up, a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones
A time to gather stones together

To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven

A time of war, a time of peace
A time of love, a time of hate
A time you may embrace
A time to refrain from embracing

To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven

A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to rend, a time to sew
A time to love, a time to hate
A time of peace, I swear it's not too late!

I hope neither my beloved partner or a certain Yorkshire mobile car valeting service will ever read my blog, because I am about to incriminate myself here.

Around midday I took a break from my computer and went for a walk, since it seems a shame not to enjoy a rare warm, sunny day after the past several non-summers. Coming back down the steep hill into the village on the home stretch, I encountered a mobile valeting service man cleaning a car by the roadside. We exchanged cheery salutations, as one does, and I guess I must have been looking hot (not like that! Well sheesh, have it your own way then... *grin*) because he offered me a drink from his water bottle.

We passed a few pleasantries about the weather, and I made suitable manly and knowledgeable comments about the car he was cleaning ("It's a nice colour, isn't it?") but I'm afraid for once, my attention wasn't distracted by shiny things.

He was maybe a few inches shorter than me, and I'm on the midget side of tall. Close-shaved hair, powerfully built but not overly-bulging, strong shoulders and back displayed to full advantage in a muscle tee as he twisted water out of his shammy leather. Veritably, a pocket Vin Diesel! - and anyone who knows me knows that's like nectar to a hungry bee. Lord save me from such temptation! My eyes must have been as round as the car's hub-caps.

I bet he was straight as a flagpole (not one flying the rainbow flag, either). I keep telling myself that. But I wonder if I can justify getting my modest, battered, old Ford valeted - yes of course I made a note of the company's name! *grins* You never know when you might need a full servicing....

Despite the fact we've had cool temperatures and strong winds for the last couple of weeks, after an early unseasonably warm and sunny spell before that, the fruit and veg I'm growing in pots in my back yard (for lack of space elsewhere) aren't looking too badly at all.

My borlotti beans were attacked by Mutant Killer Slugs From Hell who nibbled the tops off, but fortunately the beans haven't thrown in the towel and are doggedly growing again (this time protected by Jerry's Slug Pub^TM filled with cheap beer - at least the buggers should die happy).

The strawberries and new herbs (common and melon sage, thyme, marjoram and flat-leaf parsley) are looking cheerful and determined, but my tomato plant is looking undecided about its chances of success. It doesn't like the constant temperature changes from day to day, and it really doesn't like being buffeted by the wind. I'm hoping it will perk up when and if the weather warms up a bit.

The potatoes are romping away in their little green gro-sacks, but the early harvest varieties are half the size of their late harvest brethren. Hmmm. Now I'm beginning to wonder if I mixed the tubers up when I planted 'em? Seed potatoes all look the same to me. I don't suppose it matters!

The fruit bushes - two self-pollinating blueberries, a gooseberry and a goji berry/wolfberry - are also settling in well, but since they are still quite small and young, I'm not expecting much in the way of a yield from them this year. Next year, I'd like to add a redcurrant or whitecurrant bush - I didn't think they could be grown in containers but I've since heard they can do very well.

I'm beginning to feel like one of those wartime Dig for Victory adverts....

My cats have developed a passion for the padded paper sack my seed potatoes arrived in. The spuds had chitted nicely in the cold shed and I just planted them into potato growing bags (not an easy task with the plaster cast'd arm encased in a bin bag for protection); when I turned round, there were three cats in the emptied potato sack, just whiskers and gleaming eyes visible. Potato sacks make excellent places in which to pounce on your siblings, apparently.

My single tomato plant is growning happily on the living room window ledge at the moment, since it's too young and tender to withstand the gusty winds and bouts of hail and sleet we're enjoying today. I only have one plant because I don't like tomatoes myself, and the yield of one plant is sufficient for the partner's needs without producing a glut.

I have some borlotti bean plants on order which I'm expecting to arrive any day. This will be exciting as I've never grown beans before, but I'm told they're easy (hah! I was told that about sweet peppers and my plant grew one measly thimble-sized pepper) I chose borlottis because the speckled pods and beans are so pretty. Food should be as aesthetic as tasty, in my opinion.

On a completely different note, I've now watched the first four episodes of season 2 of Carnivàle, and the angst has set in about reaching the (premature) end. What a unique and stunning series! It's been a very long time since I have felt so drawn in and mesmerised by the lives of TV-fiction characters *sighs*

Every yokel knows that if cows are lying down, rain is on its way. If they're standing with their backs to the wind, expect a storm. If they're racing round and round with their tails up, batten down for an earthquake. But when they're all lying down at the far end of the field under the trees, dreamily chewing the cud and staring at nothing, that means -- what? That they're not going to chase Jerry down and trample him, right?

