Encore une fois

...I am slightly tipsy again.

My excuse this time is the leaving do of another colleague I'm fond of; Amazing Hair Woman. Who is off to spend nine months in Baku organising some kind of massive arts festival.  It's a simply brilliant opportunity for her, but she will be missed.

Am going to try and exercise a bit of self-cntrol, anyway, and not ramble about any of my colleagues.

It's been a busy couple of days; my weekend already feels a long time ago.  I had a very domestic Saturday (cleaning, cooking, sewing, grocery shopping, honestly I'm a bloody paragon of Victorian virtues).  On Sunday I had a further list of useful sensible jobs to do; but it was such a beautiful day that I thought "The hell with this" and instead I went out and walked into Richmond along the Thames path.  I picked blackberries and took photos, and strolled in the sunshine, and when I got into Richmond I got fish and chips, which I ate out of the paper, sitting on the Green.  Then I bought some more groceries in the health food shop, and came home to cook my blackberries.  So I still got a bit of the domesticry crammed in.  But mostly it was a day of slow, peaceful strolling along the river.

It was the kind of perfect autumn day when the sky is clear brilliant blue and the Thames is silver, and it's warm but not too hot, and the leaves are just starting to turn.  The thorn trees were scarlet with haws and the air was full of the sound of robins whistling. 

It was late enough in the season that the berrying was quite thin pickings.  I had to walk slowly, searching with a steady gaze; half switched-off, half-meditation.  I could feel my mind emptying of all my worries and concerns, settling into a state of empty calm, at one with the yellow leaves, the cobwebs and silky heads of old-man's-beard, and the singing birds.  I strolled and gazed, and picked a berry here and there.  By the time I got to Richmond I had almost a pound, but I don't think there'll be any more to be had this year. 

I didn't see any sloes; but I've made damson gin this year (always assuming it turns out okay) so maybe I can manage without sloe gin as well.

But anyway, Amazing Hair Woman has gone the way of the Redhead and La Francaise and The Lovely Paul, on to fresh fields and pastures new, and I am sticking around.  I have work again tomorrow, so I had better stop daydreaming about how nice it was being out in the sunshine and the fresh air on Sunday, and put myself to bed. 

Busy busy bee, encore une fois (or, busy poseur, perhaps)...

I want to say that I have been on the go for so long I feel slightly disorientated.  I want to have a little moan about that.  But that “for so long” refers to a period of about three weeks.  There are people in this world whose lives don’t provide them with a break and a decent rest for several years at a stretch, never mind weeks.  Heck, there are plenty of people who never get a holiday in their entire lives.  I should grumble.  Heavens, what a wimp I’m becoming.

Work has been busier this month, which is good.  The weather has been – well, British.  Since I last wrote any notes here I’ve been gripped and thrilled by a magnificent performance of “Peter Grimes” at the Proms (Stuart Skelton in harrowingly good form in the lead, the chorus practically blasting off the roof of the Albert Hall when they let rip, all this and the lovely Iain Paterson to boot); I’ve also spent a blissful afternoon at the Science Museum (no longer just for kids), I’ve written my arse off all the bank holiday weekend, and I’ve dashed down to Kent to help my mum celebrate a big birthday – you know the kind - one with a number ending in zero. 

The latter is a bit of a “good grief, really?” moment for me; presumably a hell of a lot more so for her.  She never really seems to change that much, much less age particularly, and it is weird to realise how the numbers are still stacking up notwithstanding.  Well, I hope I have inherited her life span genes, and not my father’s. 

Mum’s birthday was fun, and would have been more fun if the weather hadn’t been so up itself.  It’s still August, for crying out loud.  What’s with the howling gales, persistent heavy rain and thunder and lightning?  But there was plenty of champagne, as well as both vanilla and maple-pecan fudge (she’s allergic to chocolate) and several kinds of cake, and curry for supper, and bouquets of flowers, and potted phalaenopsis, and a nice stack of greetings cards to prop along the front room bookcase.   And gin and Pringles, without which no family gathering seems to be complete these days.  Whatever did we do before the advent of the Pringle? 

Outings (it being way too dodgy, weather-wise, for the planned picnic on the beach either day) were instead spent partly sitting in the car listening to the rain beat on the roof, and pondering the intricate patterns very heavy rain makes on a windscreen in a very heavy & horizontal wind (like quivering water-lace; rather beautiful in a wet way), and partly indulging in the atavistic pleasure of blackberry picking.  So what with the dear UK climate doing its absolute nut, and the blackberries leaving all of us with lacerated burgundy hands, and champagne going to everyone’s head, it was a mad but very happy couple of days off. 

This weekend I’m cat-sitting (for the cat who is scared of farting – note to self, do not fart at the cat.  As if I needed telling.  But then, I’m no lady, me).  Then next Friday I’m off to Cornwall, for the second half of Mum’s birthday celebrations (I told you it was a big one) – a family week in Polruan.  Beautiful Cornwall, beautiful Fowey River, beautiful clean sea air and peaceful walking, silent country nights, lovely pubs, and good Cornish cider, yarg cheese, and pasties from Niles Bakery... 

First signs of autumn

It's odd; the newspapers and the BBC are saying all the signs are that this will be a late autumn; yet everything I have observed suggests the opposite. A straw poll around the office (very unscientific, I know) produced similar thoughts to mine. Everyone has seen prematurely yellowing leaves, early blackberries and plums, and so on. This morning there was heavy, sparkling dew on the long grass, and for the first time this year I saw cobwebs covered with dewdrops, too.

I've noticed that the first blackberry-gathering expedition has got steadily earlier - when I was a kid it was a September activity, about ten years ago I remember picking blackberries on my mother's birthday in late August for the first time; now I am planning a session this coming weekend.

But this year, the official version disagrees with my amateur phenological observations. No matter; I know what I've seen. They look like good blackberries, too.

Not much else going on; chugging along at work, which is steadily busy at this time of year; a terrific Prom on Monday with the gorgeously (& most appropriately) Byronic Maxim Rysanov doing a lovely job of the delicate and difficult solo part in "Harold in Italy"; nothing yet from the first literary agent I sent "GY" to; and I've had my first courgettes, runner beans and french beans from the garden, but no tomatoes as yet.

And I've had some more bizarre horoscopes. Yesterday, a long-lost beloved was meant to come back into my life, a changed character. I must admit to being pretty relieved that this didn't happen. I'm honestly not too sure I'd want some of my past best-beloveds back. With the benefit of hindsight, I have usually ended up thinking "Thank goodness that didn't work out the way I wanted it to!", about a year after a relationship has ended.

Today, I'm meant to have a chance to make a romantic connection with karmic overtones. Oh, my!...