The first month, and the future

I've been unemployed for four weeks now, and I have to admit, it could get addictive!  It's probably a good thing I will need to get a new job eventually; I could very easily slip into just relaxing and enjoying having my time to myself.  I could very easily get incorrigeably lazy.

I had promised myself I would take a month off completely, once I finished at work.  I've kept that promise and I have indeed been thoroughly lazy for almost the whole of July.  I've read masses, I've gone for walks and bike rides, I've had lunch with friends; I've had a week on a beach in Kefalonia doing absolutely b*gger all but read and swim; I've been to the cinema and to stay with my mother, and I've done some sensible jobs like sorting out all my mending and sewing jobs and getting started on some of them.  I've also had several medical appointments; a blood test, another session of cryotherapy which I think (cross fingers) has finally killed my bloody verruca, and a retinal screening, which was fairly horrible (dilating eye drops, ugh).

Next week I'm going to the cinema again and to Covent Garden to see Carlos Acosta and Co. in action, and then down to Brighton for a girls' weekend with the lovely LadyK, Snoozie and Sammy J.

I haven't done any job-hunting at all.  I haven't even thought about working on my CV.

I wanted to give my brain a chance to flush out all the tension and anxiety and grief about losing my job; I wanted just to sit empty for a while with the air blowing through me.  Sorry about the slightly weird metaphors!

My blood test results were excellent, which was enormously cheering.  I've managed to pull my haemoglobin A1C reading down from 58 to 35 (normal is anything under 45, if I remember correctly).  HBA1C is a kind of average measure of your blood glucose levels for the previous three months, so this is very good news as it means I have kept my BG normal consistently for the whole of that time.  My blood pressure is back from being rather high to being distinctly on the low side, and my weight loss is now official; from 226lbs to 190lbs, 2 1/2 stone lost.  The doctor reduced my medication and said "Well done, keep it up!" and I came out of my appointment feeling hugely cheered.  I'm doing the right things.

Of course, it's the keeping it up part that may be a problem.  I don't want to let myself slip up and slide into having a few things I probably shouldn't eat, and then a few more...  I suppose the price of good health is constant vigilance.  Now where have I heard that phrase before?!

I suspect the reduction in my stress level has helped, too.  The last few weeks at Kew were very peculiar; and the last six months had been frankly horrible at times.  I miss my colleagues - I miss some of then quite dreadfully - but I don't miss the job or the atmosphere at all.

At first I was sad about that; sad to have gone, but more precisely sad not even to be missing something that nine months earlier I'd expected to be happily doing for years to come.  I'd worked hard and been completely committed to the place for more than ten years.  In particular, I'd been very proud of what Paul and I achieved in Travel Trade and Group Bookings since we took it over in 2012.  It seemed a sorry way to go, not even to want to hang on to a job I'd been good at and enjoyed.  But things were the way they were, and that was that.

Having this break has helped me to move on from that state of affairs, to accept that situation and to let it go.

I know "Let it go" has become a cliche over the last couple of years, but sometimes it really is good advice.  You pick your fights, to offer another cliche; and this fight was one I could only lose.

So.  Onwards and upwards.  To infinity and beyond.

I got enough redundancy money to keep me going for at least a year (more if I'm economical) so I don't plan to rush about trying to get any old job immediately.  When I do take another full-time job, I'd like it to be interesting and worthwhile, as Kew was.  In the meantime, I'm very unlikely to get another chance like this to stop and take stock before I reach retirement age.  So take stock I shall; and maybe I will carry on as before, and maybe I will change direction completely.

Unlike many people, I have been lucky enough to have some experience of what it's like doing things that are fulfilling to me, instead of merely paying the bills and praying for Friday each week.  My five years at art college were ultimately a dead end, since my work was neither commercial enough to earn me a liveable income through sales, nor "Art World"-y enough (i.e. bullsh*tting enough) for me to get gallery interest and commissions and Arts Council grants.  But it was a fascinating dead end, one which I will never regret.

Now I've returned to a passion even older than my love of painting and drawing.  For the last few years I've been doing quite a lot of creative writing.  I know I could have done far more, if I'd had a) the self-discipline, and b) the time.  So - until a really interesting new job arrives, I've decided I'm going to fill in the time by focussing on my writing.  I have completed novels I need to revise; and uncompleted ones I need to finish and then revise.  I need to have a stab at e-pulishing, too.  It may not get me many readers, but any readers is more than the precisely-zero who are looking at the work on my hard drive.

I've got an idea for a second blog, too, about cookery and diabetes.  My diagnosis has really revived my interest in cooking.  Maybe some of the diabetic-friendly recipes I've invented would be useful for others; so why not share them?

And I'm planning to spend September travelling in mainland Greece, and blogging about my travels.

It's quite scary to actually say that, here in writing where people can see it and hold me to account over it.  Now I really do have to go ahead with this crazy idea!  But I do want to do this, crazy or not.  It's something I've dreamed about for years.  The chances of getting another opportunity like this are pretty slim, at least before I'm in my late sixties, by which point I'll be worried about being a bit old for such shenanigans.  So now's the time.  If not now, when?  (Hmm, is that cliche number six?).

I'm going to take my beaten-up copy of Pausanias' Guide to Greece (the old Penguin translation; I'm no classicist these days!) and travel around and visit some of the places he visited, and draw and/or paint them as they are now, and write about that.

