We are the music-makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams, Wandering by lone sea-breakers And sitting by desolate streams; World losers and world forsakers, On whom the pale moon gleams: Yet we are the movers and shakers Of the world for ever, it seems.
With wonderful deathless ditties We build up the world’s great cities. And out of a fabulous story We fashion an empire’s glory: One man with a dream, at pleasure, Shall go forth and conquer a crown; And three with a new song’s measure Can trample an empire down.
We, in the ages lying In the buried past of the earth, Built Nineveh with our sighing, And Babel itself with our mirth; And o’erthrew them with prophesying To the old of the new world’s worth; For each age is a dream that is dying, Or one that is coming to birth.
Christmas is a special time of the year for doors too, not just people and I try making one every year, it’s rare that I see one I really love, a few years ago I bought a giant live/gree one from Daylesford which was just divine… and I still pine for it…
Anyway, this year we’re going sparkly, not garish/kitsch (that was two years ago, I scratched that itch), but subtle and understated.
What I did was this:
I bought a brass wreath (which will be re-used in different ways, watch this space) from Nkuku.
Then take a string of little lights and wrap it around the spokes of the stars. It’s fiddly, and the lights will get tangled. Breath and remember that Christmas is not a time for anger.
These ones from Marks and Spencers are really lovely and small, which was what I was after. They’re supposed to last a long time… we’ll see (but you can replace the batteries).
I liked the effect, but it wasn’t enough… so I grabbed this box of super cute tiny Christmas baubles from Paperchase, and attached them all around the star.
It took a while, I didn’t use any read or gold… they just didn’t speak to me yesterday.
Here’s the door in the daytime:
And here’s the door at night (actually early morning, photo taken when I said goodbye to the boys who were heading off before dawn to a hockey tournament… ah the joy of a driving son!)
Happy door.
(Now what do I do with the remaining …. 2034857537574 tiny coloured baubles?)
Anne Tyler always gets to me. I read quite a few of her novels and at some point there’s always a line, a sentence that just cuts through you and plunges you into the book so that when you read the last page you feel dazed and confused by the reality around you.
This short novel, wrote in the year of my birth, does the same: the line for me was “The house had not yet heard of the death” and I won’t spoil you the story but when I read it all the pieces fell into place and all the previous pages made more sense and I was gone.
The blurb at the back of the book says this:
… but there’s so much more… it’s about growing up, and families, and love and friendship… and loneliness… and most of all the desire to belong, to something, to someone.
Is it her best book? No I don’t think so, but it’s a damn good book that lingers in your subconscious for longer you’d expect it to.
Worth reading.
Because it’s Friday after all, because one of the main characters is a wannabe rockstar and because Mr M and I watched ‘Patty Cakes’ this week, (good movie btw) I’m giving you a bonus track too:
The list so far…
2018 The mermaid and Mrs Hancock
2017 – Magari domain resto (Lorenzo Maroni)
2016 – Upstream (Mary Oliver)
2015 – Reasons to stay alive (Matt Haig)
2014 – Annihilation (Jeff VanderMeer)
2013 – Careless people (Sarah Churchwell)
2012 – Wonder (RJ Palacia)
2011 – The Paris Wife (Paula McLain)
2010
2009 – Let the great world spin (Colum McCann)
2008 – The White Tiger (Aravind Adiga)
2007
2006 – The Road (Cormac McCarthy)
2005 – Never let me go (Kazuo Ishiguro)
2004 – American Gods (Nail Gainman)
2003
2002 – Everything is illuminated (Jonathan Safran Foer)
2001
2000 – Coram Boy (Jamila Gavin)
1999
1998
1997 – Under Storm’s wings – (Helen Thomas)
1996 – Wilfred and Eileen (Jonathan Smith)
1995
1994
1993
1992 – The daughters of the house (Michele Roberts)
1991- Regeneration (Pat Barker)
1990 – Darkness visible (William Styron)
1989 – Like water for chocolate (Laura Esquivel)
1988
1987 – Norwegian Wood (Haruki Murakami)
1986
1985 – Oranges are not the only fruit (Jeanette Winterson)
I love the idea of a Christmas quilt. A Christmas quilt means Christmas and sofas and hot chocolate and Hallmark Christmas movies (which I looooove but don’t tell anyone)… and snow… and children cuddling up to you and so on and on..
All that is well and good, the problem is that my children are not into cuddling up to me anymore, snow NEVER falls at Christmas, nobody wants to watch Hallmark movies with me AND I really struggle to find Christmas fabric I like. Here in the UK Christmas fabric tend to be really traditional and it’s not really my style… but…
… this year I did find some really cool fabric and I was thrilled! Especially because I was commissioned to make a Christmas quilt and working with materials I like is so much more enjoyable, right?
Look at all those festive modern patterns!
I even like the subtle metallic details…
for the back I choose this subtle snowflake fabric that it’s happy and minimalist and pared back, but fun. Christmas is all about fun with family right? (She says trying to convince herself…)
I wish I’d taken a full picture of it… but I was keen to send it to its new home and didn’t want to wait another day for a spare pair of hands to help me.
