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Yesterday, for a change, instead of doing my grocery shopping, cleaning, running the washing machine, etc, as per any normal Saturday, I decided to take myself off for a day out.
That makes it sound rather momentous, which I suppose it isn't really. But in an odd way it felt as though it was. Life is short and sometimes hard, and at the moment there seem to be so many troubles and disasters in the world outside my own little life, most of which I am powerless to do anything about. On Friday one of my colleagues quoted "Firefly" at me, and the knowledge that I'm working with a fellow-Browncoat made me grin for about the next hour. Little moments like that can uplift a day, and sometimes, at times like these, one can simply miss them as they pass by. I don't think it is hiding one's head in the sand, to want to see some good amid the gloom. The pleasure those simple few words gave me outweighed quite a few rough moments during the working day, and it reminded me how seldom one indulges oneself to stop and look at the good things as they flash by. I want to find things to give me hope and moments of pleasure, to
counteract the knowledge of so much violence and cruelty, so much
sickness and sadness. To have those tiny flickers of satori, even if of the most simple and minor nature. To say "Give me some happiness, give me some tiny epiphanies, as I slog through this week, this month, this year. Let my life be about the journey, not the goal; let the journey not be devoid of good things, and let me have the time and the energy to notice them."
So I didn't do any of my duties, I was self-indulgent, and I enjoyed the simple things. I had a lie-in with a book, and proper coffee and hot buttered toast for breakfast, and then a leisurely shower with some new smellies from Lush; and I went to the V&A.
Part of the Tube was out of action, so I took the bus to Hammersmith. I sat on the top deck and watched autumn leaves go by, and people on the Chiswick High Road doing their shopping or having coffee out. It had poured first thing, but by late morning it was bright and sunny, and all the cafes and restaurants seemed to be doing a roaring trade. At Hammersmith I changed onto the Piccadilly Line and went through to South Ken, and went and had an early lunch at the Kensington Creperie. My neighbours at the next table were French, and terribly Gallic with it, noisy and emphatic and talking with their hands, which certainly added to the ambience. I had a savoury crepe with sundried tomatoes and olives and pesto and cheese, a glass of cold lager, and then (because I am a pig) a second crepe filled with cherry jam and dark chocolate chips. At the other neighbour table were a group of students all eating dessert crepes and huge ice-creams, all of which they religiously photographed and tweeted before eating. They weren't as talkative as the French group, but at one point I did hear one of them say "So are we going shopping or are we going to meet Lee at the Natural History Museum and help him pick up girls?" The general consensus seemed to be for shopping. I wondered why Lee needed help picking up girls in the NHM? And is the NHM a pick-up shop? - have I been missing a trick? I wonder which museum is the pick-up shop for forty-somethings?
I walked up the road belching in a most unfeminine manner, and had an afternoon of Constable paintings, Indian sculptures and wonderful fashion. No pick-ups in the V&A, just lots of food for the mind and the eyes. The current Constable show has a lot of his little oil sketches, which are marvellous, and a lot of instances of a preparatory sketch, an oil sketch, a full-size study and a final painting, all shown side-by-side; fascinating. There are also a lot of his copies from other artists, including a drawing he did when he was about 18 which is endearingly bad. Even Jove nods, and even John Constable had to start somewhere.
I wandered after that through the big galleries of historic Indian arts and crafts and scultpures, and finished up in the fashion section. It was too late by then to go round the special display of wedding dresses through the ages, so I just went on mooching. There's something very satisfying about seeing perfect cutting and elegant styling in something like a suit or a coat; and of course the party dresses and cocktail outfits and so on are always gorgeous. At the moment one of the 1940s cases has two Utility suits, one for a lady and one for a gentleman; it's salutary to realise how elegant, to modern eyes, this supposedly unflattering clothing seems. I would have had a deal of trouble, in times of rationing, being a distinctly larger lady these days; just to make a neat knee-length Utility skirt for a big pair of hips like mine would need an extra half-yard compared to a "standard" size, and that would have meant saving up coupons a bit longer. But when one tends to dress, as I do, like a parrot, with eclectic colours and patterns and styles thrown-on anyhow, it's fascinating to study the careful colour choices, precision of cutting, and clarity of line and silhouette of earlier fashions; and maybe I can learn something from them, too.
Then home, with very tired feet. My new shoes (thank you, Hotter!) are wonderfully comfortable, but even in the best footgear Museum-foot strikes eventually. So I finished off my indulgent day by eating a big bowl of noodles and an apple, writing up my diary, watching a little idle tv and having an early night. I then slept for over ten hours.
