Feeling jittery gotta garden

I’m writing this now in a time of anxiety because I’m recognising myself 8 years ago and experiencing the same dread, purposelessness and sense of loss of purpose. 

Being told that it’s okay, we’ll shuttle you through and pass you anyway isn’t the same as earning a badge or a qualification. I remember back in my pre-university days when I and my fellow Venture Scouts undertook an expedition in France. It didn’t involve mountains or isolated places; its main challenges aside from carrying heavy loads through fields and up hill and down dale across rural Brittany was the heat. Real, searing heat that bested anything that was blazing on Africa at that time if contemporary newspaper weather forecasts were at all reliable. Of the 8 of us, two came down with really nasty, need to be hospitalised heat stroke and diarrhoea. I was a borderline case. 

By day four, we knew we had to look after ourselves. Having passed a stressed out night in a wholly unsuitable field shared with unwelcoming cows and risen early but unrested to trudge on our last 12 miles we were soon outpaced by the rising sun which beat down unforgivingly as we stumbled along a glaring canal path and up steep roads with no walkways. 

Some time after lunch we should have been strolling victorious into the scout camp where we were to be the assistant camp leaders for the duration of the next 10 days. We were pretty beat, but we got there. We arrived by car after desperately flagging down a passer-by who scooped up our things and drove us the last half mile or so. Two of our number were immediately taken to the medical tent and their soiled clothes tended to over the next few days by others less affected by the uncaring sun. 

Telling the tale some months later, I recalled my shame that we took the stranger’s lift. That shame – and others – stayed with me for years and years. Only about 5 years ago someone gently broke it to me that we’d done exactly the right thing, ensuring everyone in our group’s health when it was under threat. 

Today I’ve been feeling a fair amount of anxiety again. I want to support the people around me and I want to focus on the things I’m supposed to be achieving too. University lecturers are at pains to help me and my fellow students through our MA and are being incredibly supportive. Of course, I don’t want to be waved through and told yes, that’s it, you’re done when I know I haven’t. I want to be doing my best, even though some of the expectations are impractical ones- the libraries are closed, online presentations just aren’t the same and so on. 

Musing on it while having some much-needed time in the garden I realised it’s similar to the dread and anxiety that went with some work changes years ago. Unexpected changes of responsibility; not being able to find news ways of working when I asked for them; no longer feeling needed; having someone turn round and say that something (not necessarily a big thing) that I’d done for years was now something they were doing and, basically, back off. It’s upsetting and undermining and not necessarily someone’s fault. But it is like a rug being pulled and it made me lose my way and made me stressed and anxious over more than a year. 

With all that’s going on at the moment and the uncertainties of this whole new way of living and working it’s probably no surprise that it’s bringing up things I usually push to the back of my mind. But I’m sure I’m not the only one feeling that sense of dread, and what was it all for all those years of trying and caring just to find I’ve got all the time in the world to ponder it while the world moves on. 

It’s going to take a while for the shift of gear to click in and to realise that actually the self care and the care for others or for a career can’t be at the expense of myself. But blimey it’s weird! 

Three months ago this hedge was completely overgrown - now I can finally see the hedge removal end in sight

Retro-blogging or the art of catching up with yourself

A couple of weeks ago I read about an intriguing exhibition I’d like to go to at the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow. It features a black US artist, Kehinde Wiley.

You may have seen photos of his Barack Obama portrait. Or you may have had the unexpected delight of seeing Wiley’s gloriously detailed and strikingly colourful portrait of himself standing in for Napoleon in a famous painting of him leading his men over the Alps. Housed in Napoleon’s wife’s home, Chateau de Malmaison, outside Paris, it’s a fantastic reimagining of the painting of the French emperor in which the original artist, Jacques-Louis David meets Wiley. I meant to blog about it before, and I haven’t, though of course I posted about it on Facebook and told a few friends about it.

Kehinde Wiley's riff on Jacques-Louis David's Napoleon portrait

Anyway, on learning of the Walthamstow exhibition, Wiley’s first dedicated show in the UK, I got all excited. There’s links to William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement, of course. Having recently bought a house built in a period heavily influenced by Morris, there’s plenty to pique my interior design interest.