This will take a bit of planning; and I'd better brush up my rusty Greek, too.  It's never been more than basic tourist level, but even that much could be useful if I revised and practised a bit.  I need to find out lots about public transport (I don't drive) and plan itineraries, and pick likely spots for overnight or longer stays.  I need to sort out a lot of details while still leaving room for the unexpected and the spontaneous.  I'd do well to get back into the habit of taking quick sketches on the fly; so I need to carry a sketchpad around with me this month.  And I may need to get a better camera - my current options are my Zenit B, which is a tremendous camera but is older than me and, of course, for 35mm film only, and the little toy digital camera I bought about 18 months ago, which is handy and very compact but not terribly good (it can't do a close up to save its digital life, and is really thrown by strong contrasts and by anything white).

I am a raving Philhellene and have been for as long as I can remember. It's not my place to pass judgement or pontificate on the present situation in Greece (a situation which alarms and saddens me dreadfully, and which I wish I were able to help in some way).  But it seems to me oddly fitting that I take myself there now, in such a time of transition in my own life.

So that's the plan.  Which leaves me with plenty to do during August.  Watch this space.

Strange week

It's very odd to be, as I currently am, in my last week at Kew.  For all its peculiarities, for all the stress and pressure it's put me (& many others) under over the years, I have loved working here and have been deeply committed to the place.  Up until just a few months ago I honestly thought I'd be here till I retired.  The evening of the day I accepted I would have to leave, I cried for hours (all over a very patient friend whose forebearance and loving-kindness I aspire to have one day).  It seemed beyond belief; and in many ways it still does now.  Yet at the same time, part of me just wants this to be over now.

This last week is so weird.  Each day, when I go out at lunch for a stroll, I know I am saying goodbye.  I am losing my connection to these places, these trees and flowers and historic buildings; when next I see them I will just be another visitor, no longer one of their people.  I am saying goodbye to little hidden corners, to short-cuts behind the scenes, to all the secret places that have given me refuge and a moment of peace on hectic days. 

And, of course, I am saying goodbye to people. 

Many of my friends have left already (or been made redundant); many others are away on annual leave at the moment.  Yet others do not work on Fridays; and still others for various reasons I don't see often to begin with.  By now it's very likely I won't see them again before the end of the week.  And I finish on Friday.

I'm trying hard not to get depressed.  I'm also trying not to brood over-much about what will happen, going forward, to this venerable place as it struggles to modernise without killing itself.  It's simply not my look-out anymore.  I have to let go.

But I look at the big, bountiful shapes of trees, cushiony with foliage, delicate with their many-textures of leaves large and small and bark silken or rough; I smell the perfume drifting down from the lindens as they flower in the midsummer warmth; I see the Rose Garden at last really come into its own, six years after being completely replanted; I talk to people I'm fond of, people I've never told how much I like them; I listen to their sense of humour, I laugh and hear their laughter rolling along with mine.  And I miss everything that has been good about Kew.

I won't miss the stress; I have to be honest about that.  I won't miss some of the really arcane and circuitous decision-making practices, either, or the frankly lousy internal comms.  I won't miss waiting in fear to see if the next difficult, business-essential round of cuts will hit me.  But I will miss the place, I will miss knowing I'm contributing to something of real value in the world, and I will miss the people. 

Well, very soon now my life is my own again, to do with as I will.  And who knows what the future holds?  Not me.

My week in Crete, last month, was so blissful and restful that I'm sorely tempted to do it again.  There are (unsurprisingly) some very good special offers around at the moment for trips to Greece.  I'm sure foreign tourism is too important to the Hellenic economy for them to risk anything impacting on visitors from overseas.  I would take cash with me because I always do take cash anyway.  And I could be sitting on a terrace somewhere with a good book, with a long swim in the sea already done and a good supper of fish and salad to come, putting all this behind me for a week.  I know my few hundred quid of spending money is a microscopic drop in the ocean of the Hellene economic woes, but it would still make a tiny scrap of the difference to the individual restaurants and cafes and shops where I spent it.  And I would have sun on my back and pine trees to walk under, the sea to swim in, and  xiphias and sinagridha and horiatikisalata to eat and a glass of good wine or two. 

On the which note, it's extremely silly of me, but I'm enormously encouraged to discover that the person in charge of the Greek Government's economic negotiations at the moment is Euclid Tsakalotos.  I heard him mentioned on the radio a couple of mornings back and did a double take, and stood in the kitchen with a mouthful of cereal, and a silly grin spreading across my face as I listened.

A long time ago - a very long time! - I used to deal with him in my then job; he was an economics lecturer at UKC, and I was the economics buyer at the Uiversity bookshop.  He was a nice man, always courteous and helpful, and friendly, even to a shopgirl like me (he was also terribly ornamental - I had a dreadful crush on him).  I'm very happy he went into politics.  The world needs politicians who have some empathy with people who work in dull jobs.  I know it's completely idiotic of me, but I do feel reassured now I know that he's working on something so vitally important, for a place I love so much. 

Go well and good luck, sir!

A time of change

This has been a very strange month-and-a-bit.

