Month: December 2020

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Creative Chaos

My head’s a bit of a mess today. I’m trying to focus.

Prompted by my efforts with the card making (which continued yesterday) I’ve been thinking about creativity, a topic I’ve been planning to tackle for a while. In fact the post which I wrote on Monday (but didn’t share) was about how difficult it is for me to see any value in anything I make. I was coming to the end of the Christmas jumper I’ve been knitting for my daughter, when I read a Facebook post by a lady who runs a local craft shop. She’d shared some photographs from a 1980s knitting pattern magazine, showing celebrities wearing jumpers with silly slogans and daft pictures – rather like the one I’ve just made, in fact. The comments were so mocking, and in a nasty ‘What were they thinking?’ way, not a gentle way, that I immediately felt ashamed and embarrassed by my efforts. What was I thinking? More to the point, what will my daughter think? God knows. But it’s done now, I said I would make her one and I did, I made up my own pattern and didn’t consult her so that it will be a surprise. If she hates it – openly or secretly – I still enjoyed making it.

That’s why this is the first time I’ve made cards for anybody other than my nearest and dearest – because what if they think they’re just naff? (Actually, two years ago, when the lino-printing classes were still running, I made some Christmas cards, but never sent any of them for exactly that reason.) Well, I suppose with these people I never see, it doesn’t matter what they might think, because who really cares that much about Christmas cards anyway? What really matters is that I enjoy the process. And that links in with what I was saying a while back about the quest and the prize, the journey and the destination, the process and the outcome.

So yesterday, I did some more, and because the one I’d done on Friday wasn’t too bad, I stuck with the same design, finishing the exteriors of six cards, although I also need to do more inside them. I made a conscious effort not to get stressed but just to enjoy it – even when I still kept losing things and making mistakes. There are lots of little bits and things to get lost, and lots of little steps that have to be done in the right order, and that is exactly the kind of thing which does make me stressed, because it’s hard for me to hold a plan in my head and remember what I need to do next – which is why it always takes me so long. But I took my time, tried not to give myself a hard time, and got into a rhythm.

Practice, repetition and routine is good. Anything creative is risky. What I do may be crap – there again, it might get better if I keep trying.

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Round Robin

I didn’t post on here yesterday, but I did write my annual letter, sent to a handful of people from years ago whom I’m still in touch with enough to send Christmas cards and write to once a year. I don’t really know if the recipients are pleased to get it or resent being sent a computer-written and printed ‘round robin’ style letter. I used to edit each one for the specific person it was going to, but as the years pass and the interval since I saw them all in person grows longer, I think – well, at least this is better than nothing. At least they know I’m still alive. One person sends me a similar letter, one sends me a handwritten letter, most just a card with maybe a few words or just the usual greetings.

The handwritten letter is from the longest-standing friendship of them all, a friend from school, who went to teacher training college in London for three years in the 1970s and returned afterwards to the village she’d left, married the brother of a girl we were at school with, and taught at the village school all her working life. The last time I saw her was at her silver wedding anniversary party in the village hall in 2004, and before that, her 21st birthday party. In the quarter-century in between, we’d lost touch, until my Mum, one day in the 1980s, had a phone call from her asking ‘are you the Mrs Rushby who used to live in…?’ and passed on my address.

The letter I wrote yesterday turned out to be a little longer (600 words) than these daily offerings, about how I’ve been, and what I’ve been up to (not a lot, apart from the wedding) and my plans for Christmas – which changed anyway in the course of writing because I got a message from my daughter saying that my granddaughter is now quarantined till the 16th because a child in her class has tested positive for Covid, so I won’t be going to see them next weekend. And as usual it’s a computer-produced letter, but I decided yesterday morning that I would make Christmas cards this year, using the vast array of card-making equipment (die-cutting machine, metal dies, stamps, inks, sheets of patterned card and paper, scissors, glue, stickers etc etc etc) which I’ve acquired over the last two years.

I won’t go into the background story of how I started that particular hobby (not today anyway), but I will say that although it’s fun some of the time, I also find it unbelievably stressful. This is partly because there is absolutely no way for me to avoid creating a massive mess with all the stuff, and also (and related) that it takes me ages to make anything because I am constantly looking for the thing that I had in my hand only ten minutes earlier.

Yesterday I started with a determination NOT to get stressed, to keep it simple, and tidy.

I will try again today.

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Trees

I went out in the van yesterday. The weather didn’t improve, but it didn’t get significantly worse (ie start actually raining) until I was ready to drive home.

In Sainsbury’s I didn’t buy sandwiches, but bacon and baps (as well as dark chocolate and ginger biscuits, and mini Reese’s peanut butter cups – can’t go out in the van without chocolate).

At the country park I went where I always go, to one of the car parks near the ‘dog activity area’, up among the trees. I set off to walk – going downhill, which is not a good plan because then you have to go uphill on the way back, so I circled around, scrambling between tree stumps and bramble patches, moving roughly parallel with the road. This is my usual route – plunge off in between the trees as far as the cycle track, head uphill towards the large car park where the toilets are, make use of the facilities then wander back to the van and put the kettle on.

There were occasional flashes of light between the trees when the clouds briefly parted, but not being a proper photographer, just a point-and-click merchant, my attempts to capture the light shining off twigs or patches of grass were obscured by the contrast between the dark ground and lighter sky creeping in to reduce the exposure. Not a twig twitched in the still air, no rustling in the tree-tops, not even any bird sounds, just the drone of the motorway in the valley.