It's no good pretending otherwise; I am tired. This has been a stressful, draining year for me. Over the next few months at work I need to get my head round the changes in my role, and in my spare time I need to focus on getting some rest, eating healthily, and doing things that make me feel happy rather than duties that make me feel harrassed and strapped for time. And carry on with my writing, of course.
Showing posts with label simple things in life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label simple things in life. Show all posts
Sunday, 12 October 2014
Monday, 18 October 2010
A constructive weekend is a Good Thing
...and this was one.
I had lunch with my stepmum Jane and went to a ballet matinee with her - the mixed bill at the Royal Ballet, including a wonderful new piece by Kim Brandstrup, a good revival of "Winter Dreams" (also sad) and a lovely bonne bouche in the form of Balanchine's "Theme and Variations" with the lovely Sarah Lamb and gorgeous Steven McRae showing off their best bravura chops.
Afterwards we sat in a café on the Strand drinking tea and eating cake, watching the world go by, and nattering. Simple pleasures like an afternoon with someone you are fond of just never seem to pall...
What else? I made a tentative start on some new writing and had a little nudge towarfds clearing a hurdle in some other, ongoing, writing.
I did my Tax Return and sent it off. Ooof! - what a relief...
I managed to charm Dan into fixing the broken light fitting in the kitchen (after a slightly fraught beginning we seem to have found a friendly modus operandi, which is good). A working light in the kitchen is very welcome as the autumn evenings close in and the mornings get dimmer.
And I did a pile of needlework; let something down, let something else out, took something else in, and mended two bras.
The ballet and lunch with Jane was probably the most fun. The writing still feels a little unsteady, as though the muse is convalescent after a bad cold. The sewing wasn't exactly fun, as it was all fine handwork and very squinty stuff, but getting a garment wearable is rewarding and the results will be very useful. The Tax Return was grim, but I feel terribly worthy and aren't-I-good now it is out of the way.
I also watched "Strictly Come Dancing" - definitely fun - "Merlin" - most definitely likewise - "The Pillars of the Earth" - fearful twaddle, but done with relish and a lot of fake dirt - "Countryfile", in which Adam bought a new ram ("I'm looking for a tup with good teeth and good testicles" says he cheerfully; the tup next to him in the pen rather sweetly hung his head as if embarrassed) - and my new dvd of "Coppelia".
That was a good weekend, I think.
I had lunch with my stepmum Jane and went to a ballet matinee with her - the mixed bill at the Royal Ballet, including a wonderful new piece by Kim Brandstrup, a good revival of "Winter Dreams" (also sad) and a lovely bonne bouche in the form of Balanchine's "Theme and Variations" with the lovely Sarah Lamb and gorgeous Steven McRae showing off their best bravura chops.
Afterwards we sat in a café on the Strand drinking tea and eating cake, watching the world go by, and nattering. Simple pleasures like an afternoon with someone you are fond of just never seem to pall...
What else? I made a tentative start on some new writing and had a little nudge towarfds clearing a hurdle in some other, ongoing, writing.
I did my Tax Return and sent it off. Ooof! - what a relief...
I managed to charm Dan into fixing the broken light fitting in the kitchen (after a slightly fraught beginning we seem to have found a friendly modus operandi, which is good). A working light in the kitchen is very welcome as the autumn evenings close in and the mornings get dimmer.
And I did a pile of needlework; let something down, let something else out, took something else in, and mended two bras.
The ballet and lunch with Jane was probably the most fun. The writing still feels a little unsteady, as though the muse is convalescent after a bad cold. The sewing wasn't exactly fun, as it was all fine handwork and very squinty stuff, but getting a garment wearable is rewarding and the results will be very useful. The Tax Return was grim, but I feel terribly worthy and aren't-I-good now it is out of the way.
I also watched "Strictly Come Dancing" - definitely fun - "Merlin" - most definitely likewise - "The Pillars of the Earth" - fearful twaddle, but done with relish and a lot of fake dirt - "Countryfile", in which Adam bought a new ram ("I'm looking for a tup with good teeth and good testicles" says he cheerfully; the tup next to him in the pen rather sweetly hung his head as if embarrassed) - and my new dvd of "Coppelia".
That was a good weekend, I think.
Tuesday, 6 April 2010
Satori in Starbucks with Ella and Louis
I’ve had a good Easter weekend, busy and happy, and yet somehow it all looks and feels different in the light of a few moments at noon yesterday. The smallest thing can change everything. Describing it like that, it just sounds a little odd; I will try to explain.
