November 2021

I'm starting to sound a bit like a broken record now, but... November was a lot?! Mostly me frantically preparing for MA hand in, then trying to let my hair down post hand-in, then realising rapidly that IT AIN'T OVER YET

It started quite nicely though — I went to my first gig since the before-times. It was kind of a surprise, as I hadn't been planning on it, but my friend George had a spare ticket for jazz man Matthew Halsall at the Barbican, and I decided that it might be a good opportunity to ease myself back in gently, even if I did spend the whole evening tensing up whenever anyone coughed.

Music was beautiful though and I'm at the age now where a seated show is [whisper it] ...quite nice

 Some days it be like that. Though hormones may have played a part in this one.

With my MA final project hand-in deadline looming, I struggled to find time to focus on it because of work commitments.

I guess you could say I have some amount of regret about deciding to make 30 sets of 144 tiny items, many of which require folding...

A whole year since my perfect boy left us. I still can't believe it, and it still hurts every single day. The way he went. The space he left behind. It really does feel like the pain will never go away.

But we've been so lucky to have our new friend Chase in our lives for most of this year, who has been such a comforting and supportive presence. We're still getting to know her ways, and, unsurprisngly given her fear of thunderstorms, fireworks night was an upsetting time for her. Even more upsetting because on the 5th there were informal displays, and on the 6th and 7th there were MASSIVE displays in Battersea Park, which is very close to our house. Three days of big bangs! We tried out the 'thunder shirt' on the recommendation of our vet — it's a tight jersey suit with velcro fastenings, with which you can effectively swaddle your dog, and for many this has a substantial calming effect. This made a little difference we think, and is probably good for day to day scaries like 'hockey ball go bang' or 'smol thunderstorm', but didn't really cut it for the ultimate dog scare fest that is fireworks night. So I got her one of the dog pheremone collars, that supposedly slow-release the same pheremones nursing mother dogs give off to comfort their puppies. This definitely made a difference to Chase. She was still scared but was much more able to lie still and calm, and wasn't constantly shaking and drooling and panting. Will definitely get her another one next year!

It's kalette season yo, can't beat 'em. My favourite is roasted in the oven with salt and olive oil until crispy!

Readers of last month's blog may have been wondering, does Emma have lung cancer?! I am pleased to confirm Emma does not have lung cancer, or COVID, just a persistant, unexplained cough. Sadly the next set of tests I'd need to establish cause (maybe allergies or something else) aren't running at the moment (because of COVID), so unless it gets much worse, GP's official advice is 'keep on toughing it out and call us again in the new year'. I am entirely fine with this outcome, mostly just relieved to not be dying.

My final MA project is very colourful, and I got my nails coloured to match! (Despite having very little free time, I decided that this was important)

When my partner goes away, I have to get up at around 6 to take Chase out for her morning toilet. (We don't have a garden so this involves about a 10 minute round trip, so it's impossible to just stay asleep while doing it). Much though I hated having to do this every day when I lived alone with Charlie, having to do it occasionally tends to spur me on to a very productive day. I wish I could happily wake up at 6am every day!

Felt like my visual diaries had been getting a bit lazy (I mean, I HAVE been busy), so did a painting of some lovely plants from the park to try and make up for it. (Also maybe procrastinating putting the finishing touches on my project)

Official submission day for our final MA project was November 16th, but I was done on the 14th and sick of looking at the damn thing, so I just uploaded it and decided to have a rest. If there was anything I could have done in those 48 hours that would have upgraded me from a pass to a merit, or a merit to a distinction, I sure as hell don't know what it was.

To celebrate my (very brief) newfound freedom, I took a London excursion up to Mill Hill East, to wave my friends Jonathan and Dan off before their big move to Australia. I'd never been to Mill Hill East before. They gave me a nice hot chocolate and took me to a cute garden centre. I was also very excited to travel the entire way there up the Northern Line, starting from my new local station Battersea Power Station! (Yes I am a big nerd, we know this by now) (Also I dated this one wrong, d'oh!

Actual hand in day was a bit of an anti-climax, with the post-hand-in meeting mostly consisting of our head tutor saying 'yes yes, well done, now here's the million other things you have to do before the end of term'. I did treat myself to a lie in and lots of delicious foods though, so that was something.

Our formal submission day was on the 16th, but that was just a digital submission. We had the chance to drop off our physical outcomes at uni the next day, but that too was a bit of an anticlimax.

If you're interested in seeing my project, I have a dedicated website for it here, which has a nice explainer of it in the 'about' section.

There's also some photos of the physical object/set (and my lovely nails) on my creative instagram, here

Anyway, over the last couple of pandemic/MA years I've put on over a stone — because Charlie died (less exercise and also sad), I've been sitting at my desk a lot, and because food is a great joy that I refuse to deprive myself of. I'm not happy though, I hate struggling to run for a bus and getting tired going up the stairs, so IMMEDIATELY after hand in (perhaps too keen given how much work I still have to do), I went and joined the gym over the road. It's run by a private company, but I'm pretty sure is as close as this jurisdiction gets to a local authority gym. It's very cheap, slightly laissez-faire in some respects, and crucially has a real cross-section of the local community attending (in terms of age, fitness level, race, everything!)

