March

It’s been a minute (or almost a month)… In fact, I’m having to look back through my diary to remind myself what I’ve been up to.

Lots, as usual.

It’s interesting to look at all the photos I’ve taken because they span those three weeks since I was last here, and spring has most definitely sprung. The snowdrops have since melted back into the earth to make way for daffodils and muscari; the hellebores are now decidedly ragged and tired from the wind and rain, but the rhubarb in the back garden is putting out little nubs of ruby red.

There are plenty of photographs not taken: of my brother and the girls visiting (we took them up to Heptonstall and ate cake and drank coffee from flasks while they played in the ruins of the old church and the park). Or of a trip to Haworth with Jay’s mum on a bright day. It wasn’t too busy and we had a wander up past the Bronte Parsonage and a little browse around the shops.

The pictures here were taken on a solitary walk near home. It was blowy and dazzlingly sunny, but the clouds gradually moved in and there was a shower of fine rain which didn’t really do very much. I needed a blast of fresh air so I did what I always feel the need to do on a windy day: walked up a hill.

Then I came home for a cup of tea. Because that’s part of it too.

I’ve also been back home to see my friend Caroline. I was actually collecting Joe from Irwell Vale station (after a few days with his grandparents at half term), so we had a catch up before that then walked up to Joe’s old primary school to collect Caroline’s daughter. They have different half term dates because their schools fall under different council areas - Calderdale and Rossendale).

Joe was quite the celebrity actually, as most of his old classmates hadn’t seen him since we moved to Skye in December 2017. His teacher was there too and said hello. I couldn’t believe how different all the children looked after four years. One little boy came over and was quite shy but kept trying to get Joe’s attention, but there was a lot going on and in the end he gave up and walked away and my heart broke a little bit for him.

I was a teacher once. I regularly felt sad for the sensitive and lonely ones. And I think there’s no job like it for making you feel old…

Before going to Caroline’s I’d had a walk around the old places. I always find it comforting, being back home. I think my soul lives there and probably always will.

That doesn’t mean I can’t be happy anywhere else, and I don’t think I’d move back just now. The dream house I’ve always yearned for is above our budget and regularly on the market, which doesn’t bode well. So that’s neatly filed away in ‘Thoughts’. I love where we are now (or where we should be, if the house purchase eventually comes off) and our roots here are deepening.

But still, there’s no place like home for a bit of a reset.

So after the school thing we walked through the village and past our old house to the Drop Off Cafe, our old haunt, and the kids had a bit of a sugar fest. I drank coffee to galvanise me for the drive home through several towns and villages, over the moors and back to the Calder Valley.

The flat hill above is Musbury Tor, by the way: backdrop for teenage shenanigans and angst-ridden walks.

And in the picture above here, my old high school lies behind the treeline in the middle. The art studio had great views out towards said Tor. I like to think I appreciated it all back then, but I probably didn’t.

I do have some great memories of going sledging close by, in the moonlight, with my friends one frozen night. I also remember I was wearing sunglasses at the time. In the dark. I thought I was very cool and giving out a Bratpack vibe but in reality I looked like a complete pillock.

Last week I went to Leeds with my colleagues. We attended the #WECAN conference at the Met Hotel, then caught the train home and went out for Italian food in Hebden Bridge. It was a fun evening, but I didn’t drink much because it was a school night. Plus I’d got pretty inebriated the week before with my friend - Jay had taken Joe to the wrestling and we both went to a little local bar. I was on Jaffa Cake gin which was actually delicious (and potent). Also, expensive - I looked it up online - so that’s potentially something for the Christmas drinks cupboard.

I’ve almost completed a week of the Blood Sugar Diet. I’m determined to shift the lbs I’ve gained over the past couple of years and it’s tough with a wonky thyroid and being a Woman of a Certain Age. As in, 40something. 800 calories a day isn’t very much at all but I’m a stubborn Taurean type and will keep plodding on for the full 8 weeks. Not gonna lie though, I was craving chocolate cake yesterday. Alllll day.

I do have a square of 70% cocoa dark chocolate every day, diet or no diet. That’s non-negotiable. It’s also 60 calories, which I write off.

The chocolate thing brings me nicely to the Joanne Harris book I’m reading, The Strawberry Thief. I probably mentioned that in my previous post. I’m really enjoying it - yesterday afternoon it came in the car with me for the wait before school pick up and I sat there in my little bubble, the car being rocked by the wind, my mind away in Lansquenet with Vianne and the river gypsies.

Hopefully once I’m finished, my next book - a Mary Stewart one - will be a worthy successor. Thornyhold is one of my all-time favourites, but I find her a bit hit-and-miss. It’s a very specific anxiety, the knowledge that your current book is coming to an end. I actually found this next one in one of those little Free Libraries and need to drop off a few old books in its place.

I’ve picked up my writing again.

Have you ever said it out loud: ‘I’m writing a book’? It’s daunting. We actually had a little session on imposter syndrome at the conference and I’m very much an imposter - in my head, at least. And yet, if I look at it from an outsider’s point of view, I am a writer. I’ve written this blog (and its predecessor, Mitenska) for ten years. I’ve written paid content for other blogs. I was Nature Editor and Deputy Editor at Creative Countryside magazine, creating articles and commissioning work. I have a degree in English, and am a qualified English teacher.

I had a nice chat with the man at the bookshop in Hebden on Tuesday. He’s a professional writer and is currently working on a children’s book. I told him about mine and he was very sincere and said it was a great idea. It was heartening.

Life has been hectic as usual but it feels lighter somehow. I’m adding little hacks which help with avoidable stressors (keeping coins in the car for parking/Joe’s bus fare to after school club, having a few stamps in my purse for last-minute birthday cards - and making sure I have a selection of cards and wrapping paper in the bureau etc).

I’m trying to keep on with the Three Good Things book. The Good Things can be very small; today, for instance, I heard the peacocks across the valley for the first time this year. Yesterday I saw five magpies in a field. There’s something magical about magpies. Last night I watched The Scapegoat and enjoyed it.

They all get written down.

Of course, it’s important to appreciate these little things, every single one. And to acknowledge how lucky we are to be safe in a world which right now seems a very frightening place.

I’m trying to minimise any exposure Joe gets to the news. I know some parents want to talk to their children about Ukraine and war in general, but Joe is a very sensitive little soul, prone to anxiety.

We are not all the same.

He hears enough at school and still catches the odd bit of commentary from the TV or radio and I have to reassure him that everything will be fine.

When I was little, it was all about Russia and CND and Greenham Common, and those frightening public information films telling you what to do in the event of a nuclear attack. I struggled to sleep at night. Perspective is difficult for children. He doesn’t need that fear and I’m fine with my decision to shield him from the realities of politics and what people do to one another. He’s only nine.

We will, however, collect his outgrown clothes together for the refugees. He knows about some aspects of conflict through studying the World Wars at school, and although he doesn’t have to be educated on the details of violence and threat, we can think about and practice compassion for others.

And, as I said, focus on all the things we should be grateful for. There are many, and the more you look, the more you find.