Well, October ends and I feel like I'm just clinging on by my fingertips. I continue to be very stressed about my MA, but also 'conveniently' have had a number of very demanding freelance projects too. The upside of this is that I head towards the end of the year on relatively stable financial footing... The downside of this is that I AM EXHAUSTED.
Another downside of being so busy is that I feel I haven't been able to do very much other than sit at my desk and work. (I've even taken a short leave of absence from Samaritans, which was one of my only other 'getting out of the house' opportunities)... So it was really nice to go and see the 'Summer' Exhibition at the Royal Academy with my mum, something we've been doing together for well over a decade. Last year was the first year I ever missed (and am still sad about), so it was great to be back. This year it was curated by Yinka Shonibare and it truly felt like a breath of fresh air into what can sometimes (even in the full riotousness of the summer exhibition) be a slightly stuffy institution. Highly recommend checking it out while it's still on, if you get the chance.
Having complained about being too busy, I can hardly believe that it was this month that I did actually manage to have a short break. My friend Davey, (who we basically lived with for much of 2019 in Hebden Bridge, and who was like, one of the fastest and most emotionally supportive friends I've ever had, during a very difficult time) was over visiting from his home in Montana, USA. He was spending nearly a month over here, mainly for a friend's wedding but also hopping around seeing other folks he knows in the UK, including us. I met him very jetlagged off the flight and we got a train up to York together to stay with Justin and Dav. THE GANG ARE BACK TOGETHER! (Perhaps sentimentally I think of this group of people as probably my best friends, despite their geographic location on the other side of the country and world, mostly because of our very active whatsapp chat day-to-day)
As you might have noticed, these visual diaries look a little different to usual — I've decided (as I did on my last mini break) to do holiday visual diaries digitally, on my ipad. It's a fun change! Anyway, I was delighted to finally get to visit the National Railway Museum in York, and it was EVEN BETTER than I expected. Very highly recommend (for someone with even a passing interest in trains), and it's free! Here I am during my favourite bit, walking through a 1980s Japanese Shinkansen train!
We decided we should go on a proper expedition one day, so we got the train over to Knaresborough to visit 'Mother Shipton's Cave'. Knaresborough is a beautiful small Yorkshire town with a stunning railway viaduct and lots of quaint shops. We had our lunch at a lovely 1940s style tea-room which was unexpectedly entirely vegetarian and mostly vegan, and served up classic British sandwiches with a few crisps on the side of the plate in a way which made me feel unexpectedly sentimental about my childhood.
Mother Shipton's Cave is maybe one of the most tourist-attractiony tourist attractions I've ever been to. Like, the entire thing is one big gimmick which they've dressed up as much as possible, but a gimmick dating back to the 1700s, so it feels disconcertinly legit. Mother Shipton was supposedly like, a witch or something, who had prophecies, and was born in said cave.
You walk along the side of the river past various 'spooky' wooden sculptures, before reaching the three central parts of the attraction. The first is an utterly bizarre calcifying waterfall — the water is so naturally mineral rich that objects suspended underneath it 'turn to stone' within just months of hanging there. So hanging from underneath the waterfall is all sorts of random tat donated by a seemingly endless stream of minor celebrity visitors. Stuff like 'The winner of GBBO's sock' or 'A Blue Peter Presenter's Teddy Bear' or whatever. (In the shop at the end of the attraction is a display showing these items throughout the ages and it's kind of hilarious for reasons I can't quite explain, just feels very... British-folklore-but-kind-of-shit).
The next bit (actually by far the best bit) is a supposed wishing well. You go sort of, behind the waterfall, in a way which feels articifically constructed but has supposedly been there for so long that maybe it can't have been? Anyway there's this darkened cave with a shallow stone pool at waist height where legend has it if you dip your left hand in the water, make a wish, and then wait for it to dry naturally, Mother Shipton will grant that wish. I don't normally go in for that kind of thing, but actually there was something strangely meditative about the dipping of the hand and thinking about the longed-for thing.
Obviously as with all 'make-a-wish' settings you can't tell anyone what the wish was, but we did all promise each other that we would let each other know if we got our wish.
The final bit of the attraction is 'Mother Shipton's Cave' itself, which was hilariously underwhelming... A not-even-very-big cave in the side of the hill with a slightly creepy voiceover explaining Mother Shipton's story.
The whole thing was so silly that I would actually weirdly recommend it if you're ever anywhere near Knaresborough.
Anyway, no rest for the wicked — Davey was staying on a few more days in York but I needed to get back as uni term was starting again! Had a lovely vegan lunch at 'Doner Summer' and got my nails done before heading home, feeling at least somewhat refreshed for 2021's final push.
Had an errand to run at Wimbledon shopping centre, the top floor of which was almost entirely abandoned, and eeeerrie
Our MA is kind of weird in that it's 15 months long, which means for a brief period between September and December every year there are two cohorts. Got to see the next class and remember how terrified I was back then. At least now the feeling is 'stressed' rather than terrified?!
Peeling off anti-vax stickers in my neighbourhood as fast as they go up 🙃
Weirdly, landed a freelance job editing someone's podcast, hire me for your audio editing needs now I guess?!?! (I'm probably wildly underqualified for this but I guess the secret is to be just slightly more qualified than the person who wants you to do the job)
Had a somewhat unexpected houseguest, which was fun. David was working at a convention who were supposed to put him up the night the con ended (Sunday), but at the last minute said he would actually have to fund his own hotel. Emma's house to the rescue! I probably wasn't the best host due to too-much-work, but it was really nice to see a new person.
He stayed a second night to have a bonus catch up with some London friends, so we squeezed a game of Wingspan out of him!