Then there’s the link with that incredible book The YellowWallpaper (read many years ago when I was first at uni), about a woman trapped in a room and all but live-blogging her mental breakdown. Kehinde Wiley cites this as a major theme for his Walthamstow show.

And then there’s the not unimportant matter of what topic I intend to research for my MA on Literary London. And my admiration for Sarah Waters, whose last novel but one, The Little Stranger, was a mock gothic affair in which what’s hidden behind the wall coverings was a major plot point.

So don’t be surprised when I start retro-blogging – or latergramm-ing – some of these things as they slot into place and take on new significances. The road trip to Paris that ended up being about that day at Malmaison as much as anything, has its own tales to tell, for starters. And surely tales need telling.

Flab Fight February

33 inches! How did it get that my previously trim waist now puts me in the size 16 dress category? Well, I’ve a few answers to that based on my mid-January procrastinations and self appraisal. The only thing now is to do something about it. A little less Bridget Jones diarising and a lot more action, methinks. 

My father in law (retired) uses the mantra "I’m lapping everyone on the couch" when denigrating his own weekly gym efforts and he makes a good point. I tested the waters against last week, setting to with an assault on the 40ft long wall of ivy that came with our house purchase. 

Also feeling pretty good about a tentative gym session mid-week. The gym equipment at Lewisham’s Glass Mill leisure centre has finally been upgraded and they’ve kept the LifeFitness interactive trails based in some beautiful locations that I love. 

Since it popped up again on my FB timeline recently – 11 years ago since we were there; too long! – I started off with a cross training session in Natural Bridges National Park and Utah’s glorious Kachina Bridge. Now I’ve broken my gym absence, it’s time to become a regular again. 

It’s Saturday and a late start after a very busy but productive few days: MA stuff, making proper efforts at getting some more freelance writing, sorting out and posting details of the Brockley Max fundraising events I’m helping set up.

Inspired by the herculean efforts of Sofia Kenin coming from behind to take the Australian Grand Slam, plus the incredible Devon trio who have just rowed across the Atlantic (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51103423), I hauled myself down to the gym and plugged in. The new LifeFitness suggested my Apple Watch would work with it, but 15 minutes in I realised that the Nag-a-tron’s screen said otherwise. Still, I trundled around the Kachina Bridge area again, mentally waving hello to the benevolent-looking gentleman on the video trail who resembles my aunt’s late dad. 

Kachina Bridge in Utah Natural Bridges Park

The boyfriend of the young woman next to me dropped off a coke and nipped out for a smoke before returning with pasties and other incentivising treats. Turning up is half the battle, I reminded myself. 

Satisfied I’d gone twice round the trail, marginally increasing resistance and speed the second time, I logged off the crosstrainer, only to be greeted by Lucy wanting a loo break. I was tasked with baby-sitting her running machine. Ended up doing a couple of minutes of fast walking/light jogging with an incline all the way. Ha! I’ll regret it later but at least I took the initiative. 

The challenge now is to keep it all up. After a sugar crash and jitters yesterday (eating sweets on the drive back from Cambridge was foolhardy), it’s clear as can be that I’ve got to cut back on the sweet stuff. Not much point in exercising if I’m then going to snack. 

Also, noticing it’s the first of the month, I might as well make this ‘a thing’ so let’s hashtag it #flabfightfebruary and see if I can’t lose a couple of those niggling 33 inches. 

Facing facts

I first knew I was beginning to have a weight issue when the kids started asking me: "Miss, I don’t mean to be rude, but are you pregnant?" A surefire way of knowing whether an outfit suits you, your hair’s a mess or you’re looking less than groomed is the instant and sometimes brutal assessment of a Year 7 student.

Previously, I’d been able to dismiss such occasional comments relating to my bloated stomach as them not understanding the time of the month thing when some women seem to gain half a stone overnight. That and a lingering suspicion that my frequent burping was a sign of IBS.

