After a rough week back in July, 2016 I thought of things I'd like to do by the end of the year Mark and I turned 50. Rather than the 'challenge myself' stuff that got me starting the blog in the first place, it's what I thought would help me feel positive, proud of, or just plain enjoy. 

I haven't managed them all but I got 15 of my 20 achieved. 

1. Go fishing  - Hurray for fishing - it was great fun. 
2. See the Giant's Causeway - How has that not happened? Still, current state of arthritic knees makes it hard to imagine it happening in the near future
3. Try salsify and Jerusalem artichokes -  Salsify didn't taste of very much, Jerusalem artichokes were OK. 
4. Go rock pooling - A happy day at Sandsend took care of that
5. Sing in a choir - I think I'm  over this one. Somehow I'm not bothered anymore. 
6. Grow cut flowers - Huge success! 
7. See live music - Since first writing the list I've seen James, Elbow and George Ezra.
8. Visit Hadrian's Wall - What a lovely day out that was!
9. Spend all day at the movies - Nearly managed it then life got complicated. 
10. Learn to apply make up properly - Heather-in-London got for sorted, but the hot flushes of menopause mean it's a skill I can't use just now. No one needs mascara running to their chin.
11. See the Northern Lights - TICK! Best thing imaginable.
12. Go whale-watching - Also TICK! A morning watching a pod of orca hunt for herring before a night chasing Aurora Borealis. What a day.
13. Learn a new range of cooking - I can make loads of curries now, and am not intimidated by long lists of spices
14. Sew something I can wear - My slouchy jersey T Shirt was a lot of fun to make
15. See a new ballet company - My birthday trip to Covent Garden was amazing. What a venue, what a company
16. Learn to play a song on an instrument - Another music based challenge I moved past, totally forgot.
17. Go Birdwatching on the Farne Islands - Not only that but Bempton Cliffs twice AND met lovely Iolo Williams from Springwatch
18. Return to Paris - (and eat enough cheese to sink a ship) TICK
19. Cook a decent roast dinner - I can roast a chicken!!!!! I've done it three times and didn't even need to name the last one. My first attempt, with Janice the Zombie Chicken was pretty traumatic for us both (especially Janice, because she was dead) but I feel confident about it now
20. Build sandcastles - because it's fun yet I never do it anymore. And still haven't.

I made a T shirt!

In addition I've seen a starling murmuration, made a stained glass artwork, organised annual street parties, seen 2 of my children reach adulthood, gone on marches and protests, rejoined active feminist campaigning, been to Venice, played virtual reality video games (badly!), swum in a river, built and aviary and kept quail, eaten a tasting menu at a Michelin starred restaurant, met several of my heroes, seen loads of theatre and tried a number of new crafts.

Stained glass 

Now to look forward...

Starling murmurations are amazing

Dearly Beloved

Hello webby world!

This weekend Mark and I were lucky enough to go to our next door neighbours' wedding.  Lucky on several counts - the kids and I had been ill all week and only just recovered in time; my ace friend Cat not only agreed to have our younger 2 for the day and overnight but also took our uber-Whovian son to see Doctor Who at the cinema; lucky to be invited to a small wedding when we are only their neighbours (although we like them enormously);  lucky to experience such an amazing wedding first hand.

I'll admit now, I don't generally like weddings. Or at least I haven't in the past. Sitting at tables with people you barely know or can't remember, tepid food brought out in shifts, the inevitable lecherous uncle making inappropriate comments about the bridesmaids... I went to some humdingers in the early 90s that left me pretty fed up about them.
 And then there are the parts my feminist head rebels against - a father handing his daughter to the groom like she is his to give away. Pfft. We're not chattel, no one gets to 'give' us like a gift. At least it's husband and wife these days, not man and wife, and no one has to promise to obey anyone.
 And the money - there are always so much better things to spend the money on, aren't there? Like houses or holidays. My favourite weddings so far have been very small affairs - a party between friends as much as anything. I have been entirely untouched by wedding fever.

