Brighten a gray day

After yesterday's sun, it was rather dreary today with lead skies and even more rain. The glads outside were looking a bit battered, and the dahlias so laden with blooms they were starting to droop, so I brought a bit of colour inside - and then realised when I took the photo I'm also showing off the pile of laundry I am currently working through folding-wise. Such is life here!

Today is a bit touch-and-go - weather change means child is whingy and weebly and everything is being countered with a "Whyyyyyy" "But I want-!" and the demand for the dozenth viewing of old Muppet Show episodes. I suppose I needed something to balance out the very good day we had yesterday but it's not even 2pm yet and I'm ready to tear my hair out. Back to school tomorrow....inhale, exhale.

To counter the rubbish skies and the weebly child I decided to use up the last of my fresh toms in a goulash - using some of the fresh local chicken I had from yesterday's carcass, some local lamb, and my own peppers, onions, tomatoes and squash. I realised as I cut open the Hungarian Hearts that I did not grow enough tomatoes! These smelled amazing when I cut them open, and you'll notice there's a bit of a gap in the sliced Hungarians because I couldn't resist and ate one fresh right where I was standing. Even my son was amazed at the fragrance though he refused to touch any of them. With a qualm, I must admit these were the last - it's only the beginning of September and I'm already out of these wonderful tomatoes; obviously three plants wasn't anywhere near enough! I'm already turning my mind to somehow finding a way to dedicate an entire bed to the things, they were just THAT good.

So, goulash on the stove, fight to get child to eat his lunch won (it took an hour!) and I've now decided that with one battle sorted, I'm going to concede the war, and he can watch more videos today. Hopefully this means I can get him to shut them off later and we'll be able to read a book instead. And I'm sure I'll be in a better mood when I eat something as well - two slices of toast and a cup of coffee didn't fuel the tank for long, as I noticed I was starting to get the low-blood-sugar shakes a few minutes ago. Food won't be long now however!

Apples apples everywhere

I managed to get some of my errands done today though it seems every time one is sorted I've got two more to deal with, the phone rings to add a third, and then somewhere in between I have to have the energy to cook and clean and entertain sproggo. Today's mission to get fruit for sprog's lunches was foiled, as I just ran out of energy and couldn't walk another step. I think that's going to be a mission for doing a bit of PYO this weekend with a friend if she's feeling a bit better.

But what really did my head in was coming home on the bus, and counting apple trees; some wild in the hedges, some growing huge in people's gardens. One, two, three, four....and then a pear tree, absolutely massive...five, six.

Six apple trees. Three of them desert apples, the rest cooking apples, and a pear tree. And what are the odds that the people who own these trees are actually going to eat any of the apples which are up there? Pretty slim, to be honest; the trees are HUGE, so huge you'd need a picker in a lift crane to get to them, the lower limbs having been all lopped off to display the gardens below and to bring in light. Year after year, the scenario is the same - the apples fall and rot and they clear them up and throw them in the bin; not even composted.

And here's me, needing to buy fruit from the store for my son this week.

You'd think, wouldn't you, that I could just go up and ask to do a bit of scrumping. Surely, they're just going to go to waste? But no...I've tried in the past and people got nervous and "asked" me to shove off before they called the police. Gods forbid someone put a use to something they had no use for whatsoever.

So, I eye the half-dozen, beautifully laden trees with skins the colour of rubies and with a delightful blush, and the rich pale green - and I know they're going to be nothing but rotted mush in a few weeks.

And I'll have to pop down to Tescos and buy apples in a bag. Go figure.

September Morn

I love autumn, but it comes with melancholy. The end of summer and the return of the cold, dark months which I honestly loathe. Even so, the leaves turning and the chill in the air does thrill me and I always feel at my most creative, my most inspired, and wanting to be Making and Doing.

I'm been filling my eyes to the brim with watercolour paintings lately, checking out different styles from the romantic to the abstract to the kitch to the "I'm not really sure what I'm looking at here..." I love the ethereal nature of watercolour; slightly fae, almost dreamlike qualities. I have never worked with watercolour but I'm looking forward to dabbling in it.

I did some garden pottering yesterday, bottling up the first bit of elderberry cordial and thinking about maybe freezing some today as I want to make more, as well as rosehip sirip. The garden got what I feel will be its final cut, but I need to go round with the strimmer, rip out some rather insistent brambles from sproggo's flower beds, and also cut the heads off a few sunflowers to allow the seeds to dry out for bird-seed over the winter.

