Fleeting and Sleeting

We’re in between storms here at the moment; apparently Dudley is about to step aside so the even angrier Eunice can take the helm. It’s wild out there and has been for a few weeks, on and off. I’ll admit that my planned walks and little photography expeditions have been shelved in favour of staying home, hence a short post with a fraction of the usual pictorial content.

I haven’t done all that much lately; a few visits back home to the Valley to see my friends for coffee and an impromptu house clearance (it’s a bit complicated) where I bagged myself a lovely old dressing table and a few bits of furniture for When We Move.

I’m telling myself When, not If, even though the whole thing is turning into the property purchase equivalent of War and Peace. We have had a trip to the house to meet with some builders (for quotes, to appease the nervous bank) so I took the camera and got lots of photos. I can’t share them yet because I a) don’t want to tempt fate and b) wouldn’t do that when the house currently belongs to someone else.

Hopefully it’ll happen.

Other than work, parenting, school runs and the usual domestic drudgery, we did manage a trip to Haworth Art Gallery with my brother and nieces. I haven’t been in a long time and I do love small galleries and museums. There’s something a bit obscure and quirky about them, and I really think we should support and champion them as they’re lower profile and therefore attract less funding but are very important for their local communities.

Which nicely justifies us buying lunch and my purchasing lots of nice things from the gift shop. Like a selection of cards and notebooks from St Judes and Art Angels (the cards are for framing in the house-we-don’t-yet-own-and possibly-never-will) and the notebooks are for me and Joe; we’re writing down three good things that happen every day.

We’ve also been collaging again. It’s becoming A Thing. I’ve even ordered some special dinky scissors for fiddly bits.

Valentine’s Day came and went; I was at work but the weather meant we were fairly quiet. I bought Jay a ticket to go to a gig in Manchester in May (I’m thinking this makes me vicariously cool somehow; I haven’t been to watch live music for a long time).

Less cool but quite funny: Jay’s taking Joe to watch that silly wrestling where they play-act at being hurt. It’s next Friday night at Todmorden Town Hall. I politely declined the offer of a ticket. Joe doesn’t know about it yet but he’ll enjoy himself because he loves a bit of trouble and is still naive enough to think it’s all real.

It’s half term next week. We’re off to Leeds again on Monday (on the train) and Joe may or may not be having a few days with his grandparents. I’m hoping the weather improves because I don’t enjoy cabin fever, and it’s far worse when there’s a bored kid in the house. I want to maybe have a (breezy) picnic, do a bit of nature photography with him and hopefully resurrect his Nature Notes section here on the website.

His friend is coming home with us after school for tea. I’m setting off shortly, into the hills and sleet. Yesterday the schoolyard was so windy it kept tearing my coat undone. We do seem to choose these wuthering places to live.

I’m taking Stuart: A Life Backwards to read. I’m really enjoying it; the subject matter (alcoholism, drug addiction, homelessness) sounds depressing but it’s written in a humorous way. I do know what happens at the end though, and it’s not good. Maybe I’ll go back to Corfu after that with Gerald Durrell for a bit of sunshine and optimism.

I’ll be back maybe next week, hopefully with more pictures.