Ads and Lexie's wedding made a convert out of me. OK, not about the giving away the bride thing, but on the glory of a traditional wedding. It was an Event - a thing packed full of aceness and happiness on a grand scale to celebrate two lovely people committing to each other for life.

I'm sure you all know the delights of Pintrest. One of the things that makes me laugh there is the number of already married people who have Wedding Boards. Are they planning ahead for their kids or should their existing spouses be concerned?  The boards are crammed with dresses, venues, style ideas, fancy guest books, wedding favours and entertainment concepts. Weddings are almost as big a Thing on Pintrest as the tattoos.

On Saturday we saw the ultimate expression of this. It was as if Lexie looked at everything on her Pintrest board and decided, "Why choose? Let's have all of it!"  It was AMAZING. And for a large part, home made. The work and thought that went into it all was astonishing. I am in awe.

The wedding was held at Allerton Castle, a fabulous Gothic Revival building with a wonderful galleried Great Hall complete with 80 foot vaulted ceiling and beautiful stone and oak carved walls. My jaw dropped as we drove up. Those Victorians didn't go for understated in the slightest.

We were greeted by a stilt walker handing out tiny bottles of cocktail labelled Drink Me. Then one of the groomsmen held out an ink pad of gold, silver and bronze  to press our forefingers in and leave a fingerprint 'leaf' on the print of a tree that served as a guest book. It was very pretty.  I found an online photo of someone else's on her blog to give you an idea of how it looked. It was lovely.

The ceremony itself was a nice, simple affair made dramatic by the surroundings and the astonishingly beautiful dresses of the bride and bridesmaids. Lexie is tall, willowy and beautiful. On Saturday she looked like the Happily Ever After bride of my little girl daydreams. Utterly breathtaking.

As we moved on to have the wedding lunch the scale of effort Lex, her mum and her sister put in became apparent. They'd baked the cakes and cupcakes themselves, which I knew about already (I was drafted in as a last minute cupcake icer). But they'd also embroidered a small cushion for each guest with his/her name on and placed it on the chair. Lexie told me she did the embroidering by hand and was cursing her cousin Christopher for not being a Chris - at least as Jay and Mark we were on the easy end of the spectrum!

The confetti was made with a heart shaped paper punch on the pages of old books. The flowers, arranged by a close friend, were such delicate, beautiful things they looked ready to blow away in the breeze. Lots of roses, lisianthus (one of my favourites) and tiny daisies. From each came a tiny wire bird cake holding a candle. The table was scattered with other candles in jam jars trimmed with ribbon. In fact, the display be the cakes of flowers in a teapot and cups was dropped off yesterday by Sarah, Lexie's mum, for us to enjoy at home while the flowers last. 

In front of each place setting was a tiny box labelled Eat Me. It contained two hand made truffles. Yum!

The food was great, the speeches were funny and sweet. Adnan's account of their first date on a grey and blustery Grimsby beach (Hey Rach, is that Cleethorpes? where we flew kites with the boys?) made me laugh but when he told us of his feelings for Lexie he moved me to a big mascara-laden tear. Which he spotted and teased me about after.

But THEN came the best bit.
Not the live band, who were great.
Not Lexie's quick change into a dress that had her look like Grace Kelly in High Society (I love that film).
Not the DJ playing from the list of 'always makes me dance' tracks that we all had to fill in on our RSVP slips, although that was terrific fun too.
Not even going outside in the dark to watch a fire-eater juggle, swallow and generally endanger himself with flames (although his finale with a double ended staff of fireworks he spun to make himself a human Catherine wheel was pretty darned amazing). Seriously. An actual fire eater. How cool is that!

No, for me the absolute best bit was the gentleman in spats who taught the whole wedding how to Charleston. 