Along with the cooler temps I have been drawn to stodgier food! Much richer than I would normally eat, with fresh Guernsey milk and proper butter, roasted and steamed and very little raw, cold foods. I had the last salad of the year last week - I enjoyed it but now as I eat with the seasons, I'm more interested in my chard, which goes into nearly every dish. I remind myself to eat a bit better, getting at least two meals in, and maybe something light at night. I'm eyeing my leeks now and while I was hoping to keep them in the ground as long as I could, the cats have discovered this lovely new litter box known as my raised bed. Sigh. So I might find myself pulling the leeks sooner than I had planned, and I'm now just trying to figure out where I'd put them if I had to.

I'm hoping this winter I'll be able to recover my strength but to keep my mind active and occupied - always a struggle during the dark months. The classes will help, certainly (provided I can get to them, if I'm frozen in like I was last year I'm not so sure!) Still, I have got techniques to work on and define myself in and I'll be hoping to use the winter to gestate and nurture ideas so I can come back during the following year and return to work and productivity - not just to hit some obscure "targets" through benefits promotions but because I want it for myself. We'll see how we do.

Tomorrow, sprog is off to school and I'll be taking some me-time, some tea-time, and gathering and mowing the lawn and doing a bit of the tidying required to nest ourselves in. I'm looking forward to hearing my son tell me what he's learned that day, and to see his happy smiling face when he comes running up on the path, bursting with stories of his new discoveries about life and his own path within it.

Bring it on, and a happy September morn to everyone

Autumn on the boil

After finally coaxing Sproggo out for a walk (it took a while, he's really wound up with the start of school only two days away) I found a massive stash of rosehips growing wild on an unused track. Bonus! Tomorrow we'll go and pick some for some rosehip sirip, but I also noted the elderberries were in full blush, and decided today would be a good day to get them boiled down for some sirip as well.

I had some rosehips from my own dog roses, and so I managed to throw a few of those in with some elderberries from the tree outside.

We had our first frost today - at least a month early! I'm now looking nervously at my squash and wondering if I shouldn't just haul them in even though there's no chance of them reaching full maturity. The apples will have some more time, as they improve with a bit of frost. Brambles are still trying to produce some fruit, but with the colder temperatures, they're going to have a big catch-up game. I still have enough blackberries leaning over from next door to make a pie or two, and so into the freezer they will go. Apples will go into a cardboard box and get stored, but I want to dry a few into rings. We'll see how far I manage with that.

On top of this I've got more sewing to do, still have to chase up whatever happened to my physio referral, and I'm going forth with my Mad Scheme and enrolling in a course to refine my technique in art and drawing with paints and pigments. Just going to get some childcare coverage and hopefully I'll be able to keep up with it.

In the meantime, my house smells wonderful; if "your mother smelled of elderberries" I honestly wouldn't be too offended!

Where is your inspiration?

Smaug - by Alan Lee

I've got an artist and traveller soul. I must admit that, while I need roots, a home, someplace of my own, I am never completely tied to anywhere. I am not motivated by the usual things like retirement plans and what's on telly tonight. I lived for years without them; five years, maybe six, where I literally had nothing but the clothes on my back, and lived under bridges, in old buses on blocks, in camper trailers, in tents.

Oh, how horrible!

Well...actually, no, it wasn't.

I read a blog now and again about an artist who lives in a gorgeous vehicle - her blog is called Into the Hermitage and her work, her whole life, is one I'm very familiar with. And, truthfully speaking, it's a life I miss very, very much, even with all the hardships and issues. Hardships and issues which, to be truthful, are more about dealing with society people who are jealous of the life one is living in which one has "escaped" all the false trappings you're supposed to hanker for.

But not just her lifestyle speaks to me - I adore her artwork, her paintings have more than a little touch of the Eastern Europe style of medieval works in colours and slightly contorted bodies. It captivates me and speaks of an era which the internet, mobile phones, PIN numbers and recessions has nearly banished from our minds. It brings to mind Brian Froud, Alan Lee - my favourite artists.....

And it reminds me that when I allow myself to be, I'm an artist as well.

See, the thing is everyone in my family is an artist of some kind; my aunt is a renowned architect in the US, my uncle was a photographer of some fame, as was my grandfather, who was also a poet, my great grandmother a writer, my grandmother a singer who with her own sisters regularly appeared on the Ed Sullivan show. My father sang at the Apollo from the age of 10.

My mother however....my mother crushed her creativity and squashed it down, denied it, killed it; and she was determined to do the same to her daughters. No, I don't know why, but she did. I wanted to be an artist when I was a child, more than anything. And I just had a gift for art: perfect pitch which I've always had since I was four; the ability to play just about any instrument even though I never learned to read a note; pick up a pen, or a brush or my favourite oil pastels, and I would keep myself occupied blending and experimenting for hours. I'm intuitive with clay and love working with it, and metal, and gemstones. But I had to hide my work, or my mother would find it, and rip it up, both figuratively, and on more than one occasion, literally. I even stopped trying to write whilst I lived at home, though I have a gift for it, and have since published as well.