But it wasn't that now. The doctor I consulted about a painful and ongoing hard lump to my lower right told me I was on the cusp of diabetes. He didn’t mean the type 1 my dad has.

I pointed out I’d just completed a walking half marathon the weekend before, was at the gym three times a week, racked up dozens and dozens of miles walking in a normal week and had done a 50km cycle ride on a whim in the previous fortnight. I was hitting my exercise goals on my Apple Watch (aka the Nag-o-tron) by 10am each weekday.

Apple Watch, aka The Nag-o-tron, made me feel I was fairly active

No matter, he told me to get a blood test. The results came back and the resulting advice ignored everything I’d said: Get more exercise. You weigh too much.

A few months earlier a student had looked at the dress I was wearing and advised that perhaps I’d grown out of it. The pregnancy comments continued and, knowing I didn’t appreciate them, students would dare each other to ask me whether I was married.... so I have kids... was I pregnant. I tired of the game and the no but maybe answers. Ha!, I thought, at least they don’t think I’m too old to have kids.

Still, I was becoming body conscious. I threw out lots of clothes I’d previously enjoyed wearing. I went through a not unfamiliar phase of nothing fitting, outfits not working, everything feeling wrong. I was still quite active, still walking lots and going to the gym twice-weekly.

I’d been learning to sew and was proud of a dress I’d spent week after week making. Come the day to wear it at my niece’s wedding a good six months after I’d finished it, it no longer felt the perfect fit it had before. The funky skirt I'd meantime made, twirled around in on our Easter break and emulated in another fabric.... that didn’t fit right either. The flattering darts and self-faced top now made the skirt fit higher up my body. My waist was no more. I was tubby!

The next time I was at my sewing class the tutor made a comment about how I seemed to have eaten a bit more recently. It was true. My weight fears, that is.

I’ve never been a huge eater, or a dieter. I’m Ms Average in terms of appetite. I like my vegetables and I usually top my meals with plenty of cheese, but I don’t go for biscuits, sweets, ice cream, chips or snacks.

Or so I thought.

The communal English office table. That must be it. We’d bring in food on the understanding that it was a help yourself zone. If it’s on the table it’s fair game, as Hannah, our department head explained to newcomers and visitors.

I’d feel bad if I didn’t bring in foodstuffs sufficiently often. And I always tried to make it fruit. Or at least dome of it was fruit. Requests if anyone was off to the Co-Op were less healthy. And inevitably having bought stuff in I found myself resentful if I didn’t get at least some spoils from the shared table.

The one thing about teaching is the tiredness. Reaching for an energy boost you feel you’ve earned is no surprise when you’ve been up and at 'em since 5.30am, classes are done and the long post-school meeting and lesson planning time is upon you.

I asked a generous colleague who sometimes brought in tins of biscuits or chocolate selection tins not to. It comes as part of the Tesco delivery, she said. A busy mum, she was busy shedding pounds on a ferocious - and expensive - diet and training regime. She daren’t have the chocolates lurking around at home.

So I was stealth snacking. That was clear. No problem, I’d be leaving the team soon, so that bad habit was also be left behind.

Sure enough, it was.

Less simple was to shrug off the late afternoon/early evening habit I’d got into of zonking our exhausted after 12 hours of teaching-related activity and laying a bed for an hour or so before getting up, eating dinner and either marking, lesson planning or being so exhausted I put the telly on and zoned out.

A late afternoon nap before dinner became a great restorative as I recovered from the school year and became a free woman again (by which I mean it was the summer holiday). Except now I wasn’t getting up before dawn. I wasn’t using up the energy but I was still napping.

I was working, but it was computer-based, more sedentary stuff with none of the frenetic dashing from place to place like at school. (Turns out, our office-bound lifestyles often have the effects I'm describing, as Personnel Today explains.)

Mentally, it was a lot better for me. My sleeplessness began to dissipate for a start. But now I was under-employed. This had always been an issue for me while teaching: the all or nothing of the school term and the deadness of the breaks. Colleagues with kids loved this part, for me it wasn’t good for my psyche after a week or so. I need some purpose, some discipline, a deadline.