It was ASTONISHINGLY good fun. We laughed, gasped, sat down exhausted to catch our breath and threw ourselves into it again as soon as we could. We bumped into each other, stumbled, lost the rhythm and found it again and by the end were doing some tolerable and extremely enthusiastic dancing in the best 1920s style. I had a blast!

Many hours later, brushing my teeth at home, I couldn't resist doing a few steps in the bathroom. I've been humming the Jeeves and Wooster theme to myself ever since.

So, even though I missed going to the fabric show in Harrogate with my ace mates Julie and Liz, even though I missed my fab pal Sue's party, and even though I missed the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special in 3D at the cinema, I am utterly delighted I was lucky enough to be there celebrating Lexie and Adnan's wedding with them. 

Congratulations to the new Mr Legge and Mrs Velic!

J x

PS - Obviously the first thing we did when we got home was watch Doctor Who before going to bed!

A Different Dream of Life

Hello webby friends.

This weekend I did Fearlessly Attempt something. Well, not fearlessly, precisely. I was extremely nervous and fretful about it but I managed it in the end.

I applied for something. It isn't a job, it's something that might eventually lead to a slight possibility of some work. But I would LOVE to do it. It's very me.

To apply I needed a CV (which I do not have), a proposal and an audition clip. 11 1/2 hours later I submitted them.

A picture totally unrelated to the topic
 but added because this entry was looking dull

 I had tried to get the work done much earlier in the week, but I kept finding other things to do than knuckle down to it. So there I was, on the final day for applications, still with most of it to do. Suddenly the reddish hard water stains on the grouting on the base of my shower seemed really offensive. I found myself on my knees, bleaching and scrubbing them furiously as it was obviously essential they be removed that very minute.

That is waaaay more intense than my usual "let's sort out all the unmatched socks" routine. I may have created a new benchmark in procrastination madness.

I sat down  to start, then panicked at the thought of it all. I checked with Mark and my Very Excellent Mates that they would all still love me if I bottled it and didn't apply. They made reassuring noises, but pointed out I'd be furious with myself if I didn't at least try.  My Most Excellent Friend Rachel - she of knitted moustache fame - asked me the crucial question - WWJD?

What would Jenni Do? Jenni Murray, Queen of Radio and all 'round total heroine.The main character in that 50 Shades bunkum might have an Inner Goddess; I have an Inner Kick-Ass Feminist.  She is remarkably like my Outer Kick-Ass Feminist but with fewer fears and less comfort eating.  Jenni would apply, obviously. And so would I. I knuckled down to work.

The easy bit was the proposal. I researched, wrote, edited, sent it to the Very Excellent Mates to look through, and my VEM Ali, who edits stuff for actually money,  suggested a few tweaks. So far so good.

The recording took many hours. Listening back to the first one shocked me.

I would like to state publicly to all the people I talk with that I am *so* sorry about my voice. I know I talk all the damned time but I had no idea my accent was so weird! I've lived in the UK for 27 years now, you'd think the Canadian bit would have vanished completely, wouldn't you. Actually, it would have been fine if it had stayed, too. But this mixed up, meandering accent is a bit odd. I'd not realised quite how much of a hybrid it is. It rather freaked me out.

Anyway, I worked and fretted. I wrote, recorded, deleted, started again. After 30 attempts I had to take a half hour break because my voice was getting hoarse. When I finally decided I had something workable I tried to open the CV Mark had cobbled together for me. It wouldn't download. I couldn't believe it.

Because Mark is a total hero, he typed one out again while I lay sprawled on the bed too tired to think straight. It was 23:24. The deadline was 23:59.

We sent the whole lot off with a whole 35 minutes to spare. Phew.

So even though the odds of getting a place are slim to none, and even though it drove me crazy trying to do it, I am chuffed with myself this week. Jenni would be proud.
J xx

Shout. Shout. Let it all out...

Hello webby mates!