Gyms are scary but this one felt welcoming, and because I got a student membership I get to attend all classes for FREE! And I got two free personal trainer sessions, which was mildly terrifying. I was paired up with an incredibly hench Persian man who used to be on the UK olympic weights team. Unsurprisingly, he tried to get me to do weights. I told him no to weights, but did take on board a lot of his advice about incorporating strength training into my workout, not just cardiovascular (i.e. using the lift-heavy-things machines not just the get-out-of-puff machines)

I like the gym so far, but we'll see if it sticks in the longer term.

I immediately jumped on the free classes bandwagon and had a great time at ZUMBA

In other 'finally finished my MA' (kind of) errands, I went down to Brighton, especially to get a haircut from my old hairdresser there, who I lost for a few years and then finally re-found. He gave me a dramatic haircut that is still growing on me. (Literally, I guess).

Here's said haircut (and some embarassingly bad drawings of my face, some days drawing just... doesn't work?!)

Went for my second personal trainer session and he made me flap the ropes about like an idiot, and yes I know all the hot hench men do it, but I will not be flapping the ropes again.

Went to give blood (which I have done numerous times before) and the nurse inserted the needle into my arm in a way that made me say 'SOMETHING'S WRONG' and quietly 'aaaaaaaagggghhhhhhh' so as not to alarm the people waiting to give, until she took it out again. Possibly she hit a tendon? Or just went in wonky? Anyway they gave me this very gentle leaflet called 'Arm Care', which should basically have been called 'So we fucked up your arm', full of information about when to panic and when not to panic. (Anyway don't let that put you off giving blood, it's a good thing to go and they give you snacks!)

I've mostly managed to stave off the winter blues quite well so far, but we kept getting the central heating wrong and the house felt like an icebox, and I got quite miserable.

As well as being very busy with freelance work, one of the things we have to organise before the end of term is a 'symposium' day, which celebrates the launch of a small publishing press associated with the course, and the publication of the course's annual book of critical design writing (which I, remarkably, have contributed to). I've been involved with the press and will be running a workshop on the day of the symposium, which obviously comes with a fair bit of organisational stress (though to be fair, other people on my course are taking on the brunt of that, it's still occupying a lot of my headspace).

I begun to somewhat regret my mid-October attitude of 'book loads of fun stuff after hand in day', because it turned out hand-in day absolutely did not mark the beginning of chill out time. BUT, tickets had been booked, so off me and my partner went to the museum of brands, which I can highly recommend if you have a couple of hours to kill near Notting Hill. We also went to Nakanojo, a quite-fancy Japanese Peruvian place for lunch, and it was some of the best restaurant food I've had in a long time! I want to take everyone there! (But you're paying next time). Was fun to have a cute date, which, considering we've been dating for nearly 2 years, we've had remarkably few of. Pandemic'll do that I guess...

 
One longstanding bone of contention for me on our course was UAL's stubborn refusal to offer us an end of year show. Maybe it's stupid but it was a big thing for me — I love grad shows and was really looking forwards to the chance to show off my work and see it alongside that of all of my cohort. The general attitude from our tutor in charge of organising the end of year event/s (NOT Tony pictured here, who is great) was 'the symposium is all you're getting, no you can't display your work there, tough it out', which I found, frankly, unhelpful, but I had come to peace with the fact that, ostensibly for COVID related reasons, we would not get a show. (Even though no one else seems to be letting COVID stop events running any more, for now at least)

So it came as a bit of a surprise to have it hinted at on hand-in day that maybe there WOULD be an on-site show, and then, just a week before said show was expected to go up, to be told that we would recieve no assistance in organising it, and that if none of us stepped up to plan, curate, hang, label etc, we would simply not get a show. ONE WEEK before the show hang. 

Having desperately wanted a show, but also being super busy with other work, I waited, and waited, and waited for someone else on the course to step up and say 'yeah, I'll organise it'. But no one did. Most of the kind of people who like doing this stuff were already occupied with the symposium day, and most of the kind of people who don't like doing this stuff had literally gone on holiday (seeing their lovely tourist snaps on instagram made me grit my teeth a little).

So anyway hey guess what, I'm organising a show, it hangs on Friday, opens next Tuesday, and if you wanna come I'll share a link to the tickets page with people who subscribe to my newsletter. (Not gonna put it out here for general consumption as I think numbers are somewhat limited).

So now I am VERY STRESSED but in like 2 weeks this will all be over and I can stop writing about how stressed I am! (I hope)

Spent all day today drawing up an elaborate plan for the exhibition space with everyone's work in (which incidentally is much too small for our cohort, hence needing someone to lead on layout, that someone being me). Then spent the rest of the day redrawing it upon recieving new information about the space that UAL had not deigned to share with us before. Honestly the whole thing is an absolute shitshow, we got kicked out of the building yesterday because it flooded, all the academic staff are going on strike tomorrow because the university treats them like crap, and the other tutor who was supposed to be offering me assistance with this simply is not responding to her emails. Feeling less affectionate towards academia every day tbh

WISH ME LUCK 😅 (I am using that emoji about 20 times a day at the moment)

October 2021

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...