February 2022

February (as always) kicked off with hourly comics day, which I somehow only remembered at lunchtime, so this year's were a bit rushed. I did a seperate blog about that day here.

February second was 2-2-22. (I only later realised that 22-2-22 was maybe more exciting, OH WELL)

Having spent the entirety of January stubbornly refusing to leave my bedroom and actually sit at my desk like a functioning adult, I finally caved when a client sent me a sufficiently complex bit of work that I was going to need my second screen. But I was NOT HAPPY ABOUT IT.

Mum came to visit for the day and we went to the Constable exhibition at the RA. I've been going to see art with my mum for my whole life, and for that I feel very greatful. I remember us going around an art gallery when I was probably aged around 12 or 13 (I think it was Tate Liverpool though I also feel like I must be misremembering because I don't recall ever being in Liverpool with her otherwise?!)... We were walking around the galleries and we saw a piece of art, I can't remember who it was by, but it was a painting of a human, but all their bodily proportions were wrong, and it looked like they were in pain. My mum was a nurse and I think art that evokes pain or blood has always been something she doesn't like to see. In fact she said to me at the time, 'thats my least favourite kind of art'. I remember walking around the rest of the gallery wondering what my least favourite kind of art was (as I had actually quite liked the piece she so took against). I came to the conclusion that my least favourite kind of art was anything which bored me. I feel like I should have evolved a more nuanced take since then, but my stance has remained pretty much the same since then — the worst sin that art can commit is to leave me unmoved.

Anyway tl;dr, Constable is boring 🙃

Of course that's not entirely fair, and actually because I was so bored by the actual paintings, I spent much longer reading the captions. Learning more about his process and ideas definitely left me with a bit more respect for him than when I had entered, but I still maintain that his actual art is utterly uninteresting. (To me). I had a bash at a Constable of my own, but fittingly I got bored halfway through :)

My throat is still fucked! I am loathe to call this long COVID, as a) I had a persistent cough even before I got COVID and b) my only other symptom is kinda low energy, but again, I think that's more of a vibe than a physical symptom, as I can definitely force myself to do things when I have to, and do generally cope physically. The low energy is more mental I guess?

Anyway WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY THROAT?! The doctor prescribed me a nose spray and an asthma pump but neither have made a jot of difference so far, blegh,

 

Anyway, time to go away for the longest time I've been away since January 2020!!! Pre-2020, I had got travel and packing down to a fine art. I was hopping around the country (and indeed, beyond) so often that I actually felt quite smug about my ability to glide around with minimal stress and minimal baggage. NO LONGER! How many tops do I need for 7 days? LESS THAN YOU THINK EMMA, you don't even sweat that much, chill out.

 

As with my last couple of trips away, my visual diary policy is all digital while travelling! (Saves me carrying a precious book and loads of pens). Anyway, I got the train up to Manchester and stayed the night with my friend Tom in Withington, South Manchester. He took me out for some of the best vegan Chinese food I've ever had.

The next day I headed over to my friends Kim and Sylvia's house. Kim is now technically my boss (I work one day a week for GFSC!) so ostensibly this was to be a 'work day'. We did indeed do some work, but then we went over to fellow GFSC employee Jazz's house, to meet PEGGY! Peggy is a semi-feral border collie that Jazz adopted around a month ago. She is an extremely good girl trapped inside an extremely scared/erratic/intense girl's body. Of course she reminded me a lot of Charlie, particularly when he first came out of the shelter. Peggy was still too scared to met me pet her, but I presented her with gifts of a licky-mat, a fancy nylon bone and some of Chase's sprats, and she very much appreciated them. (The fun of digital visual diary making is that I can cheat a bit and use a reference photo as a base. Really enjoyed making this cute digital painting!)

The next day I got the train to Hebden Bridge. I have barely been back to Hebden Bridge since I moved away in late 2019. I had planned to return a lot more often, but the pandemic put paid to that, and the longer I stayed away, the less I wanted to go back. On the one hand, my memories of that valley are of being part of an incredible artistic community, being fitter than I ever have been, and spending lots of time with my sweet Charlie, roaming over the moors. On the other hand, my memories of that valley are incessant rain, a failing relationship, a deep-seated loathing of 'the countryside', and general misery. The latter have definitely been outweighing the former, to the point where coming back now actually feels pretty grim, and I have little to no fondness for the place at all.

It WAS, however, nice to see a few old friends and share a lunch together. Plus do some lino printing!

In the evening, I met up with my friend James. He has recently moved to the area from Brighton and is looking to buy a house in HB. (He's currently renting in Halifax). Despite all my cynicism, he is a big fan of life in the valley so far, and his enthusiasm was kind of catching. I did start to remember why I moved there in the first place. (...cheap rent, lol?)

