Welcome to Night Vale

I've always loved having a long, relaxing soak in the bath: scented bath products, candle, glass of wine maybe and music. For a long time, my music of choice would be the album Come Away with Me by Norah Jones. For me it was perfect bath music. I listened to it so often that if I ever heard a track outside of my bath time, I would experience an echo of the feeling of nakedness and vulnerability that accompanies one's ablutions and was exploited to the extreme by Hitchcock in the shower scene of the classic movie Psycho.

I am now smiling as I remember a short video I made a long time ago for a competition to win a Macbook Pro. The brief was to recreate a scene from a movie using potatoes. (The competition must have been sponsored by a 'potato related' company, I can't quite remember). I attempted, with my limited editing skills and equally limited artistic ability, to recreate the famous shower scene. I did not win the Macbook but I did have a such a good time making "Psycho Potato".

Norah Jones no longer provides the soundtrack to my bath time. Instead, I listen to a podcast entitled Welcome to Night Vale. My daughters introduced me to this little gem. It is in the style of a community radio broadcast set in an unusual town where events such as a portal opening during  a PTA meeting to allow flesh eating dinosaurs to pass through and cause bloody mayhem, are not uncommon. It is entertaining but at the same time, gently challenges your belief in self, society and existence.  Welcome to Night Vale! The real magic of the show is the combination of clever scripting and the beautiful voice of Cecil Baldwin who narrates it... a voice more mellow even than Norah Jones singing Come Away with Me.

I used to listen to the podcast in bed but there were two problems with this: my husband hates it and the soothing tone of Cecil Baldwin sent me to sleep almost instantly. Listening in the bath is perfect. I don't generally tend to fall asleep but I can achieve a wonderful level of relaxation and enrichment (especially when the glass of wine option box is ticked). There is a segment during the show called 'The Weather' which consists of a song or instrumental piece (that usually has nothing do with the weather!) It is just the right length of time for me to wash my hair so I don't miss any of the main show. This makes me happy.

Last night, I couldn't sleep. I put on the podcast hoping that Cecil could work his magic but he couldn't. I don't feel as frazzled as I thought I would this morning but I am weary. We only have this week to get through before our half term break begins. I am very ready for that break.

I feel that we have achieved a milestone having nearly completed the first half of our Michaelmas term. Now, we need some time to process all the changes that we have been dealing with since we first arrived here at the tail end of August. We need a quick life audit to see where we are and where we want to be. I am hoping for some 'two episode long' bath times.

End of an Era

Yesterday, the sale of my house in Shropshire completed.

On one hand I am really pleased about this. The lawn does not stop growing because we are not there to mow it and who knows what problems we might have suffered if it had remained unoccupied through the cold winter months.

On the other hand it represents the end of an era and I have to let go of a house I loved.

It was not a perfect house. The rolling programme of maintenance and repairs took up a lot of our time and energy. The garage door was the bane of my life and pulling in and out of the drive could be tricky at times. It was not perfect but it was such a good home for us: the home that my husband and I made together, the threshold he carried me over after our wedding, every room echoing with wonderful memories.

We have a new home now. We don't own it but we will be here for the next three years at least so I am happy to invest time and energy to make it the best home it can be for us. It is much smaller than our old house so I was delighted that it managed to accommodate nearly all of the furniture I had collected over the years. Even my very large mirrors fit perfectly into their new settings. I had to get rid of two big comfy leather sofas (they were very old and tired anyway), a dining table and chairs (I had two sets and kept my favourite) and our Eminent Solina F225 (Charis made sure she had a farewell organ session while she still could). A super king sized bed that my husband had made was repurposed as shelving.

Being surrounded by familiar things is comforting and I am taking ownership of the garden by trimming, pruning and generally hacking at anything that looks even remotely overgrown.We may have downsized but I am determined to make that a positive force in our lives.. a way of living a simpler life free of clutter and confusion. It is almost working!

One thing I thought I would really miss from my old home was the greenhouse with its grape vine. It had become a bit of a tradition to harvest the grapes and make grape jelly for our Christmas day breakfast. The new house does not have a greenhouse but it does have a grape vine. Today, I made grape jelly.

I love that I can carry the good things from my old life into the new. I love the challenges that relocating and downsizing have forced us to face. Now that we are settilng into our routines and thinking about the future, I know that I am going to love discovering new traditions and ways of finding fulfilment.

The sale of my old house represents the end of an era but I am more than ready for the start of a new one.

A Minor Mishap

I feel so guilty.

My wonderful husband didn't bat an eyelid when he came home from work yesterday to find 'the little mess' I'd made earlier - the little mess that had actually doubled in size during the course of the afternoon after I had posted about it on my blog.

He set about taking all the hedge clippings, dead wood and other random garden debris through the side gate, up onto the raised deck, down the steps onto the lawn, over the somewhat water logged grass and finally onto an ever growing pile of similar waste waiting to be collected by a man with a trailer (I am hoping a very capacious trailer!)

The first problem was the 'through the side gate' part.

I had helpfully placed the pile onto a large tarpaulin thinking that all he would need to do would be to wrap the tarp around and tie it up to create a draggable bundle. This he did. The bundle was indeed draggable (provided you had sufficient body weight and knew how to use it). Unfortunately, the bundle was not 'pass-through-side-gate-able'. A goodly portion of the tangled mass had to be transferred into an oversize bag and taken separately to the intended destination before the remainder could be re-bundled and dragged once more.

Through the gate, up onto the raised deck and ... oh dear. Disaster struck.

The deck is in desperate need of a good pressure wash and re-oil. In its current state it can be quite slippery... and when you are not wearing the most appropriate footwear and dragging a bundle that is at least as big as you are, you might expect the possibility of a mishap. Although I did not witness the mishap, from his description of it I can report that it was a dramatic, high speed, uncontrolled backward tumble flat onto his back with resultant bang to backside and head.

He did eventually succeed in his mission to clear up my mess. He sustained  no serious damage but had a tender spot on the back of his skull and the knowledge that he was a clumsy fool.

He felt tenderness and embarrassment... and I felt guilt.

My guilt dictated that today I would steer well clear of the garden and my tendency to get carried away with the task at hand.

I baked instead. I hope that the job of 'clearing up' apple cake and cookies will be more agreeable.