Nope. It just means they're biding their time.

Lulled into a false sense of security, their intended victim cautiously hops over the gate and keeping a wary eye open for stray calves (you do NOT want a 600kg horned bulldozer thinking you're molesting its baby, trust me on that) nonchalantly heads off towards the opposite side of the field, manfully avoiding eye contact with the one or two cows that have stopped chewing and have started to look vaguely interested at this break in their routine.

"Don't run," my partner always tells me. "Longhorns are docile, but they'll follow you if you run. Just ignore them and keep walking."

Me, I thought it was supposed to be predators that have chase responses, not herbivorous bovines. However. I'm not arguing with him because in my experience he's right. Run and they run with you. Just call me Runs with Cows.

People who know me and my secret fear know where I'm going with this. I get half way across the bloody field and my bootlace mysteriously unties itself and I have the dilemma off keeping going and tripping face-down in a fresh cow-pat or stopping to re-tie and letting the cows that are now lumbering to their feet get me. Honestly, do I LOOK like a threat to their babies? Maybe they smell my fear. They break into a trot. My nerve holds until I feel the first hot, wet snuff on the back on my neck, but fortunately by then safety is within reach --- I nimbly vault the gate into the next field --- to find another two dozen or more English Longhorns all staring at me in round-eyed wonder.....

Incidentally, calves are kinda cute, with those long, long eyelashes like drag queens. It's just their bad-ass mamas that put the wind up me.

Fanny Fae at Panhistoria asks: "Do you find that your real life leaks out into your fiction and vice versa? How do you deal with that?"

I find my real life leaks into my fiction surprisingly infrequently. My male characters tend to share my sexual and cultural interests because I suppose we all tend to write what we know best, even if its subconscious, but very little of the actual events and situations in my life find their way into my stories. Maybe because I write for escapism, to be something else or something more than all the crap in my real life? My real life does occasionally provide inspiration for my fiction in a very indirect way, I suppose. For example one of my characters was born from the jokes about gold teeth I shared with a Pan buddy following a RL visit to the dentists years ago now. No, I never got a gold tooth *chuckles* but the character born of the jokes about my wish for one remains.

My mood leaks, though, even if my actions don't. If I'm sad, depressed, angry, then (if I write at all) I'll write one of my moody characters. If I'm feeling giddy and high-spirited, then I'm more likely to write something off the wall.

As for fiction leaking into my real life, well that would just be scary! Try explaining at job interviews that you ticked both the 'male' and 'female' box on the application form because you're actually a mystical hermaphrodite...

This morning, I was awoken by a cat falling in the bucket of wine.

That might sound familiar to some who know me, since no indeed - this is not the first time it's happened, nor will it be the last, I am sure. This most amiable and least intelligent of my cats has never learnt that a cloth placed over a bucket is not a stable surface for leaping onto. True, the cloth is there to keep foreign bodies from falling into the fermenting brew. But cats - it lets through.

Fortunately, there is still enough elderflower left on the trees hereabouts for me to dash out (once I'd mopped up the bewildered wet cat and the kitchen floor) to collect a bagful for a fresh batch (whether I pretend not to have noticed a cat was dipped in the wine and simply carry on with it *, or start again, depends on how much of the cat went in....).

So far so good - Alco-Cat is carefully walking around the bucket instead of attempting to perch on it at the moment. I can guarantee he'll have forgotten by tomorrow though....


* This is known in the trade as a full-bodied wine

It was funny to see the blog post I made on Midsummer's day last year at Panerotica- because I could just repeat it all over again for this one! Yes, today it has rained persistently, the skies have never brightened and the wet, grey mist never lifted. It's cold (I am wearing two sweaters and have just turned the heating up) and I hope any fairy that goes partying in the woods tonight has his so'wester and wellies on!

I was having a head-scratching conversation with the partner earlier about why it's called Midsummer's Day when it's actually nowdays reckoned to be the first day of summer - the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. I read somewhere its called 'Midsummer' because it's about in the middle of the growing season in Europe. Wikipedia says it marks the "Ancient middle of Summer, Astronomical beginning of Summer, and the nativity of St. John the Baptist". Are we any clearer? me neither.....

Fanny Fae at Panhistoria asks, "Who is the last person that made you really angry?"

And after I'd run through the list of the Usual Suspects when it comes to getting me riled up and spitting fire, I discovered that person was actually myself. Didn't really surprise me too much.