In early March I finally accepted voluntary redundancy at work.  Paperwork took a while to come through, as the wheels of HR do turn exceeding slow, and consequently the official stuff wasn't actually signed till the end of March.  I am now in my notice period and I will be leaving Kew, where I've worked for the last ten years, at the end of June.  Ten years is a long chunk of a life.  It feels very strange.

Then a day or two later, feeling I had nothing to lose now, I finally told a chap I've had a roaring crush on for well over a year (& a slight crush on for a lot longer) how I feel.  I knew he was in a relationship and wasn't interested in me in that way, and he confirmed that.  He was nonetheless incredibly nice about it.  If I ever find myself (unlikely but even so) in the position of having to tell someone I like them as a person but-not-in-that-way, I now have a superb example of how to do it; with kindness, compassion, respect and even a sense of humour.  I've been rejected before, but always with the unkindness of grave embarrassment, or even with anger and disgust.  Never like this; he was just lovely about it.  I wouldn't have believed it possible if I hadn't experienced it.

Of course, the downside of that was that it made me like him even more.  It confirmed to me why it is that I've come to like him so very much.  He's intelligent and articulate and interesting, yes; but he is also a thoroughly likeable and old-fashionedly good man.  Whoever his other half is, they have a good 'un there and I hope they treasure him as much as he deserves.

Then a few days after that, and no "finally" about this one but a huge shock completely out of the blue, I was diagnosed with diabetes.

So 2015 is turning out to be a year of change and challenges.  I am determined not to be broken down by all the things that are being turned upside down; my committment to Kew, my casual assumption of my own continuing health...   I'm on a diet, and have already lost over a stone in weight; I'm on pills that should support what pancreatic function I still have left; and with an end in sight now, my stress levels at work are decreasing.  It's all very strange, though, very strange indeed.  Things have been taken from me that I had thought were entirely stable, and my world is changed utterly.

I went to the theatre tonight.  I had supper out beforehand (I am working my way through the various Superfood Salad options of the main chain restaurants; to my relief, so far most of them have turned out to be pretty good) and then I went to see The Nether, by Jennifer Haley, which has come into the West End from the Royal Court for a limited run.  This was, funnily enough, on the recommendation of my crush; and I can see why, too.  What an extraordinary and thought-provoking play, and what a brilliant piece of staging.  Although the subject matter is disturbing it's handled with immense delicacy, and it addresses some very powerful and challenging ideas.  It's on for just a couple more weeks; if you like an evening out that makes you think, rather than just entertaining you, then I recommend this highly. 

A busy couple of weeks

By gum, I am full of pizza.

Thank the Gods, it's Friday.

It's been a hectic couple of weeks and I am worn out.  I should have been on annual leave right now, and in Greece, for a fortnight; but things have worked out differently in the end and I'm here instead.

I hardly know where to begin.  There are things where I'm not sure how much it's okay for me to say.  I was interviewed for my job, and I've been told verbally how I did, but not officially in writing.  Some of my colleagues are in the same boat and others haven't been told yet, some of them because they've only just been interviewed.  In theory the new structure for our department is formally anounced next week; so I think I should probably do well not to talk about it until then.

The whole business of getting thus far has been horribly drawn-out.  Different departments started their restructure programmes at different times, and some aren't as advanced as ours.  I cannot wait for it all to be over, and I'm sure I am not the only person who feels that way.  I understand the need to do this, I even agree with it; but it's no less exhausting and depressing for that.

Meanwhile, I've had a good week in other ways.  I got some things done at work that I wanted to get done, wrote most of another chapter at home, of something that had got bogged-down, and had a couple of drinks with some colleagues tonight followed by a very self-indulgent pizza supper. The weather has been bright and cheerful too, and the first autumn colour is staring to gild the streets and the gardens, and the Gardens too.  The autumn festival, the Intoxication Season, is excellent, too, with some really good displays and a terrific programme of talks at the weekends.  The autumn theatre season starts next week for me, too, with "Manon" at Covent Garden with the DipGeek.  I am tired-out, but on balance it's been a good week, at least on a personal level (the international situation doesn't bear thinking about, but this is not a socio-political blog).

I think the worst thing that has happened to me was this morning, when I went to a colleague's baby shower and unexpectedly the chap I've been trying not-to-have the crush on walked in.  I was so taken aback I could hardly look at him at first.  Then there came a moment when he was nearby, taking some grapes from a dish, and I wanted to say something sensible and friendly, something that would signal that I just want to be friends; but my eye fell on his hands, as he stood there peacefully picking grapes from the bunch, and my idiotic brain was completely paralysed by the sight.  All I could think was damn-you-have-such-attractive-hands...  Nothing intelligent occured to me at all; nothing that was adult and friendly and devoid of embarrassing overtones.  I am hopeless.

I do accept, rationally, that he isn't interested in me in the way I am in him.  But my irrational hind-brain is rushing about in bearskins howling, it would seem.  Damn it, calm down, you.

Apparently his office is being moved, though; he's going to be in the same building as me soon.  So I will have plenty of opportunity to teach myself to be calm and adult and a good colleague, and not a mad hairy crazy cavewoman.  I vow to do better.  After all, good grief, I don't even know if he's gay or straight or any one of the myriad nuances in between.  It simply won't do to be cavewoman Ims, acting out and jangling my beads and waving my fancy flint hand-axe.  He's a nice man, he deserves better than that; and so do I.  Friendship's the thing.  That fing wot grown-ups do.  You can do this, Ims.