Even so, I put it all away and never touched any of it again. I haven't drawn in years; I haven't painted in decades. It's a sad state of affairs when you realise, only once you're approaching 40, that you're still living the way other people want you to, rather than how you wish to be.

And so, sitting her, seeing this woman work with oil by candlelight in a small, cosy vehicle which will move in a week's time to somewhere else, I can't help but think I'd like to be in such a space; broken valves, cold boots-whilst-hunting-for-wood, getting-shuffled-on-by-bourgeois, and all.

Maybe not yet - my son is still my first priority over all. I have no funds, I don't even have a driving license. I can't remember how to paint - I never learned to even prep a canvas or whatever it is I would use to paint in, who knows? - and I know even less about doing exhibitions or prices or even what makes good work. Because art is great if you're creating it, but you still need bread to eat, and I'd still have to delve into that world and earn the proverbial crust.

But then, at the same time, it isn't about the trappings, but doing what you can where you are. After all Terri Windling offered to read my work and even to try and get it published...and I never followed it up. Why? For gods sake, why not? Why is my house not filled with art and wonder and weirdness and beauty and puppets and everything that is me where I'm sitting? Whose failing is that, exactly?

And now, the artist of the Hermitage isn't on the road anymore, either. Gone the idyllic highway, gone the frustrations and the beauty and the travel - but the thing is, she's still an artist. That hasn't changed; she just has more walls to put her work on.

In other words...

When will I give myself permission to live on my own terms?

Inspiration.

Sleep? Yeah, sure...

Honestly, sleep I seem to be getting. I just don't feel as if I've ever managed to get enough. It's bright outside but definitely chilly, even my old geezer of a cat is feeling it as he's a bit stiff in the ol' hindquarters. So am I for that matter.

I did manage to cut the lawn yesterday in the back, which was long overdue, and will have to get the front sorted because, yay, there's a house inspection next week in which a childfree 20-something on the fast-track can tell me I suck at keeping my windowsills completely dust-free; and of course that is vitally important. Grrrr.

The good news at the moment is that I do NOT have to move as I thought I would do. Ex saw the light on that one at least and will stay on the lease so I don't have to go through all the credit check stuff. I do want to move someday, but it won't be till sprog is in secondary school.

In the meantime, I'm doing as much garden tidying as I can, getting all the beds cleared out of weeds and piling on grass cuttings to work into the soil in the spring. I no longer have poo-patrols to worry about (a small, guilty YAY inserted here) so the stuff can go right onto my flower beds and no worries. Sprog's clothes for school are all repaired and sewed up, pressed and ready to go for the coming year. In a few days we'll be starting the routine for him to begin year 2 and hopefully it won't be anywhere near as bad as last year.

With the year turning I'm hoping my energy level picks up a bit; but I am probably going to need a few weeks' of recovery from the whole summer thing, and then I can get myself back on track here at home. Right now I don't have the energy for much, if anything.

Heading into the wet

It's been raining for a week straight; the grass I was worried about whether or not it would be "in" in time for summer is now nearly six inches long and very lush and green. No problems there! The issue has been it's been too wet for sprog to go out - he's outgrown his welly boots and due to the early season change there's no wellies on sale yet.

Even though it was raining considerably since Monday, we went and picked some blackberries, and this weekend I'll be picking the elderberries in my back garden for sirip. Unfortunately, I'm not going to get much a crop of rosehips - even though rosehips are red in town, up here on the heath they're still green. I don't know if they'll change in time, but I'll try to collect enough to add to the elderberry sirip if I can manage it.

The dahlias are being brought indoors - they're beautiful, white with purple tips, and I've got them in bouquets all over my house, along with some roses. The sunflowers are staying outside and I hope they've got enough time to make seeds, but I've no idea. My squash is manfully trying to produce two fruits even in this miserable weather. The leeks and the chard and chicory are doing just fine outside, and I'm just making sure I keep the slug pellets down. Otherwise, everything else is in and I'm keeping an eye on the apples; I'll be bringing in a fair few of these and boxing them up for use in the winter in crumbles and pies.

All in all, I've had a good start I think to getting food into the house through growing and also transforming the garden into a beautiful space. There's still things to do, of course - quite a bit, honestly! But I'm hoping for a couple of dry days and enough energy to get a start on putting the garden to bed for the winter, tidying up the tat and mowing the garden one last time.