I had a ticket for a matinée at Covent Garden and had gone up into the West End on the tube. I was looking forward to seeing Yuhui Choe dancing Lise for the first time (Yuhui Choe is wonderful). The starting time was an irritating one;12.30 instead of the more usual matinée time of 2 pm. So I found myself sitting in Starbucks on the Strand, just before midday, having a quick sandwich and a coffee. I never have lunch before 12 noon! – my stomach rumbled at the unexpected food, and I anticipated belching like a marine through most of Act One.
My back hurt from all the gardening I’d been doing on Sunday. My black coffee tasted good. Outside the sun was shining down on the traffic and the crowds. Three bluetits flew into the street tree opposite and hopped around feeding. A bus went by carrying a poster for the movie “Remember me”, with the tag line “Live in the moments”, and I thought with amusement that this was exactly that; then at the same moment one more simple thing happened; the hi-fi in the café started to play Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong singing “They can’t take that away from me”.
It’s hard to put this into words; I realise that “satori” is a grand term for a humble and fleeting experience, but it is the only word I know. I was suddenly more there than before; fully there, in the moment I was there; fully in my aching body and fully in the crowded café, with the light falling in the street outside, the table leg pressed against my leg, and my mind for a moment utterly silent; just being there. I felt alive to an unearthly degree, as if full of light. Everything was beautiful. Everything; the street, the coffee, the shouting French tourists, the cheese sandwich, the back-ache, the birds now flying off again, the faces of strangers passing. My anticipation passed from me. My fears and hopes passed from me. My memories passed from me. I just was. And Ella and Louis sang on; and then the moment passed from me also.
But it remains, too, in some strange way. Knowing I have been there again (it has happened before, although rarely enough that sometimes I think it was a dream, or something that perhaps now I am too old, too busy, too much in-my-head to reach again), I can still feel an infinitesimal thread of connection to that moment, that light, that sense of oneness and of the being-ness, the rightness of things.
And after that, “La Fille Mal Gardée” was great fun, too. Yuhui Choe was lovely, Brian Maloney was lovely (and has turned into a hunk when I wasn’t looking!), and Philip Mosley was an unusually sweet-natured Widow Simone. And I made myself a fine curry for supper. It was a good day.
I had a ticket for a matinée at Covent Garden and had gone up into the West End on the tube. I was looking forward to seeing Yuhui Choe dancing Lise for the first time (Yuhui Choe is wonderful). The starting time was an irritating one;12.30 instead of the more usual matinée time of 2 pm. So I found myself sitting in Starbucks on the Strand, just before midday, having a quick sandwich and a coffee. I never have lunch before 12 noon! – my stomach rumbled at the unexpected food, and I anticipated belching like a marine through most of Act One.
My back hurt from all the gardening I’d been doing on Sunday. My black coffee tasted good. Outside the sun was shining down on the traffic and the crowds. Three bluetits flew into the street tree opposite and hopped around feeding. A bus went by carrying a poster for the movie “Remember me”, with the tag line “Live in the moments”, and I thought with amusement that this was exactly that; then at the same moment one more simple thing happened; the hi-fi in the café started to play Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong singing “They can’t take that away from me”.
It’s hard to put this into words; I realise that “satori” is a grand term for a humble and fleeting experience, but it is the only word I know. I was suddenly more there than before; fully there, in the moment I was there; fully in my aching body and fully in the crowded café, with the light falling in the street outside, the table leg pressed against my leg, and my mind for a moment utterly silent; just being there. I felt alive to an unearthly degree, as if full of light. Everything was beautiful. Everything; the street, the coffee, the shouting French tourists, the cheese sandwich, the back-ache, the birds now flying off again, the faces of strangers passing. My anticipation passed from me. My fears and hopes passed from me. My memories passed from me. I just was. And Ella and Louis sang on; and then the moment passed from me also.
But it remains, too, in some strange way. Knowing I have been there again (it has happened before, although rarely enough that sometimes I think it was a dream, or something that perhaps now I am too old, too busy, too much in-my-head to reach again), I can still feel an infinitesimal thread of connection to that moment, that light, that sense of oneness and of the being-ness, the rightness of things.
And after that, “La Fille Mal Gardée” was great fun, too. Yuhui Choe was lovely, Brian Maloney was lovely (and has turned into a hunk when I wasn’t looking!), and Philip Mosley was an unusually sweet-natured Widow Simone. And I made myself a fine curry for supper. It was a good day.
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Random baker's dozen life lessons
Twelve things I have learned in my miss-spent life…
1) Good weather should always be appreciated.
2) Getting drunk is great, but it passes. Being hung-over is hell, but it too passes. And the same thing goes for all experiences, foul as well as fun. To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.
3) Do not wait until you are desperate before you go to the loo, if you have an arm in plaster.
4) Fear can ruin anything.