Sorted

I've just signed a tenancy agreement on a new place.  I then had tea with my nice new landlady in her lovely green garden.  Yes, it's the very first place I went to see; it came through.

So I'm sorted, and I'll be moving in next week.

Hugely relieved.

Then went and had a celebratory pizza with my darling stepmum Jane, who'd been at Kew for the day enjoying the Plantasia festival.

And the sun has shone today, and Kew is beautiful and full of roses. 

I feel, for the first time in ages, that maybe things are going to come out okay.

Busy day

This morning I had the chance to get out of the office (unusual, lately) and model for a press launch photoshoot.  One of the other models was very beautiful and had a very beautiful three year old with her, so I should imagine most of the press coverage will feature them.  But if your paper has a shot of a lot of feet, mine might be one of the pairs featured.  Chipped blue nail varnish, if so (o, the shame).  We were demonstrating the Barefoot Trail.

For your information, and rather to my surprise, the Barefoot Trail does exactly what it's meant to do; I came away feeling relaxed and revived, and as if I had been close to nature for a short time.  All from wandering about barefoot on assorted surfaces such as wet grass, logs, pine cones and sand.  The New Age Fluffy Stuff won over my cynicism, hands (or rather feet) down.  It was glorious.  If muddy.

In the afternoon my boss and I had a long meeting with someone from Finance, someone from Visitor Services, and The Man With The Answers, to talk about hitches and glitches in the new ticketing system.  Most of the aforementioned hitches and glitches, if I'm honest, are in our handling of the system, not inherant in the thing itself.  It was a hugely constructive meeting, the kind I wish all meetings could be.  Although we only got through about 20% of the things we needed to sort out, we did have really thorough discussions about those things, and make real progress on them.  I suppose we just need to have more meetings, and slowly work through the remaining 80% of the issues with the same thoroughness.

Halfway through this meeting the weather turned on its flipside and began to pour with rain, then hail, and then thunder as well.  The office we were in is in an attic and the rain and hail were pounding on the roof and bouncing into the open windows.  The Man With The Answers sat smiling in his usual unflappable & Buddha-like way - until I said "Answers, I'm getting worried about your books" (which were on the windowsill behind him) - at which point he suddenly reacted with alacrity.  Good chap; I am sure even Gautama Buddha preferred to keep his books dry.  Keep your powder and your books dry, eh?

He appears to be reading a playscript, which is intriguing (I would know the Faber & Faber Drama livery anywhere).  But being nosy about other folks' reading can seem tremendously rude, so I bottled it and didn't ask.  Now I'm just curious (equals nosy). 

Then it was back to the office, and then to the leaving drinks for a colleague who is moving on to pastures new.  This last happened to coincide with the Grand Re-Opening of a local bar (sheer chance, but it meant we got two free drinks each and a lot of slightly random free tapas).  So by the time I left, early, to go and vote, I was full of food and drink, and decidedly relaxed.

Trotted to my local polling station (the infant school over the railway line) clutching my poll card.  Even at well after nine pm there was a steady trickle of people.  I handed my card over and said, maybe a tad too brightly, "I hope it's okay to vote when you've had a couple of pints, I've been at a colleague's leaving do."

Polling officer:  Dearie, if you're here and you can make a cross with a pencil, you can vote.

So I voted.  I'm not sure whether I should be cheered or depressed by the discovery I'm allowed to vote even if half-cut.  I've decided to be pleased about it.

Like many good Lefties I sometimes have those moments of wondering if there's any point in casting my vote.  Parliamentary democracy has its flaws, goodness knows, and ours is as messed-up as the rest in many ways..

But so many people across the world even today never have had and never will have the chance to make that cross on a ballot paper, to try and add a drop of influence to the vat.  Most of my ancestors didn't have the vote - none of the men, to my knowledge, until 1918, except possibly the Hyders in Bristol, and certainly none of the women until 1928 (property qualifications are intended to exclude the peasantry, after all, and I come from very solid working class stock!).  I would be utterly ashamed of myself if I didn't go out and vote. 

Now home, sobering up, and writing this.

Last night I was at the ballet; two lovely non-narrative pieces and a gritty, grim, bleak story ballet about the spirit of Jack the Ripper haunting London and inspiring Walter Sickert and a friend of his to commit the Camden Town Murders.  "Sveet Violence" said the German woman in the row behind mine, carefully reading her programme aloud to her neighbour.  Well, quite; I couldn't have put it better myself.  Actually the title is "Sweet Violets", but anyway...  It's choreographically terrific.  Also grim, grimgrimgrim, also grisly and dismal.  Beautifully danced, though, of course (Lauren Cuthbertson in particular was superb as the second woman to be murdered).  But it was a relief to go from that to "DGV" with its superb score, high energy and rich, resonant optimism.  Graphic violence and murder in pointe shoes may be very impressive; but hope and love and human connection carry the more meaning, for me, cockeyed optimist that I am.

Busy busy bee

...that'll be me, next week.

There's work, for starters.  I think all the issues I outlined in my last long post are ongoing, so yes, pretty busy at work. Progress is being made, and on all fronts, too; but at this time of year there are more tasks coming in every day, so "progress" does not mean "let-up".  No rest for the wicked, ect ect (Molesworth he sa).