I stayed at James's place in Halifax, which was EXTRAORDINARILY NICE and made me question all my life choices. Halifax is pretty great actually. It's got so much incredible industrial history (and still to this day is a very industrial town), and all of its architecture is so shaped by this. There's kind of nowhere else quite like it, and I enjoyed spending an afternoon walking around. (Depressingly I had hoped to have another week of 'taking it easy' work wise, but all my freelance clients decided February was suddenly the time to get moving on everything, so I was pretty overwhelmed with work, and did have to spend a few hours each day working, despite this supposedly being a holiday. Maybe I am bad at holidays now?! But after a sparse January it was pretty hard to turn anything down)

One thing I wanted to do while up North was go for a proper hike (even if I knew I'd find my loss of fitness quite depressing). On Friday afternoon me and James went for momos at the Tibetan kitchen in Hebden Bridge, then hiked back to Halifax from Sowerby Bridge, up and over the hills. It was a really nice time, despite some extremely muddy and/or perilous bits (it is still very much winter). 

The next day I headed into Leeds to see my friends Daisy and Ferg, and their new baby Rowan (also to get an amazing manicure!) I had been planning on staying overnight with some other friends, but they got COVID, lolsob. So after a delicious lunch at Döner Summer, I got the train back to London. (On which I did this extremely wobbly drawing)

On the last day of my extremely un-restful holiday, our housemate Tabitha texted to let us know she wanted to move out in a month. Tabitha has been my pandemic rock, and I'm quite sad about it, especially as it was quite unexpected. But she's been going through some private life stuff of her own recently, and needs some time at home, out of London to figure her stuff out. Which is fair enough, but UUUUUUUGHHHHH I hate finding new housemates. 

I posted the ad on spareroom at around 11 on Sunday morning and within 36 hours I had SIXTY EIGHT responses. Mostly from people who were absolutely not the right fit, but mostly just a testiment to how ridiculous the London rental market is. (Especially for a place with comparatively reasonable rent like ours)

 We immediately launched into viewings, meeting 8 people on the Monday alone. I HATE THIS!

Anyway we met a bunch more people too, but Camille was by far the best. YAY CAMILLE! (She moves in on the 11th and I am really hoping we have made a good choice and she is indeed as chill and sweet and friendly as she seems)

Big storm! 

I still think about Charlie every day. I am at the stage now where I can have fond memories of him and think back happily to our time together (as everyone said would happen!)... For about one minute, at which point my brain abruptly cut-scenes to me lying on the bathroom floor, howling next to his dead body.

When does it get easier?

I was supposed to be going curling (!!!) with some friends, but the curling got cancelled because of the storm, so I unexpectedly had a day free. Decided not to mope around the house by myself, and instead took myself out for a fancy lunch by myself! (One of my favourite things to do)

The next day, me and Jay did section 12 (my second section) of the Capital ring, from Highgate to Stoke Newington. Weather wasn't great and there was some EXTREME MUD at one point (actually worse than what I encountered in Yorkshire), but we had a nice time nonetheless.

In extremely stressful news, Chase had to have a general anaesthetic to get her teeth cleaned. I was a bundle of nerves about it, but of course she was fine, albeit somewhat disgrunted and discombobulated by the whole experience.

My throat is often worse at night, so I slowly drink a hot tea and that helps. Here are some of my favourites!

Other remedies. (They do nothing but they taste good)

Took a picture of this scene on the tube to draw later. Relatedly, I wonder if I should stop numbering these diaries soon? I started numbering the days from the first lockdown in March 2020. With Boris' announcement of all restrictions being lifted and a world 'back to normal', I feel like maybe I should stop, but the world doesn't feel back to normal to me. Somehow I can't felp but feel it never will be though.

 Just a satisfying day of boring tasks that I enjoyed drawing

 

Everyone* (*surely?!) has their favoured lunchtime Boots Meal Deal combo. I genuinely feel like a Boots Meal Deal for lunch is a treat. (A Boots Meal Deal for dinner is depressing though)

I'm actually not sure if they still make the Pea and Mint fritter sandwiches any more as I haven't seen one for ages, but I am still including it here because it was a classic and I love it.

However, there is a different meal deal situation which calls for an altogether different approach — night shifts.

For my once monthly Samaritans night shift, I know I will need the additional twilight 'fourth meal' (does it have a name? Night supper?) — and for some reason I am absolutely obsessed with cheese and onion at that time of night. The boots vegan cheese and onion sandwich is kind of grotesque but I absolutely love it. (Grotesque mainly in the sense that it has basically no texture, it is however, all flavour).

Anyway, I stumbled into March blearily eyed at 6.30am walking home across London from my night shift because of the tube strike. Here's hoping the rest of the month is slightly less tired and rainy.