Day 33

 

 

My Survival Guide

So, summer is gone and we are facing a bleak winter beset with problems over which we have absolutely no control – not a jolly prospect. At the moment, under the influence of a series of beautiful autumnal days, I have decided to be bolshie. I shall resist falling into the black pit of despair for as long as possible. I have been attempting to draw up plans.

My thinking so far:

1.    Don’t sigh after the impossible. It won’t change anything and will just make you wretched.

2.    What makes you happy? How can you gather as many of these things into your life as possible?

3.    What makes you unhappy? Eliminate these things from your life.

Dealing with the last point first, I hate:

·      the lack of freedom to do what I want, when I want

·      the isolation

·      boredom

Freedom is a state of mind. It annoys me that the government can control who I see, where I can go, what I can wear etc. It doesn’t help that I have no respect for the government. 

However, if I am truthful, even if there were no pandemic, I would not be spending the winter travelling to London, Birmingham, Nottingham and Manchester to see family and friends or going to the theatre and galleries. I would be loafing around at home moaning about the weather. Equally, I would probably not be travelling abroad either and I really don’t have a problem with masks. So, it’s the fact that someone is telling me what I can and can’t do that irks. In other words I’m letting those twats get to me. 

Nobody is controlling my behaviour except me.

The same thinking goes for isolation as well. People do not throng to Herefordshire in the winter as a general rule. The people I am seeing at the moment (my Bubble) are the people I would be seeing any way. I am seeing less of my boys, that’s true, but we are phoning and emailing much more frequently and that goes for my friends as well. So, in fact, virtually, I am less isolated than I was. I do miss physical contact, but virtual contact is good – and I do have my beautifully tactile cats.

Boredom is a killer, but again a lot of it is a state of mind. In fact, there have been times when, despite the fact that I have loads of books to read, programmes to watch, projects to complete, I have nearly died of boredom – because boredom is a product of depression. 

Depression will be the real killer this winter so I have been looking at times when I have been depressed to see if there is anything I can do to stave it off – and there are ways to avoid it.

1.    (A bit sad this) Don’t drink booze if you are feeling low. It might feel great at the time, but you will be depressed in the morning. Possibly hungover as well – not good. But there is a ritual to having an evening drink which is a real pleasure. I have started making non-alcoholic cocktails with Seedlip, tonic and fruit juices. Experimenting is fun, then drinking the result in a beautiful glass with olives is a treat to look forward to.

2.    Make sure you are taking in enough fluids in general. I found that I wasn’t drinking enough – perhaps only a couple of cups of coffee a day - so I made myself drink extra water and herb teas. My spirits lifted more or less immediately and my skin also looked a lot less tired, so my vanity also got a boost.

3.    The shenanigans of politicians, national and international, upset and depress me and make me feel powerless. I can’t watch broadcast news anymore and the radio is little better. Reading the newspapers on line is more controllable, but even so can inflame and enrage me.
Enter Social media. I find having a good rant makes me feel lots better and lowers my blood pressure – and you can kid yourself that if enough of you make a fuss, something good may come about.

4.    Frequently I was waking up at 3am and not getting back to sleep again. It didn’t matter whether I read in bed or got up and tried to start the day early, I found it very depressing. The time spent waiting for the day to start is the loneliest time and it is quite possible to believe you will never see anyone again, ever.
I tried all sorts to remedy this with no success and the more tired I got, the harder it was to function. It got so that I didn’t want to go to bed at all – and therein lay the solution. Being awake between midnight and 2am is fine, for some reason. So I read the next morning’s papers, do the crossword, watch a film, then, round about 2 o’clock I go to bed with a talking book to talk me to sleep. The cats wake me at 7 for their breakfast – problem solved.

 

Preparations to foster happiness and comfort

1.    Accept that the pandemic has restricted what we can do, especially if we are old and vulnerable. Work within the new parameters to make life as comfortable as possible. Don’t fight them. They won’t go away.

2.    Realise that Brexit is also going to place restrictions on our lives. Do not accept this. Make your feelings known by any means to hand. This is your life. Fight for it.

3.    The Basics

Decide what makes your life comfortable and start making sure that you have adequate stocks to last the winter.

Warmth – can you heat your house and keep warm if the power fails?
If not, do you have jumpers, blankets and hot water bottles?

Do you have matches?

Light – do you have torches and lanterns and batteries to keep them going? (Candles are romantic and pretty, but dangerous.)

Power – do you have batteries for radios etc?

Do you have means of communication not dependent on power or Wi-Fi, eg a plug in landline?

Do you have loo paper, soap, toothpaste and shampoo?

Do you have cleaning materials and detergent?

Do you have rice, pasta, lentils and beans?

Do you have tins of tomatoes, beans and fruit?

Do you have stock cubes and spices?

Do you have garlic and olive oil?

Do you have jam and honey?

Do you have a supply of treats – most important for one’s state of mind?