At least by the end of the week there may be more information about the restructure.  Even if the news is alarming, it will at least mean being out of the limbo of waiting, and into a place where one knows what is happening and can start to plan accordingly.

Monday evening I'm going out with the Dipgeek and another friend to the Curzon in Richmond, to the cinema relay of Christopher Wheeldon's new ballet of "The Winter's Tale"; hopefully with supper beforehand. Given Dip's dietary issues this will probably mean that nice Persian restaurant on the little pedestrain square just off Sheen Road, since they do lots of gluten-free things.  Mmm chicken with pomegranate seeds mmmm...  Looking forward to seeing my dear Dip again as we haven't met up for several months.

Thursday I'm off to another cinema relay after work, this one at Westfield; the National Theatre "King Lear" with the brilliant Simon Russell Beale, one of my big-time acting heroes, playing Lear.  I've been trying to ages to get a ticket to see this in the theatre, but tickets are like the proverbial gold dust and in the end I gave up and said a short prayer of thanks to the gods of live broadcast, and accepted that I will have to spend an evening on board the good ship Axiom...  At least I can have gambas al ajillo and patatas bravas and a glass of Mahou at Tapas Revolucion first.  I suspect I will need to be fortified with garlic and beer; if Mr Beale is not a harrowingly good Lear I will be very, very surprised indeed.  He was easily the best Hamlet I've seen, when he did that some (good grief) fourteen years ago.  Somehow every familiar line and speech and scene in the play seemed to come fresh, with him, as fresh as if never experienced before, so that it was almost painful to watch events unfold.  For the first time since I was twelve I wanted the ending not to be what I knew it was going to be.  It was like seeing one of my brothers going through Hamlet's torments and miseries.  Perhaps that's a bad metaphor (neither of them has any inclination to the stage, after all!) - but it all felt so real, so immediate, so like the struggle of a real man.  An actor who can do that earns a small piece of my heart, and I don't think I've ever seen Mr Beale give a duff performance; so I am, in a slightly "brace for impact" way, looking forward to his Lear.

Then next Saturday I'm going to an engagement party.  TCI and her other half the Lovely G got engaged at Christmas and are now having a proper bash to celebrate.  Looking forward to catching up with them, too.  I expect that will be a fairly lively evening.  Cor-lumme, it's in a posh bar up in the west end and all.  I think I need to try and be smart for this one (scurries around trying to think of something dressier than my usual jeans-and-blouse combo).  Not that my hair will ever let me be truly smart; it has a disreputable tendency to look messy at any and all occasions. But I can try, anyway.

So, I imagine that by this time next week I may be crashing out and spending my Sunday vegetating under a tree at Kew, or if it's raining then slummocking at home in front of the dvd player watching soppy movies, drinking tea and eating fudge.

I've managed to book some time off, hurrah; a week at the very end of May (hopefully taking me to somewhere in Greece), a long weekend for WOMAD in July, a fortnight in late September (hopefully Greece again) and the week of my birthday (hopefully not having gastroenteritis again!).  Having annual leave booked and being able to contemplate the possibility of a holiday is tremendously cheering when one is feeling under pressure.  Of course, if (God forbid) I do find myself out of a job then annual leave arrangements become academic...  Oh well, one can only wait and see, hope for the best; and have an up-to-date CV just in case.  Maybe I should get an actual trip booked for one of those spells of leave; booked and paid-for, so that I can't very easily get out of it if life turns pear-shaped.

But I hope it will not.  I hope very much it will not.

What else to report?  Bills are stopping making Garlic Pachadi, drat them!  It's become a staple in my cooking since I discovered it.  I've cleared the nearest store out of their last supplies (four jars) so I'm good for a couple of months, but then...  Harrumph harrumph, not fair.  I protest, I refuse.  I wonder if I can learn to make my own? 

Kew Gardens is looking beautiful; it's odd to look back and see that this time last year the snowdrops had only just finished and most trees were still in tight bud.  Now we have horse chestnuts in glorious bloom, all the hawthorn family coming out everywhere, rhododendrons in flower and even the earliest roses, like the lovely yellow single-flowered Rosa hugonis...  The Rock Garden is an absolute picture, full of asphodels and peonies and alpine tulips...  For all its quirks, I work in paradise.  Please don't let me have to leave paradise.

Now I must go and get on with some writing.  This was going to be a writing day but as always I have got distracted.  By thoroughly frivolous things like painting my toenails blue and writing this.  Come on, Ims, get a shoofty on!

A walk in the arboretum (another photostory)

I went for a walk.

Took my camera.

Beautiful living trees.

And beauty in the dead ones too...

Pine cones have fallen to the ground in the autumn, and now they lie still and dark, waiting to break down and rot away, to shed their seeds and feed them as they crumble into the black earth.

But spring is coming again.

Sheer - and rather hot - mischief...

It's possibly naughty of me, but I'm going to post a link because this is hilarious.  Talk about British Stiff Upper Lip.  It's rather wonderful to see men being so determindly strong and silent in the face of pressure.  Pressure of the chilli-flavoured sort; I'm not making an obscure pun and this is not pornographic at all, rather it's four fine, manly men eating raw chilli on camera - and then going very, very quiet...  Whoever blarneyed them into doing this deserves an award for sheer mischief.