Exhaustion and anxiety among teachers is common.
Image copyright: We Are Teachers

Buying a house gave me a fair amount of this. The online portal for the conveyancing didn’t leave us alone, emailing and texting, as soon as one task was complete another three would appear and need our attention. For once I wasn’t going out of my mind with depression and a lack of purpose. And I was still going to the gym. But I knew it couldn’t last.

Used to being so busy it hurt, I cast around for a new something to do. A-ha! I’d wanted to do an MA for years and my now-former colleague had often mentioned one I really liked the sound of. MA Literary London combined an excuse to get back into reading books – the irony of being too busy to do so due to the demands of an English teaching post wasn’t lost on me – with a focus for our frequent explorations and meanderings around London.

Yes, I’d do it and combine it with the project management refurbishing our new house would need.

So that’s what I’m doing. Along with a modest amount of freelance writing. I’m reading a lot. So much that we don’t get to discuss some of the materials we cram for each seminar. But it’s interesting and engaging and a great course. But I’m not yet out and about enough.
I need to be doing the other bit of the course that appealed. The being out and about in London bit. The saving myself from getting fatter and maybe diabetic and feeling pathetic bit.

So that’s why I’m going to be blogging again. Because if I need to hold myself to anything it’s to making sure it’s all doing me good – not just for future work readings and general knowledge reasons but for keeping my head straight too.

Studying in Greenwich is a real treat

A new literary chapter

After an extended hiatus on this blog, I'm hoping to use this blog again as a place to post items of interest to me that may or may not relate to my current course of study: I'm now a part-time MA student at The University of Greenwich, fitting work around it (or vice versa).

My course MA English: Literary London lends itself wonderfully to my love of London and anyone and everyone inspired by it. I'm hoping that by recording my explorations here, I'll have an informal record of places, people and events that I've encountered during my studies and some ideas to share for those who have already told me they intend to follow my explorations during this course.

For starters, we'll be visiting the William Blake exhibition at Tate Britain and I've already pencilled in a Witches Tour of London one Sunday. And if ever there was an excuse to take a Gin Cycle Tour of London with our friend David as tour guide....

Feel free to suggest literary and historical places of interest, plus apposite books, films and exhibitions I ought to know about.

University of Greenwich: such a glorious and inspiring setting for my studies!

George, Jon, Mikey and Roy

I’ve got fantastic memories of being 12. That time before teenage hormones and adult expectations start to burden us is a golden time of our lives. It’s the time of unfettered enthusiasm and energy and so many formative experiences – first kisses, crushes and adventures. Horizons are expanding as we seize on ideas and assert our identity.

Anyone who remembers me from when I was 12 will probably sum me up with the words ‘Boy George fan’. I was glued to the radio, TV, magazines, newspaper and records featuring the wonderful George.

Most of my schoolfriends had yet to declare their preference for a particular sort of music or allegiance to a band. This was to be the time of obsessive fandom. Duran Duran, Wham, Spandau Ballet or Culture Club – you couldn't like them all. I was the Boy George girl.

Internationally renowned Boy George fan

As well as all their music, I had badges, posters and stickers galore. I made fabric cases for my complete collection of singles and albums (including some imports and picture discs), and covered my Culture Club scrapbooks with montages of quotes and photos snipped out of magazines.

I regularly wrote to – and even visited – the fan club. A few times I hung around outside George's home where I met up with some of my similarly George-obsessed penpals. I'd work George into conversations, quote his quips in my essays and discuss imaginary dreams of hanging out the Jon Moss and the Duran Duran hunks with my classmate Jo.

Another of my classmates paid tribute to my obsession by dressing as George with a hat trimmed with coloured plaits for a drama performance. We held a fundraising three-legged race along the seafront (actually a 17-legger) and I donned a customised man's shirt with huge coloured letters and symbols, like my idol's. Once I celebrated George's birthday by making a cake decorated as his famous BOY cap.

Inevitably, my favourite band's fame waxed and waned after a few years and the band eventually splintered as George's drug problems became apparent. I continued to follow his every word and went to as many solo gigs as I could. My cunning move to London made it all the easier.