Thinking about it - it's because of my own responses and reactions that I get angry. I know that because I blow up at people that others can tolerate or blithely ignore while I'm doing a fair impersonation of a firework with too much gunpowder in it. Those saints say to me, "Jer, what are you getting your whiskers in a twist for? What's the big deal? Just chill!"

Actually, I am pretty chilled most of the time. There's just a few people that can reliably make me flip my wig at a hundred yards.

Apropos of probably not very much but it seems to fit in here, this morning my Buddhist friend taught me a mantra to neutralise an enemy and prevent them doing harm. I'm suppose to chant this twenty times instead of bristling at them *gets out scrap of paper and intones solemnly: "Aum samo bhagavate shatrunam budhi stambam kuru kuru svaha."

Yeah, I'm really going to remember that in the heat of the moment, aren't I?

All this talk on the Dailies at Panhistoria about the difference between roleplay and roleplay (and a very useful talk it is too) reminds me of the other kind of roleplay. I mean the pseudo-pychological crap inflicted on you as part of those work training courses where they think humiliating you makes you a better manager or more docile employee. I was sent once on a course on to learn to be a better supervisor. I thought it was a odd idea since I wasn't a supervisor in the first place so unlikely to become a better one, but it was a day out of the office soooooo.......

Anyway, the afternoon of the course was spent with five bright-eyed self-improving supervisors and one cynical minion (me) roleplaying a situation where a factory boss had to lay off half his staff. The Factory Boss was played by a very nervy girl, I somehow got elected as the Trade Union Steward, and the other four were the Sacked Workers. The problem was, some of the trainees got into their roles too well. One of the Sacked Workers must have been a fan of method acting. Before long the Factory Boss was weeping on the Trade Union Steward's shoulder while the other three Sacked Workers berated their colleague for his insensitivity. Afterwards, the tutor just looked at us wearily and said, "I don't suppose anyone wants to tell the rest of us what they learn from that exercise?" Smartarse Sacked Worker: "Never trust the union steward to back yer up if the boss is crying down his neck."

I much prefer the kind of roleplay I do at Pan. And I haven't played a Trade Union Steward here yet.

Fanny Fae at Panhistoria asks, "If you could travel in time, which era would you visit and why?"

This is one of those questions where you find yourself spoilt for choice *chuckles* I immediately ran through all the obvious choices: Egypt (nah, too pompous, bad wigs and an unhealthy obession with death), Imperial Rome (also pompous, though the mad emperors might be fun as long as you didn't meet any), Classical Greece (lots of naked men after my own heart, but a sad tendency to scrap with the neighbours) or Renaissance Italy (good for artists, not so great for peasants) and eventually I realised where I would most have liked to be was - none of these times and places. Okay, time to read the question again.

Then I realised Fanny had said "era". No mention of chosing a different location, only time. That simplifies the options! So, what era of God's Own County (Yorkshire) might be worth a visit?

This is where I realised there were HUGE gaps in my history knowledge. I know we staunch Yorkshiremen fought the Romans, and after the Romans left we fought the Angles. We lost both times, but at least we put a decent fight. Then my own ancestors arrived - the Great Heathen Army!! (aka the Danish Vikings). We probably put up a staunch resistance before losing to them. Jórvík (York) was the capital of the Danish Vikings and the Kindgom they established here. Oh, and then we fought the Normans, and lost again, but not without putting up a good fight (spotting a theme here yet?) I have to admit Yorkshire was a boom area under the Normans and during the Middle Ages - until the Black Death arrived and we lost a third of the population... *sighs*. Then we have the Wars of the Roses, one of the most fascinating periods in English history, but - alas, the Yorkists lost (not without a damn good fight though!). During the English Civil War, Yorkshire supported both sides (hah! not risking being total losers again!) then we got into wool and coal and pranced about on Ilkla Moor Baht 'at...

And out of all that, what would I visit if I were a time-traveller? I decided to get back to my roots and chose the Kingdom of Jórvík in the 10th century. Not because I want to go a-Viking like my ancestors (though I can think of a few folk I'd like to swing an axe at) , but because it must have been a truly fascinating time. The Kingdom of Jórvík was established by the Danes, passed to the Norse, but much of the general population was still Celtic and Anglo-Saxon. In the centre of this melting pot, the city of Jórvík itself was enjoying an economic boom thanks to Viking trade links that extended as far as the Byzantine Empire and beyond. Yes, it was a relatively peaceful time, all things being considered. And imagine telling your mates when you get back that Eirik Bloodaxe was really a sweetie under all that hairy bluster, and that Sigtrygg Caech the Squinty didn't squint.