Still don't get it...

I have been fascinated by my "Stats" ever since I discovered them; how interesting to learn that at the moment I have more readers in the US than in the UK, yet last month it was Russians who topped the leader board.  All of them looking up Ludmila Monastirska, presumably...  Yet I remain baffled by the fact that this remains my most-viewed blog post. 

It seems to glean another twenty or thirty clicks per day sometimes. Why?  It isn't interesting at all.  Or is it?  Please will someone elucidate?

Masses more typing done last night.  Happy Imogen.  And this morning I had to go right round the Gardens, putting up posters at the gates.  It was bitterly cold, but so good to be out, and see leaf buds turning pink, and snowdrops everywhere, wintersweet and witch-hazels in bloom, and bulb noses peeping through the grass.  The snow (almost all melted now) seems to have spurred all the trees and plants on.

Almost all melted, did I say?  All bar the snowmen.  I think we must have had getting on for a hundred at Kew, and they are, as is their wont, melting very slowly and in very odd shapes. It's as if a whole second exhibition of abstract sculpture had opened, running alongside the David Nash show, just for these few winter days.

A bit of thanksgiving of my own...

I know I’m a day late, but I've been wondering if our Friends Across The Pond have an idea in this Thanksgiving malarkey... 

I’m having rather a trying day (plugging through a monotonous but useful task [every office job has them!] while trying not to disturb the person at the next desk who is getting a tad tense wrestling with a lot of figures) and I find I keep thinking “Roll on five o’clock!”.  But it occurs to me that this is wishing the next three hours of my life away, which I don’t like doing.  So for now, while I munch my apple and finish my cup of green tea, I’m going to practice gratitude.

Thank you, you gods and little fishes, for this very good apple.  Thank you for apples, generally.  And bananas.  And pineapples.  And the mad way pineapples grow...

Thank you for the frail wintry sunshine washing over Kew Green, and for the beautiful wispy mares-tails of cloud in the sky.

Thank you for the fact I’m going on holiday in just over a week!

Thank you for the fact that all my orchids are re-blooming.

Thank you for all the actors, dancers, singers and musicians whose great performances give me so much pleasure and awe.  Thank you in particular for all those who are not just gifted but hot hot hot and gorgeous as well...

Thank you for the wonderful autumn colours all around me at Kew, now entering the final phase before winter; and for the winter colours (textured bark, scarlet twigs and stems of dogwoods, rose-pink linden buds, nerines in bloom) just arriving, and the sharp, musky, bittersweet and incense-y perfumes of the season.

Thank you for it being Friday evening, the evening I treat myself to a really easy supper, and desert, and a beer. And a dose of silly TV - Friday night means "The Mentalist" and "Castle"; yay, shiny...

Thank you for my health.  Thank you for my family and friends.  Thank you that I have a job, an adequate income, a roof over my head, sane flatmates, and the use of a kitchen where all the appliances work.

Thank you for my writing.  Even if it never means a thing to anyone else at all, it means the world to me to have a creative outlet.  Thank you for my maddening, mercurial Muse, and Blessed Be She Who Comes With Stories! Thank you for that mysterious inner spring that wells forth with situations and scenes, characters and ideas.  Thank you for the guidance that nudges me towards knowing that this story will work better if it’s told in the first person, and this story doesn’t yet work because although the initial premise is good there’s a socking great hole in the plot, and this story is the one I simply have to tell right now...  Thank you for giving me Gabriel Yeats and Simon Cenarth and Anne Hope, thank you for giving me Thorn and Anna, thank you for the Ramundi clan and dumb, long-suffering Massimo; thank you for Iain Siward and Aiean Aietes, for the Hobards brothers and Maramne Myers, for Mel and Dottie and David and Yaz, for the Hughuddles, and for all the other imaginary people who have made and are still making my life a happier place.

Autumn beauty, and is it better to have loved and lost...

... or never to have loved at all?

It’s a glorious day, perfect autumn weather with a clear blue sky and a nip in the breeze.  I just had to walk across the Gardens to deliver something to one of the gates for someone to collect tomorrow.  I’ve come back to the office with my cheeks tingling from the crisp air and my eyes wide with colour.  By damn, I am a lucky woman to work in such a beautiful place.  

The two big liriodendrons at the south end of the Broadwalk are covered in glowing yellow; they look as though someone dipped them in gold coins from top to toe.  The taxodiums beside the lake are on the turn, half soft green and half the colour of Edward Watson’s hair (Mr Watson has ravishing hair).  The long salvia border is still full of little sparks of colour, and in the Rock Garden cyclamen and autumn crocuses, buttercup yellow Sternbergia lutea and sky blue lithodora are still flowering everywhere.  Squirrels hurry by, busy about their squirrelly business, or sit and scold in irritable little chirrups from the branches overhead.  A nuthatch called to me, duweep duweep duweep, and a flock of long-tailed tits flew by twittering in their ringing high pitched voices.

Had a very odd ‘phone conversation yesterday evening while cooking supper.  It seemed funny at the time (& gave me some moments of very enjoyable fantasy!).  But I am now a bit troubled, as with the benefit of hindsight I am wondering why the question was being asked in the first place.