My admiration and love for George has grown and aged along with us both. We've had our ups and downs and have evolved into quite different people from when I first declared my interest in the 'flamboyant cross-dresser who sings blue-eyed soul' back in 1983.

But my love for Culture Club isn't the same. The group reformed for a couple of years at the start of the century and it was wonderful to see them back on Top Of The Pops and in concert. Teenage over-excitement came flooding back and with every heartfelt lyric I was transported back to being 12. Then they disappeared again and George went back to DJing and pursuing various musical and fashion endeavours.

This week, Culture Club played to a packed house at Heaven nightclub underneath Charing Cross station. It’s the very venue where they play their first London gig on their first tour and is an iconic club for anyone who loves the 80s. I was there – as was a poster asking ‘Duran Duran who?’. It made George chuckle when he peered at it.

Culture Club being back is brilliant. Their ‘oldies’ as they call their back catalogue still stand strong and they’ve got some great new tracks for their new album. The enthusiasm with which Roy Hay attacked his guitar and played the rock god all over again was immense. The whole band’s delight at playing together was infectious. As for me, I loved being transported back to my first Culture Club gig in 1984 and being filled up anew with energetic verve, fearlessness and simply enjoying an all-consuming unaffected love.

Zingy Lime Muffins

I'm a great one for seeing what we've got in the vegetable drawer or fruit bowl and making up recipes based on them. The internet makes it really easy to find successful combinations that other people have tried, but I often end up winging it on the ingredients front. 

Our great local market (a proper one rather than a fancy artisan farmers' market) sells great value, great quality fruit and veg. For simplicity, items at Lewisham Market are priced a £1 per bowl. "Pound a bowl! Pound a bowl!" comes the refrain. Last week, I needed both lemons and limes and ended up with a mixed bowl from the market of about six of each.

This week I had a few leftover limes that I knew wouldn't keep until we get back from a few days away. I was also wondering if I could rustle something up that we could munch on our long journey to Devon.

At first I thought I’d make a lime drizzle cake as an easy alternative to the lemon drizzle cake that's become a bit of a standby. But I didn't really want the hassle of eating slices of cake in the car and it's not long since I made lemon drizzle cake anyway.

Lime Muffins seemed like a good idea instead. There's a really easy recipe online for the basic mix. Better yet, it uses vegetable oil rather than butter. We slather butter on toast, so rarely have enough left over for baking. Here's a summary of the Taste Of Home recipe.

2 cups plain flour plus 2 teaspoons baking powder

Half a teaspoon of salt

1 cup of caster sugar

Third of a cup of vegetable oil

Quarter of a cup of milk

Two eggs

3 tablespoons of lime juice

Teaspoon and a half of grated lime rind

Beat the eggs and stir in the wet ingredients, then mix them into the dry ingredients. Spoon into 12 cupcake cases and bake in a cupcake tin at 200 degrees C for 18-20 minutes. Cool in the cupcake tin. 

I added a whole juicy lime's worth of juice to the mix rather than the three tablespoons the recipe suggested. I also added a whole zested lime rind.

The cakes took the full 20 minutes to bake and rose nicely. I'd used self-raising flour and half a teaspoon of baking powder rather than the plain flour and 2.5 teaspoons of baking powder in the original recipe. The cakes had a nice rise – but they looked rather plain. 

Tangy icing-topped lime muffin

Time for a nicely iced topping, I decided. As you'll surmise from the photos, I've not used a piping bag for at least 15 years. Nonetheless, I mixed up 4oz of butter, a cup and a half of icing powder, some milk and a bit more lime juice and zest to see what transpired. The taste was glorious: both sweet and very tangy. 

The extra juice made the icing runnier than ideal and I should have added a mite more icing sugar to make it a little stiffer. It piped easily but didn't set into swirls. But it was the taste rather than the look that I was really after. 

I'll add another tablespoon of icing sugar next time – which probably won't be long given the price of limes at Lewisham Market.

Zingy Lime Muffins