My new favourite dinner — Yottam Ottolenghi's Chaat Masala Potatoes!
Some days you send a lot of emails
Heidi has made a small but vital contribution to my MA project which she swung by to drop off. Yay!
I decided I should maybe try natural deoderant as I don't sweat that much and should think about ways of reducing my plastic use. But guys, it was... bad
SOME DAYS IT BE LIKE THAT
Finally reeled in by the instagram ads (and a voucher from a friend), decided to try Hello Fresh. Conclusion — not enough vegan options to make it viable long term, quite a waste of packaging, BUT, genuinely really delicious meals, helpful to take the stress out of meal planning a little, and actually forced me to do a proper cook, which was probably good.
A digital ad display board near my house is broken and it's a super fun glitchy time.
Another 'aaaargh' day
Sometimes you gotta treat yo' self. (Even if I end this year a stone heavier, if I ALSO have an MA, rent paid, and my sanity, I'll consider it a success)
Oh I'm not stressed enough already? How about a 'maybe you have lung cancer' to add to the cocktail. Disclaimer, I almost certainly do not have lung cancer, but I HAVE had a persistent (non-COVID) cough for months. Well, I say persistant... It's more like, once a week I will have an absolutely agonising, uncontrollable coughing fit where it feels like I have inhaled a throatful of dust... and then nothing the rest of the time. I'm wondering if living on a busy road is finally taking its toll? Or some new allergy? But obviously the first thing the doctors have to rule out is lung cancer, so I got to go have an X-ray, which was pretty fun. Anyway here's the ridiculous bit. I called the GP with my symptoms and got an appointment within two days. They referred me for an X-ray which I went and got within another 2 days. The results are returned to my GP surgery by early the next week. SO EFFICIENT! I call to get my results... 'Oh we can't give out results over the phone'. So... can I get my results? 'You'll need an appointment'. When can I get an appointment? THREE WEEKS AWAY
So now I just have to... wait?! With the looming dread that there's a tiny chance I may have cancer? With the results just sitting there at the surgery? I love the NHS but ffs. Anyway fingers crossed, eh. (I'm trying not to be too scared — I am under 40, have never smoked, and in relatively good health albeit a bit unfit, and have a pretty good diet. My risk level is low. Gotta keep telling myself that until the 9th anyway.)
My beautiful girl has been a bit of a stress bundle during the latter part of this month. Both fireworks fear (more on that later) and a bit of a bad tummy which we're not really sure of the cause. We've had three nights in the last week where she's woken us at 2 or 3am because she needs to go out and have diarhea (a word which I cannot spell and refuse to learn though I know there is some kind of funny phrase to help you remember it that involves 'Hurry Hurry' so there are definiely two H's in there...) Luckily no incidents in the house because she is a strong and dignified girl who knows it's more than my nerves can handle after my Charlie poo trauma, but still, not ideal. It seems to be linked to her having wet food, but it's the same wet food she's always had, so... bad batch? Or just coincidence? Hopefully she's past it now, but the sleep deprivation has definitely not been helpful to me...
I liked my Lucy and Yak trousers and jumpsuit so much that I bought a cheap pair of their dungarees on Depop and hey guess what I like them too (in fact I am wearing them right now)
You know when you've been focussing really hard on one very specific goal that will be accomplished by a very specific time and then you have a sudden 'woah then the rest of my life on this crumbling planet' moment? That.
Anyway, on to cheerier things, croissants in a can!
Fry's regular (?) cream is like the most disappointing vegan chocolate bar. Fry's Mint cream is fine in a pinch, if you want something a bit like a chunky After Eight. Fry's Orange cream is a very rare find, and extremely good. Fry's Raspberry cream is absolutely the new winner.
As mentioned, Chase is having a very bad time in the run up to Fireworks night. When we got her, her old owners never mentioned her fears, but I suspect that's because, when she was living with a number of other dogs, they were quite easy to ignore... she's completely silent but she pants and drools a lot, shakes, and won't settle down at all. If she's scared while out and about, she will absolutely attempt to do a runner from whatever the source of the noise. Several times in the park near our house, there have been kids setting off fireworks, and now she's TERRIFIED of that bit of the park — mostly perpetuated because there is a sports court there, and she now hears the bangs of the hockey ball hitting the sides as a scary thing (even though they weren't previously). We've had to change our walking route (quite annoying!) and go to a different (further away!) park for evening toilet time.
Around the house, she gets just as scared if she hears something she doesn't like outside. Road noise, plane noise, people etc are all fine, but bangs or thunder really set her off. Anyway, I invested in a 'thunder shirt' as the vet recommended it. I was quite cynical, but we put it on her last night when she was scared and she did SEEM to settle much faster than usual, so fingers crossed it will work next weekend. As we live right by Battersea Park, there will doubtless be lots of informal fireworks on the 5th itself, followed by the main display on the 6th, and then the bloody children's display on the 7th (children's display a new and ENTIRELY UNECCESSARY addition this year). Anyway she's gonna be a sad gorl but here's hoping this helps.
On the 29th and 30th evenings, to celebrate the new Northern line extension to Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station, there was a 'festival' called 'Line of Light', where several buildings on the above ground route of the line were illuminated, and you could listen online to audio soundtrack accompaniments. It wasn't like 'wow wow', but it was kind of cool, and nice to walk a new route I hadn't explored before, all the way from Kennington to home.
Getting meta. (A word which I guess is now ruined?)
I wish you all a happy November without too many scary bangy noises, no lung cancer diagnosis, and successful MA hand-ins for anyone else in the same boat as me...