J: What would you do if you could have the man of your dreams, but for only one night?

Me: (thinks, mmm, the man of my dreams for just one night, plus a can of chestnut purée, mmm) Why, is it his last night on earth?

J: No, no, you can just only have one night together.

Me: (still thinking mmm, the man of my dreams has such amazing hands) I hate one-night-stands.

J: No, but seriously, what would you do?

Me: (thinks, mmm, chestnut purée on that lovely long thumb, oh, oh, oh... ah, better not mention this to J., she thinks I’m a Wise Older Woman, not a Dirty Old Woman) I’d cook him a good meal and pour him some decent wine and then make love to him all night; I’m only human!  Why do you ask?

J: Oh, no reason...  How about if you could be with him for just one weekend?

Me: (thinks, at least two cans of chestnut purée, then) Cook him several good meals, take him to Kew for a romantic walk in the autumn leaves, take him for a nice crazy afternoon helping TCI with her DIY, have an evening at the Magpie and Crown; and then make love to him all night.  Why do you ask – are you having a Major Dilemma Moment?

J: Oh no, (slightly stagey laugh) nothing like that...  How about if you could have him for just one holiday?

Me: Have you been reading “Possession”?

J: I don’t like horror stories.

Me: ??  Er... 

J: Would you have that one holiday with him, if you could never see him again afterwards?

Me: Yes, of course I would.  And I’d try to make it as happy and memorable as possible. 

J: Oh...

I don’t know if she’d had the answer she was hoping for, but I can’t get rid of a worrying feeling that I was meant to say something else.  She just didn’t sound too happy.  

Have I just encouraged a friend to do something that will break her heart in little pieces?  Should I have been puritanical and advocated a life of virtue and self-denial, touch-these-soft-lips-and-part, what-the-eye-don’t-see, the-heart-don’t-grieve-after?   Supposing she is having a Major Dilemma Moment? 

I am not a good person to ask for advice, methinks (apart from anything else, I am easily distracted by the thought of the amazingly gorgeous hands of the man of my dreams...).

Not having any idea of the context, I simply gave honest answers.  I’ve loved and lost, and had my heart broken, and I wouldn’t undo a moment of it – no, not the ecstasy, not the agony, not even the real disasters.  And so, if I could have the man of my dreams for just one night, just one weekend, or just one holiday, then yes, I would do everything in my power to enjoy it, and to make sure he enjoyed it too.  

And unless he turned out to be allergic to chestnuts, I’d start by opening a tin of the world’s best chestnut purée, Clement Faugier brand“Crème de marrons de L’Ardeche”...

Friday friday...

Thank goodness it's Friday.  I have soldiered on all week with a steady series of flare-ups of cystitis; eating wholesomely, drinking water and cranberry juice and herbal teas, taking those funny-flavoured alkalizing  powders, taking cranberry caps and a probiotic and goldenseal drops (ugh, that's one nasty taste).  I now have a doctor's appointment for next Thursday (earliest they could fit me in) so if I'm still in trouble by then I'm going to swallow my principles and beg for some antibiotics.

Kew is looking wonderful.  I just wish I felt better able to go out and appreciate it.  The weather has turned wet (AGAIN!!) so all the fall colours are rich and saturated in the wet.  There are dainty lilac autumn crocuses everywhere, and tumbling clumps of the big double colchicum "Waterlily" to the side of the path where I walk through from the back of the office towards the Princess of Wales Conservatory.  There are still real waterlilies in the Waterlily House (and it's still hot in there, too!).  The Rock Garden has little secretive clumps of cyclamen, and crinkly pink nerines, blooming here and there among the boulders.  It's beautiful, it really is.  A feast of colour and texture and rich sweet musky smells.  And huge, huge puddles.

Slightly different worries...

I like to look at my blogger statistics occasionally (now that I know how to), though it tends to cause me more puzzlement than anything else. 

At the moment I'm rather puzzled to find that a lot of people have been looking at this post recently.  It dates back about two years, and was basically a prolonged whinge about work; to be precise, about feeling overworked. At the time, the whole team I was in was under pressure, and it was beginning to tell on all of us; I was venting my tiredness and frustration.  I didn't think, when I wrote it, that there was anything wrong in having a grumble about the situation and how tired and stressed we all were.  But now I'm having a wee moment of panic, in case someone at work has been reading it and I am going to be ticked off for unprofessionalism, bringing Kew into disrepute, etc. 

I'm really not sure what the correct etiquette is on such matters.  Is it unprofessional to say where I work at all? - should I instead be referring heavy-handedly to having a job in a "world-famous botanical garden in west London"? (Hmm - the acronym for that is wfbgwl.  I rather like wfbgwl.  It sounds welsh, and possibly rather rude).  But seriously, that seems a ludicrous piece of overkill.  I love this place and I'm proud of working here.  Yes; proud.  My battered Kew staff fleece is the only uniform I've ever had that I have been proud to wear (I'm not the sort that would have joined the armed forces anyway).  The last thing I want to do is bring Kew into disrepute. 

On the other hand, another of the last things I want is to get a bollocking at work.

>sigh<  Let's hope I'm just being silly and paranoid.  Am more than capable of both, goodness knows.

A still, small moment...