It looked as though the area where I was had been managed in rotation – there were patches with individual bramble twigs a few inches high, like the ones that pop up in my garden, others where they were spindly bushes maybe a couple of feet tall, still spaced out but close enough so you couldn’t walk between them, and later, up near the toilets, proper overgrown briar patches. I wondered about this, it must have been cleared at some point, presumably chopped back to the ground or uprooted (again like my garden). I didn’t think it had been done by grazing, I don’t think there are any grazing animals in the park, and anyway, does anything eat brambles? Maybe goats – definitely no goats around though.

I went back to the van and lit the camping stove. I couldn’t find the frying pan – must have taken it out to wash up and not brought it back, I suppose, like the cups that other time. But there’s a grill pan – not that I’ve ever used the grill – so I used that on top of the stove. I found the removable handle in the drawer and attached it to the grill pan, but because it was on a slope the pan slid and the flames caught the handle. I managed to grab it in time and blow the flames out, but the plastic had melted so that now the detachable handle doesn’t any more.

But the bacon baps were delicious.

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Shoulds

I can see from my window that it must have been a glorious sunrise, but even though I was awake in time – even though I was up in time – I didn’t go to the sea to watch it, and now I wish I had. Wait, didn’t I say a while back that I didn’t do regret? I think you’ll find I said that the only things I regret are the ones I don’t do, and I didn’t go to see the sunrise.

Yesterday was such a nice sunny day that I thought, I should really have taken my van out – I thought that at about half past eleven, when it was really too late, so I told myself that today I’d plan to go out and take a picnic, because if I tell myself in advance there’s a better chance that I’ll do it. But then yesterday evening and first thing this morning I looked at the weather forecast, and it said it was going to be cloudy, so I more or less convinced myself that that was a good enough excuse not to do anything about it, to stay home again listening to the radio and sorting out my weather blanket. Now I can see sunshine on the roofs opposite and a clear sky behind and I’m not so sure that that excuse is valid.

Taking the van out always feels like it’s going to be a chore, to make sure the battery doesn’t pack up and avoid getting a telling off from the guys at the garage. It’s taking up time that I could be spending sitting in the armchair crocheting. Because yesterday I finished the Christmas jumper – apart from annoying tasks like sewing in the ends, and I’m not seeing my daughter till Friday week, so there’s plenty of time to sort those out.

Now that shaft of bright sun has disappeared, and I can see that what looked like a ‘clear’ sky is actually a solid sheet of high, light cloud – but it still doesn’t look bad enough to use as an excuse. And it’s a month since I took it out – once a month over winter should be enough to keep it ticking over. Do I have to go all the way to the country park? My parking season ticket is still valid. I can go into Sainsbury’s on the way and buy a picnic, drive there and park under the trees, make a cuppa and sit inside the van if it’s raining.

I know that’s what I should do. Here we go again, about the ‘shoulds’. This is not just what some voice from childhood is muttering into my inner ear. It’s something that I know will make me feel better once I’ve done it, and that I also know won’t be as bad as it seems once I get started – but I still don’t want to do it. Which is the story of my life – so really, I know I have to go.

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Home Decor (continued)

Yesterday I wrote but didn’t post, because I felt it was too miserable, just read it again and it doesn’t seem so bad, should I post it instead of writing anything today? Because I don’t feel any better today than I did when I wrote that. Or should I try and write something innocuous, about bookshelves, maybe?

I said on Sunday that I’d been thinking I needed some shelves in the front room – despite the fact that only last year I finally got someone to come and take away the unit which was in there, which had shelves and cupboards at the bottom and a smoked glass fronted cupboard at the top, because I thought it was taking up too much space. But when I started thinking about shelves again, I had in mind something that could go in one of the alcoves either side of the fireplace, which would be more out of the way. The study is full of IKEA ‘Kallax’ cube units, which I bought because they’re so versatile – they’re a good size for box files, jigsaws, albums (the vinyl, musical kind and the photographic kind, both of which I’ve got lots of), and you can get extra storage things to fit in them, like soft boxes which you can stuff with knitting wool, and internal shelves, and drawers, and little doors to turn them into cupboards… except, of course, mine have just got stuff dumped indiscriminately on them. I could fit a two-by-four sized one into that alcove, but maybe something else would be better?

On our way back from the trip to IKEA, my daughter and I dropped in at her Dad’s place, to pick up the grandson whom he’d collected from school, and were talking about this dilemma, when my ex said:

‘Would the ones I got from Argos be what you’re looking for?’ So we went into his dining room and looked at two quite simple, basic, nice-looking bookcases, which is why, on Saturday when I was looking to buy them online, I looked at the Argos ones, and ordered one from there instead of IKEA – despite the fact that we bought cheap furniture from Argos years ago, and it was always a bit rubbish – but hey, I’m not anticipating a spread feature in Better Homes and Gardens, so anything I can just shove stuff onto in the corner will suit me fine.

It was delivered, in two boxes, on Sunday morning, and in a fit of enthusiasm I opened the box and read the instructions. All looks pretty straightforward, and I was tempted to launch into assembling it straight away, then thought: is it sensible to start doing this straight away when there are so many other things I’ve got to do?

So I now have two large cardboard boxes lying on the front room floor, which I ignore and step over, and the cat is slowly learning to navigate around, or stare at until I push them out of her way.