Today I have rage. Big, futile, amorphous anger. I feel like this -

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

... only more so and with sound effects.
I love the world, it's a thrilling exciting place with many amazing people and places worth knowing. But sometimes the sheer assholery of the place makes me want to go about hitting it things with sticks.* Or grab the world by the face and squish its cheeks, yelling "You forgot the first rule of living: Don't be a dick."

*Props to Google's doodle for today, its 15th birthday, for having a pinata mini game so I can whack stuff with a virtual stick and not get into trouble

First there were the news stories about Asda, Tesco, Amazon etc selling 'mental patient' Hallowe'en costumes. Way to reinforce old and vile stereotypes that people with mental health problems are dangerous psychotic nutters, guys. Thanks.. Those of us stuck in the daily struggle with depression and other debilitating  mental health problems were hoping attitudes had changed enough that such images just wouldn't cut it any more. Apparently not.
I didn't even get mad about that one. I just felt resigned.

Then there were a few demented climate change deniers wheeled out to disagree with the IPCC report that paints a grim and scary future for us. Seriously, dudes. The scientific community is pretty much united. It's happening, we caused it, let's (wo)man up and start working together to fix it.

But something that really got under my skin was such a silly, commonplace thing that I can't believe how mad I got. And I got really, really mad.

Last night I watched the last episode of Music that Made the Movies on BBC4. I watch a LOT of film. I love films. But I kept thinking "I've not seen that one yet" about most of the movies Neil Brand chose to discuss. And I'd not seen them for the same reason - they felt rather blokey to me and didn't appeal at all. So I started thinking about it; where were the women in this series? Where were non-white musicians?  There was a photo of woman - Bebe Barron -  who made electronic music for Forbidden Planet as part of a partnership, but that was it. The interviewees were all men. As were the directors of the films chosen.

Then I thought about the previous episode. We had clips of Shirley Bassey and Adele singing Bond songs illustrating the use of popular songs in films. There was a short piece with the woman who secures song rights for Quentin Tarrantino, but in a "we couldn't get Quentin so he's the woman who gets the music Quentin picks." The other interviewees were Martin Scorsese, Lalo Schifrin, Richard Sherman, David Arnold, and discussion of Ennio Morricone and John Barry. Each in possession of a Y chromosome.

And the first episode - the golden age of Hollywood. Yep. Lots more white blokes. Talented, without a doubt, but still... no women? anywhere?

I'm not going to get in to a fruitless "why didn't he feature X or Y" rant. However, in case you think there are no women who made music that would fit in this series of films, I offer you the pioneering Delia Derbyshire for his Electronic episode (he'd used examples from TV in a previous episode so it's not like that was the problem) and (Oscar winning) Anne Dudley for the pop music episode. (For non-white composers, this article from 2007 has plenty to say.)

The fact that there are SO few women in film composing is a reason to feature those that we have. They are the role models, the trail blazers.

Why did I get so damned mad? It's just a TV show. Not one that is going to be seen by many, realistically, because it's on the lovely and under-appreciated BBC4. And lighten up, woman, jeez.

I got so damned mad because this is what TV is like. And film. And comedy shows. And news panels. And video games. Not only do we accept this, we don't even notice. One woman out of 5 performers is pretty common on shows like QI, but all-male-participants episodes are also a common sight. All-female comedy or news panels are as common as hens' teeth. An astonishing number films fail the Bechdel test, for heaven's sake, and that was set up as a joke about how few women are in films.

Don't get me wrong, I LIKE blokes. My dad and brother are blokes. My partner is, and 2 of my children will grow up to be. But for only 48% of the population, men do hog most of the room, don't you think?

So, I have rage.
Rage that plenty of people in product development and selection of national brands think it's fine for mental health to be equated with murderous psychopath.
Rage that those with vested interests still rail against then compelling evidence that our climate is being damaged by our actions.
And rage that our culture says women don't seem to exist at all.