I was sitting quietly in the bamboo border of the Secluded Garden eating my lunch today.  Suddenly a pigeon flew over; and, as it passed out of sight into the trees, a single feather appeared in the air, drifting down. Somehow this feather had managed to fall so that it was perfectly horizontal, cupped against the air.  It drifted down, sauntering beautifully from side to side like something in a cartoon, really taking its time, and I sat with a slice of corn crispbread halfway to my mouth, watching in delight as it sailed, so slowly, so gently, to earth.

It landed in the little watercourse that runs through the Secluded Garden; and the water, again with almost infinite slowness, carried it along, bobbing and dipping and hesitating in little whorls of current, until finally it drifted away out of sight behind a mossy boulder.

It was nothing.  A feather fell.  But it was magical.  I have no idea how long I was watching it - thirty seconds?  Several minutes? - because for those moments as it fell through the bright air and sailed off on the gently flowing water, time seemed to stand still. Somehow it was as if I was becoming one with the creation of this moment, the drifting magic of a single feather.  I witnessed, and I knew myself blessed

Lush life

Sometimes I think I work in Paradise - or an offcut of it, anyway.  At the moment, the Gardens are a sheer sensory feast; everywhere I turn, everything I touch...  I am on overload already, Muse-driven and buzzing as I am, and the intensity of a simple walk to the café and back is almost too much.

Textures, patterns, colours, smells; tactile and visual, the pleasing and the startling.  All that is richest is here.

The elegance of a Metasequoia, its form all repeat patterns moving from the macro to the micro level -and then the shock of its silken touch.  One imagines all conifer needles must be equally as sharp and prickling, yet these are like velvet.  The lovely random strewings of new mown grass across the lawns; and the cut-grass scent rising in the damp air.   Black veins on the blazing magenta of Geranium sanguineum, and gold-dust pollen on the rust-red flowers of day lilies.  Perfumes of  lavender and cedar, of roses and pine resin, of escallonia in the sun and wet leaves in the shade.  The spiral-crinkled top of my Chelsea bun, veiled in powder sugar.  The unfolding waves of different tastes and different sugarinesses, and different textures crisp and soft, in my mouth, as I unroll it and eat. 

The big wisteria on the back of the building next to the office is having a second flush of blossom, and as you pass it the scent comes down and envelops you; sweet and smoky at once, like acacia honey and Laphroaig mixed.  Everywhere you go, it is delicious and sensual being at Kew at this time of year.  Bring your heart, your eyes, and all of your senses, flung wide open in expectation of pleasures; and of course, bring your camera...

Crikey, a month since I wrote anything!!

I seem to be forever saying “I’m so busy!” lately.  But tomorrow is Good Friday, which means church for my church-going friends and for the rest of us, a four day weekend.  Oof. A chance to catch my breath...

I worked through my lunch break today; but it was the first time in over two months that I have done that.  In the previous job I had to do it two or three times a week.  The new job remains refreshingly structured and organise-able compared to the old one, too.  And my new manager Paul still hasn’t shown his Dark Side – if he has one, which I am beginning to doubt.  So busy or no I am feeling decidedly cheerful about work. 

Of course there is the odd chaotic group planner, and the odd startlingly rude one, and as always from time to time I have IT problems.  Next spring is going to be a harder sell than usual because we don’t have our regular Trop-Ex tropical flower exhibition in February, which is a great pity.  And the weather has turned chilly after a beautifully mild March.   So it isn’t all shiny, but shiny enough for now.

But Kew is looking lovely, with delicate new leaves opening everywhere, glorious displays of magnolias and crab apple blossom, the first cherry blossom, early lilac species and azaleas, and great banks of native fritillaries near the river; and my own little bit of garden in Chiswick is looking lovely too in its more modest way.   I have been busy outside of work with sketching (I’m having a real fit of duck-drawing) and sewing, and tidying the garden, and I’ve been to the David Hockney exhibition at the Royal Academy (wonderful: if you possibly can, go!) as well as two very enjoyable mixed bills by the English National Ballet and a couple of excellent concerts, including Britten’s “War Requiem” with Mark Padmore, the chap who was at school with my brother Steve, a heart-rending tenor soloist. 

ENB are in good form, though I managed to get rather a lot of Dmitri Gruzdyev, a dancer I find dismally uncharismatic, both nights – I would much prefer to have seen pretty much any of their other men as Nijinsky’s Faun, never mind as Balanchine’s Apollo – I don’t mean to sound bitchy, but Apollo he ain’t!!  The three Muses I saw were lovely, though, and Erina Takahashi was a terrific sacrifice in “The Rite of Spring”.  David Dawson’s “Faun/e”, a new piece on me, was gorgeous despite the men’s silly “will it fall off or not?” costumes, and “Suite en Blanc” looked even more luscious second time around.  

Steve, incidentally, has got his plaster cast off and is progressing well with physiotherapy.

A ray of watery sun has just filtered through the clouds; may it be a good omen for the weekend ahead! 

Against the blanched white clouds

Where last month there were only

Dark branches like scars, now

Everywhere I see shivers of green. 

Birds sing, or hop scuffling

Among the flashing celandines.

The swans stake out their usual demesne

By the lake, and a thousand coots

Chase one another like ninja chicks

Across the grey spring waters.