5) Health is wealth. It really is. And friends really are a treasure precious above rubies.
6) It is also true that travel expands the mind. Never pass up on an opportunity to travel.
7) Life is too short to refuse chocolate, crisps, ice cream, pie, decent cheese, single malt whisky, MacSweens’ Vegetarian Haggis, blackcurrants, passion fruit, damson jam, or any recipe involving aubergines (or eggplants, if you’re not in Europe).
8) Nothing is so much of a thrill as doing creative work when it is flowing. Nothing.
9) It is worth saying “please”, “thank you” and "excuse me". Courtesy really does cost nothing, and it makes life more civilised.
10) If you see someone holding a map and looking lost, and you know the area, stop and try to help.
11) If you want good food, learn to cook. If you want something mended, mend it yourself. If you want clean clothes, wash them. If you want a garden full of flowers, plant some. Self-reliance is under-rated.
12) The only hot-air hand driers that work are the ones that seem to be squashing your hands out of shape. Don’t watch, or put up with having wet hands.
13) Say yes to freebies. New taste experiences, new bootlace varieties, new brands of contact lens fluid, you name it, it’s worth a try. Also always enter free prize draws, raffles, tombolas and the like. Over the years I’ve won a fuchsia, six wine goblets, a deckchair, a stuffed toy dog, a five pound voucher for Cadbury’s chocolate, a ten pound book token, two cinema tickets and a hundred pounds off a holiday in Greece. You can’t say no to that!
1) Good weather should always be appreciated.
2) Getting drunk is great, but it passes. Being hung-over is hell, but it too passes. And the same thing goes for all experiences, foul as well as fun. To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.
3) Do not wait until you are desperate before you go to the loo, if you have an arm in plaster.
4) Fear can ruin anything.
5) Health is wealth. It really is. And friends really are a treasure precious above rubies.
6) It is also true that travel expands the mind. Never pass up on an opportunity to travel.
7) Life is too short to refuse chocolate, crisps, ice cream, pie, decent cheese, single malt whisky, MacSweens’ Vegetarian Haggis, blackcurrants, passion fruit, damson jam, or any recipe involving aubergines (or eggplants, if you’re not in Europe).
8) Nothing is so much of a thrill as doing creative work when it is flowing. Nothing.
9) It is worth saying “please”, “thank you” and "excuse me". Courtesy really does cost nothing, and it makes life more civilised.
10) If you see someone holding a map and looking lost, and you know the area, stop and try to help.
11) If you want good food, learn to cook. If you want something mended, mend it yourself. If you want clean clothes, wash them. If you want a garden full of flowers, plant some. Self-reliance is under-rated.
12) The only hot-air hand driers that work are the ones that seem to be squashing your hands out of shape. Don’t watch, or put up with having wet hands.
13) Say yes to freebies. New taste experiences, new bootlace varieties, new brands of contact lens fluid, you name it, it’s worth a try. Also always enter free prize draws, raffles, tombolas and the like. Over the years I’ve won a fuchsia, six wine goblets, a deckchair, a stuffed toy dog, a five pound voucher for Cadbury’s chocolate, a ten pound book token, two cinema tickets and a hundred pounds off a holiday in Greece. You can’t say no to that!
Wednesday, 10 March 2010
A little bit of blue sky
As I look out of the office window I can see a small break in the cloud, and a tiny scrap of blue sky is showing through...
Sigh. If winter comes, can spring be far behind? I have got the winter-blues a bit this week.
Guernsey was beautiful, if bitterly cold. With clear skies and lashings of cold fresh air, and long walks along the coastal path, I got all the London cobwebs blown out of my head, and felt like a new woman by Sunday night. Then back to reality with the proverbial bump, of course.
Work is getting livelier by the day; now the colleague who had a breakdown last year appears to be having another one out of the blue, which places the whole department under a bit of extra pressure as we try to cover her work as well for an unspecified future period, just as the busy season starts. I wish I were back on the cold, sunny strand at Vazon Bay, with the wind in my hair and a good hot meal to look forward to.
But it doesn't do, to go wishing oneself elsewhere, or wishing oneself back in time or off away anywhere. Here and now is all we really have; here and now, with the early evening just starting to pearl the clouded sky with pink, and someone laughing in the next office, and the lovely red and yellow apple The Rox gave me sitting on my desk inviting me to eat it... Live in the moment and find what is best in it, among the simple things. Even if part of what is best in it is that it is now five-fifteen and I can pack up and go home!
Sigh. If winter comes, can spring be far behind? I have got the winter-blues a bit this week.