4.    Entertainment

What do you like doing? This is a list of things I like to do and how I hope to fill my days:

Books

DVDs

Theatre/ballet/TV – I have subscribed to Marquee TV which has loads of West End/National Theatre/RSC productions plus opera and ballet. It’s not expensive – less than the price of two cinema tickets monthly. YouTube also has lots theatre, vintage TV, concerts and operas plus a lot of weird and wonderful stuff – you can spend many a happy hour exploring YouTube. Britbox has the back catalogues of the BBC, ITV and I believe Channels 4 and 5 have also posted stuff.

Talking Books/Audible – I use these to help me to sleep. I used to listen to the radio, but Radio 4 and the World Service are unutterably depressing and you can’t always guarantee that the music on Radios1, 2 and 3 will be soothing. Somebody reading to me usually works.

The big theatre companies are beginning to post productions online. I saw Carmen and Cav & Pag from the Royal Opera House for £3 each and you have up to four weeks to watch them.

Concerts -many orchestras are staging online concerts, some free, but all much cheaper than going to live performances.

Galleries and museums – most of the big ones are offering online tours and lectures, often free.

In fact, I have to admit that my cultural life has improved during the pandemic, because much of what I am watching would have been based in London and I couldn’t have afforded to go.

5.    It always makes me feel better, if, at the end of the day, I can look back and feel that I have achieved something. So, at the lowest level, I am trying to keep on top of the housework. (Those who know me well will understand why I class that as an achievement.)

I cook at least one meal a day from scratch, using one of my many cookery books for inspiration. This is good because you can monitor what you are eating and it takes time. I am also attempting to teach myself to cook better – so, good food and a sense of achievement.

I have started knitting again. No cold winter is going to catch me out. There are lots of sites that sell wool and EBay often has fantastic bargains. I am also going to try to make myself some warm trousers – EBay also sells fabric.

I am drawing and I intend to start painting again.

6.    Displacement activities – online and virtual shopping (which are not quite the same thing). Because I am old and asthmatic I haven’t been to the shops since the beginning of March. Waitrose and Sainsbury’s supply my needs alternately. Delivery slots are limited, so I make sure that I book them as soon as a new tranche of dates appears.
I enjoy shopping online now. It’s much more fun than doing it in person. The quality of Waitrose and Sainsbury’s food is consistently good, so there are no worries there, and I can change my mind about what I want right up to a few hours before delivery.
Virtual shopping is a less serious activity. Choose your shop and indulge your fancy. Fill your basket with everything you desire. Pick and choose and change your mind – indulge yourself. When you have amused yourself enough, just delete your basket. All the fun of shopping with no expense – and you don’t have to find a place to put it away.

7.    Planning – in the past, one of the highlights of the week was waking up on a Saturday morning and thinking, I don’t have to do anything today. The pandemic has reversed that. Now, the luxury is thinking, tomorrow I can do the washing and may be even get to iron it and put it away!
I think it helps you sleep well if, before you go to bed, you make plans about what you’re going to do in the morning. You don’t have to keep to the plans, but knowing there is some point to the day is helpful.

So, that is my survival guide. It has worked for me so far, but I realise that it won’t work for everybody, especially as it is designed for someone living on their own out in the sticks.

What are you all doing to make life tolerable? Please share any ideas.

 

Books

I was asked to read and review the following books. They are not the sort of books I would automatically choose, but I am really glad that I have read them. The third book is by another Scottish poet whom I had never read before.

 

Cottongrass Summer by Roy Dennis

 

This is a series of essays written by a naturalist, mostly about aspects of the natural world but with some polemical arguments about the state of the planet and the way forward. There are fifty-two essays, divided into the four seasons, each three to four pages long. They are snapshots from his memories, anecdotes, musings and arguments.

Sample titles include:

The Tragedy of Rare Flowers

Lynx Kittens in my Pockets

A Good Day With Red Squirrels

Genes and Wild Life Management.

The essays are short and to the point and I found them all interesting.

His accounts of the natural world are wonderfully vivid, but also quite sparing, giving enough detail to evoke the images but not to overpower them with over florid descriptions.

Two examples, one lyrical, one more polemical:

As I walked on through the forest, the birch trees’ leaves were bigger than a mouse’s ear and rang with the song of willow warblers recently returned from Africa. These tiny birds put such energy into letting us all know they are back home. There was a blackcap singing melodiously in the bird cherries – as usual, so well hidden in the foliage – while in clear view at the very top of a tall larch, a song thrush serenaded other thrushes with its beautiful song.

 

If you were to compare much of the Scottish countryside with a house, it would have missing slates, broken windows and peeling paint and the front door would stand ajar. The renovation of an old building is one way to build our personal future. Our family, our house, our health, our security and our work are essential to our wellbeing, but the ecosystem in which we live is generally uncared for and unloved.

 

The author lives in Forres, Inverness-shire and most of the essays are based in the Highlands. His descriptions are so evocative and accurate that they made me homesick for the time I lived in the braes above Beauly. Not knowing when I shall be able to return to the Highlands heightened their power and effectiveness, I think.