And I also wish I’d bought extra fabric to make one for myself too!
Geese appear high over us, pass, and the sky closes. Abandon, as in love or sleep, holds them to their way, clear in the ancient faith: what we need is here. And we pray, not for new earth or heaven, but to be quiet in heart, and in eye, clear. What we need is here.
…this motherhood stuff sure is complicated sometimes…
If you try to protect them… you’re a fun-sponge, if you let them be… you’re ignoring them. You need to be ‘there’ but not ‘there there’. It’s high diplomacy, iron fist in velvet glove, it’s heart breaking and life affirming at the same time. It’s sleepless nights without the nappies and the feeding. It’s withholding hugs you both could do with… It’s pride and awe and wonder and worry and fear and frustration and joy, it’s fun and it’s hardwork.
Today is one of those days I wished I had a rewind button, to start over, to shout a little less (although if you could see No 3’s bedroom you would actually give me a medal for my restrain… but still) and smile a little more… but you know we’re entering a new phase around here and I’m not really used to it. I’m not used to be given a silent treatment by a 16yr old who thinks my only aim in life is to make his a misery devoid of fun and joy. Or having my first born so grown up and independent he seems always away from home. Or hearing my baby’s voice so deep he could compete with Barry White… I’m so in denial about him growing up too I kept thinking he had a sore throat… nope you dummy woman, he’s growing up too.
Today I’m going to wrap their advent calendar although between you and me… I’m not sure they earned it this year! Have you ever read that book by Anne Tyler, The ladder of years, in which the protagonist is a middle age housewife who feel she’s been taken for granted by husband and children and one day she goes for a walk on the beach and she keeps walking… and starts a new totally pared down life in the next town, finds a room to rent and a job in a library and spends her night reading books… quietly… no responsibility for anyone else… and kind of life goes on without her at home and when she does return everybody slips into the old ways, nothing learnt so she disappears again…
Yeah, that feeling.
Sigh.
The grass on the park opposite our house is all frosted over. Lilli took a sniff and the crisp air and walked straight back into the house. She’s now asleep on the sheepskin on the sofa. Weird dog.
I got my first essay back from my tutor and I was so happy with the result I cried. Mercifully I was sitting at the kitchen table at the time.
I discovered Miles Davis ‘kind of blue’ album. Can’t stop playing it. I find that these days I need to have music that has no words. I do so much reading for college, so much talking (to myself it seems) with the boys… that I need words-free moments.
I’ve attempted to make chilli sauce as a homemade present this Christmas… I followed the recipe from The Garterstich Farm online Christmas Course here. It seemed easy enough… (the funniest this was being the face of the cashier at the supermarket when I bought 2lb of chillis. He was soooo dying to ask me what on earth I was planning… but being very English, he didn’t feel he could. Hilarious.
Tomorrow is the day of reckoning when my supposedly fermenting chillies will be turned into sauce. I’ll let you know…
What scene would I want to be enveloped in more than this one, an ordinary night at the kitchen table, floral wallpaper pressing in, white cabinets full of glass, the telephone silent, a pen tilted back in my hand?
It gives me time to think about all that is going on outside– leaves gathering in corners, lichen greening the high grey rocks, while over the dunes the world sails on, huge, ocean-going, history bubbling in its wake.
But beyond this table there is nothing that I need, not even a job that would allow me to row to work, or a coffee-colored Aston Martin DB4 with cracked green leather seats.
No, it’s all here, the clear ovals of a glass of water, a small crate of oranges, a book on Stalin, not to mention the odd snarling fish in a frame on the wall, and the way these three candles– each a different height– are singing in perfect harmony.
So forgive me if I lower my head now and listen to the short bass candle as he takes a solo while my heart thrums under my shirt– frog at the edge of a pond– and my thoughts fly off to a province made of one enormous sky and about a million empty branches.
kind of a cheese video… but I love this song…
(Also, I really struggled finding a picture of Keith Urban where he doesn’t look like JK Rowlings.. do you know what I mean?)
I did, I collected all mismatched napkins and made them all part of one big blue family.
I used this little tub to dye 600gr worth of fabric and the colour is really intense, I’m really really happy with the result.
All you do is wet your fabric – I ran a short rinse cycle in the washing machine – then you you peel the packaging off and put the plastic container (there’s a little foil tub you need to remove from the top) upright on top of your wet clothes in the machine… and ran a 40C degree cycle. Then you ran the same cycle with your normal detergent to remove any excess dye but I didn’t notice any difference in colour at the end of the two wash. It’s recommended you ran another cycle on empty to prevent any accidents too.
And voila’.
The best colour is on old linen napkins…
Sometimes you get a surprise when the thread used is obviously polyester thread…
I had made these napkins from black and white fat quarters I knew I’d never use… they’re so much better now I might make some more just so I can dye them.
More random things that don’t look so random anymore.
while you're ahead... 