Guernsey was beautiful, if bitterly cold. With clear skies and lashings of cold fresh air, and long walks along the coastal path, I got all the London cobwebs blown out of my head, and felt like a new woman by Sunday night. Then back to reality with the proverbial bump, of course.
Work is getting livelier by the day; now the colleague who had a breakdown last year appears to be having another one out of the blue, which places the whole department under a bit of extra pressure as we try to cover her work as well for an unspecified future period, just as the busy season starts. I wish I were back on the cold, sunny strand at Vazon Bay, with the wind in my hair and a good hot meal to look forward to.
But it doesn't do, to go wishing oneself elsewhere, or wishing oneself back in time or off away anywhere. Here and now is all we really have; here and now, with the early evening just starting to pearl the clouded sky with pink, and someone laughing in the next office, and the lovely red and yellow apple The Rox gave me sitting on my desk inviting me to eat it... Live in the moment and find what is best in it, among the simple things. Even if part of what is best in it is that it is now five-fifteen and I can pack up and go home!
Sunday, 9 August 2009
Normal service is (almost) resumed...
Today I made it as far as the internet café. I have had the dreaded swine flu, and unlike a lot of things one dreads, this merited a good deal of the alarm. It was VILE. I was in bed for five days straight, and too weak even to hold a book for the first four. Test Match Special kept me sane, just.
I'm now up and about and moderately mobile, though my legs turn rubbery after twenty minutes or so of walking (a few days ago it was "after five minutes", so the improvement is steady), and I'm beginning to get my life sorted out again. I've been signed off work until Wednesday as my GP believes in taking time to recuperate properly after this little bastard of a virus. I'm not going to say no; I think I could probably manage a day's work mentally by now, but as for physically, well, that would be doubtful.
It's been a full couple of weeks. While I lay in bed ill, two of the other lodgers in the house moved out. I had known they were going to, it wasn't a stelalthy move on their part to sneak off while I was incapacitated! The one I didn't like has gone I know-not whither, and good riddance (he was a slob). The one I got on well with has moved into a new flat with his very nice Orcadian girlfriend, aboout ten minutes walk away, and they are saying "Keep in touch, come round for tea", so I hope we'll stay in contact. A new guy has moved into one of the vacant rooms who turns out to be a bit of a human dynamo; new-broom-sweeps-clean, bang bang, let's get this sorted out and that dealt-with, are you okay with this, okay, whi-iiz, wheee... Hard to keep up with; but he cleans up after himself and talks to me instead of flouncing and glaring like his predecessor. So he is a good news guy.
The nice thing about being ill is getting better, no doubt about it (and please excuse the cliché). I'm intensely appreciative of things like food, fresh air, taking a shower, sitting in the garden looking at my petunias and dahlias, watching the kids play football in the park as I toddle to the shops. All those things one takes so completely for granted normally. I suppose that with time I will grow blasé about being able to get up, shower, put on some clothes and go downstairs to make breakfast without coming over faint and having to lie down; but at the moment, the simplest actions of ordinary life feel like the blessings they truly are.
I'm now up and about and moderately mobile, though my legs turn rubbery after twenty minutes or so of walking (a few days ago it was "after five minutes", so the improvement is steady), and I'm beginning to get my life sorted out again. I've been signed off work until Wednesday as my GP believes in taking time to recuperate properly after this little bastard of a virus. I'm not going to say no; I think I could probably manage a day's work mentally by now, but as for physically, well, that would be doubtful.
It's been a full couple of weeks. While I lay in bed ill, two of the other lodgers in the house moved out. I had known they were going to, it wasn't a stelalthy move on their part to sneak off while I was incapacitated! The one I didn't like has gone I know-not whither, and good riddance (he was a slob). The one I got on well with has moved into a new flat with his very nice Orcadian girlfriend, aboout ten minutes walk away, and they are saying "Keep in touch, come round for tea", so I hope we'll stay in contact. A new guy has moved into one of the vacant rooms who turns out to be a bit of a human dynamo; new-broom-sweeps-clean, bang bang, let's get this sorted out and that dealt-with, are you okay with this, okay, whi-iiz, wheee... Hard to keep up with; but he cleans up after himself and talks to me instead of flouncing and glaring like his predecessor. So he is a good news guy.
The nice thing about being ill is getting better, no doubt about it (and please excuse the cliché). I'm intensely appreciative of things like food, fresh air, taking a shower, sitting in the garden looking at my petunias and dahlias, watching the kids play football in the park as I toddle to the shops. All those things one takes so completely for granted normally. I suppose that with time I will grow blasé about being able to get up, shower, put on some clothes and go downstairs to make breakfast without coming over faint and having to lie down; but at the moment, the simplest actions of ordinary life feel like the blessings they truly are.
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