This is a book to dip into, rather than read at one sitting. If you read them all at once it lessens the power of the individual essays.

I enjoyed this book and I will reread it. It is the sort of book that gives more each time it is read and is a pleasure, even for those who might not think they were interested in the subject.

 

Grimoire by Robin Robertson

 

This is the first book of Robin Robertson’s that I have read. The subtitle is New Scottish Folk Tales. I’m not sure it is entirely appropriate. He has taken recognizable tropes from Scottish folklore and reworked them as poetry. The poems tell the stories not as folk tales but as the happenings behind the stories. They are both stark and at times lyrical. They have none of the cosiness of folklore. They are the antithesis of fey.

These are some of the themes:

Changelings

Outcasts

The relationship between man and animals

The nature of man

These poems are deeply embedded in Highland traditions both in the language used and the images created. The poetry is free form, some narrative, but mostly very strong images which take you inside the meaning. The language is mostly English but includes Scots and Gaelic (there is a glossary). The meaning is always clear, but the sound of Scots and Gaelic lends a vividness to the verse which would be missing if a comparable English word had been used. This could have sounded affected or pretentious, but the words are always appropriate and the device is not overused.

His images are vivid, but he never wastes a word.

An example, which I found very familiar as the geese fly over my house this autumn:

A fork of barnacle geese came over, with that slow

squeak of rusty saws.

However, there is also a bleakness in his language and imagery which matches the bleak beauty of the Highlands and the harshness of the way of life. This is complemented by the illustrations which feel as ancient as prehistoric carvings.

I enjoyed these poems very much and I loved the illustrations. I felt that the poems gave a life to the stories that they didn’t have before almost in the way that archaeological discoveries give a life to our ancestors.

 

Plague Clothes by Robert Alan Jamieson

 

I was given this book for my birthday and I am so glad, because I am not sure that I would have read it otherwise. 

The poet Robert Alan Jamieson, isolated and weak after catching Covid-19 in the spring of 2020, set himself the task of writing a poem every day following his daily walk. The poems are spontaneous reflections of the way he feels at the moment of writing - they are not reworked and encompass all the moods provoked by the virus and his slow recovery, as well as his response to the official handling of the pandemic - and are as much a part of his self-imposed recovery programme as his physical exercise.

I feel very lucky that I have been able to read them because they are so very personal, written to heal the damage that the virus has inflicted, not to divert an audience. However, by sharing them, Jamieson has given our responses to the pandemic a validity. By sharing his isolation, he has moderated mine. I thank him.

 

Survival Food

Wonderful food from the dregs of the store cupboard (Do store cupboards have dregs?)

Warm tomato mess 

 

Use any leftover bread you might have from the baker, good, fruity local olive oil and fresh, juicy garlic.

Serves 2

•        400g tomatoes

•        capers, olives, gherkins, nuts (as you wish)

•        2 garlic cloves, crushed

•        A few bay leaves

•        Two slices of bread, torn into chunks

•        Salt and black pepper

•        2 tbsp olive oil

•        1 tbsp red wine vinegar

•        A handful or 2 of oregano/basil/parsley/coriander torn

•        100g soft white cheese (goat or cow), torn into chunks, feta

·               50g hard cheese, such as parmesan, grated or shaved

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/gas 4

1.       Cut the tomatoes in half across their circumference and put in a roasting tray or ovenproof dish

2.       Throw in the capers/olives/gherkins/nuts, garlic, bay, bread, salt and pepper and drizzle over the oil

3.       Give everything a thorough mix with your hands to combine all the flavours and then

4.       Put in the oven for 12 minutes

5.       Remove from the oven and give everything a good toss around, freeing any tomatoes that have become stuck to the tray and distributing the ingredients easily

6.       Shake over the vinegar

7.       Toss in half the herbs

8.       Put the torn cheese over the top of everything

9.       Scatter over the parmesan

10.     Return to the oven for 8 minutes, or until the cheese has melted. Remove from oven

11.     Tear up the remaining basil and scatter on top, drizzle with more olive oil.

You can also serve an uncooked version of this:

Use fresh tomatoes, not tinned

Lightly toast the bread before tearing

Omit stages 4, 5 and 10

Place in fridge and chill for half an hour.

 

Some cheerful music

Le Boeuf sur le Toit by Darius Milhaud

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iqZ-lyUsNM&list=RD9iqZ-lyUsNM&start_radio=1&t=4

(I hope I have got rid of the adverts.) 

 

 

Today’s painting

The View from Garrowby Hill  

by David Hockney

This painting of the view from Garrowby Hill over the Yorkshire landscape was painted by David Hockney in 1998. It is part of a series paintings that he painted of Yorkshire that are all highly coloured and slightly stylised. It is believed that he may have painted it largely from memory.

Garrowby Hill is the highest point in the Yorkshire Wolds and we see the road twisting away into the distance. The horizon is placed high in the picture space  allowing us to see the extended patchwork of fields which make up the Wolds.

His glowing colour palette and the road curving into the distance lend an air of freedom and joy to this painting. I love it.