Once I figured out that I was able to move to London, I honestly thought I'd just be able to chill out and enjoy one more summer in Hebden Bridge (safe in the knowledge that I was not enduring one more winter), but instead my brain has decided to fully flip into 'must get out. must get out' mode. This, coupled with near constant rain (that old chestnut) means that I've not really been having the nice time I hoped I'd have this summer...
The boy's a joy though. For a while back there I was really scared that in order to move on with my life, he wouldn't be able to come with me, so every happy moment with him was tainted with the fear that I might lose him — the thought of which genuinely breaks my heart. But now I have a secure path forward for the two of us together (for at least the next couple of years, hopefully much longer), I'm able to enjoy imagining our future together, hopefully for the rest of his life. He's such a strange dog with his funny habits and personality quirks, but also THE GOODEST BOY
I had a meeting in a part of Leeds I'd never been to before and I saw some weird stuff.
Here's a visual diary about visual diaries
And another! (Had lots of fun showing some of the archives to open studios visitors at the Egg Factory, thanks so everyone who came for such kind words about my silly drawings)
Damn tho, so many cute girls in cute shorts. My perpetual sadness that whenever *I* wear shorts, I just look bad. I still believe that I have just yet to find my perfect pair, and one day I shall achieve shorts-enlightenment.
Ongoing slug horror
Went to BIRMINGHAM for the weekend! There are lots of jokes about Birmingham being not-very-nice, and I am just here to say... They're all entirely correct and Birmingham is indeed not-very-nice. However, my friend Rachel is great, she fed me good things, did the good chats, and welcomed me into her and her housemate Carolyn's lovely home.
I basically just went to Birmingham because a) I wanted to see Rachel and b) I wanted to be not in Hebden Bridge for a while, so I didn't really have any missions to accomplish, other than walking Charlie (I took him with me because I want him to get brave at travels in preparation for our big move, and he was indeed brave and good). For our main walk on the Saturday, we did a big stroll over to Carolyn's allotment, which was undoubtedly the most incredible allotment I've ever been to. It was (somewhat controversially) hedged off, and full of the most beautiful and varied flowering and edible plants, and just felt like an amazing secret hidden garden in the heart of one of the city's big parks. I loved it. Then I had some great Indian food for dinner with Rachel and watched 'Sorry to Bother You', and it was a good time.
But in general... Nah Birmingham. Mostly bleak and grimy and unfriendly and grey. I did enjoy some of the brutalist architecture in the city centre, and Birmingham New Street train station is very nice now. Carolyn gave me a gift of some handmade safflower ink (she is an illustrator and uses lots of the amazing plants in her allotment to make inks, which is suuuper cool.) I used that to shade this illustration, this lovely bright yellow hue.
And... I'm back. But I want to be gone. The valley is lush and green with foliage at the moment but it's barely dry for more than a day at a time, and every walk is just pushing through sodden leaves and getting heavy and wet and tired and miserable and I'm just so tired, so tired.
I have been accused by more than one person of having a fairly callous indifference to nature. They would not be entirely wrong, in truth. I don't really give a fuck about what the moon's doing. I'm not interested in what bird that is. I do not care for views. But I tell you what... I do like a good weird plant. (And most plants are super weird if you actually look at them up close)
Justin went away for two weeks, leaving me home alone, and for the first week of that our Hebden BFF Davey was away as well, so I did feel quite low and isolated. Always got the boy though.
That week was accompanied (coincidentally? relatedly?) with some kind of mystery malaise that left me feeling intensely exhausted, light headed, mild upset stomach and just generally achey and very very low. I couldn't figure out whether it was some kind of low-key flu, some developing malnutrition (the age old vegan howl of 'Am I getting enough B12 tho?!') or actually, literally just a physical reaction to a few months of relatively constant mental stress and upset, coupled with a (self-imposed) intense work schedule. I tried to be gentle with myself, walk the boy as little as I could get away with, and not let myself work in the evenings (weeeeeird, what do I even do with them?! Apparently drink tea and watch the entire first season of Atlanta)
And an achey-tired-sad malaise is all the achier and tireder and sadder when a couple of hours a day are spent walking in unremitting rain
UNREMITTING RAIN
Unremitting rain and THE AWFUL MAN
But then my old friend Rosie (who I hadn't seen in like 5+ years) came to visit after getting back from living in New Zealand and the sun came out (literally and metaphorically)
And then suddenly it's incredibly hot and Boris Johnson is prime minister
Just leaving this here
Then it got REALLY hot. To be clear — this is not me complaining. Even at its worst, I loved it. The sun is out, it's not raining, I can step out my front door and just feel this intense heat kind of... warming me and supporting me and holding me up... And sure, I'm sticky and disgusting and it's too hot to walk outdoors for more than about 20 minutes and my laptop nearly burns out its fans trying to cool off, but... it's sun. I needed it so badly. But it is also terrifying, clearly.
(More of Carolyn's lovely safflower ink)
I very rarely get my legs out — I just get cold really easily and it's very rare I feel able to without getting goosepimply and miserable, but the time has come. The bad news is, this is not a hospitable landscape for bare legs.
Oh but hey, before I started having too much fun... (At this point I felt close to some kind of rain induced nervous breakdown. I CANNOT TAKE IT PLEASE JUST LET IT BE DRY FOR A FEW MORE DAYS, PLEASE)
I tabled at Northwest zinefest in Manchester, at the people's history museum, which is a gorgeous space and I met so many lovely people and had so many great conversations.
I just about managed to get home afterwards — over a month's worth of rain fell in 24 hours (on top of all that had been previously). The trains were just about still running when I left, and got me home... I had to get a taxi from the station back to my house, because it was raining so much that drains were exploding out onto the street, and water was ankle deep in many places, and I literally just COULD NOT. I got home to find the drainpipe had collapsed off the side of the house under the pressure of the rain, sending water torrenting dramatically out across the balcony and the side of the house, and I just sat down and had a MASSIVE CRY
I can't remember if I've ever mentioned this here before, and I feel like it's worth mentioning again, because I feel like if you were just reading this casually you'd be like 'ffs, stop being such a wimp, it's just a bit of rain', but...
When I was 11, my house flooded, and all the years prior to that had been blighted by constant anxiety that it was going to happen. Whenever there was heavy rain, me and my parents would be anxiously watching the water in the toilets rise up, hearing the drains gurgling, seeing the water come up the outside walls, worrying, fretting, will this be the time it comes in? And eventually it did, dirty, seweage water, and we lost all our carpets and some posessions, and had to live for nearly a year with the constant grinding drone of dehumidifiers running in the background. We got funding to do work so that it never happened again, but the experience shaped how I feel about heavy rain, and while most people say that hearing the sound on their windows at night is soothing and relaxing, for me it has always been horror and anxiety, even when my rational brain knows there's nothing to actually be scared of.
And it continued into my adult life, not helped by living in a somewhat leaky house for a while where every time it rained heavily, water would start pouring through the edge of my crumbling old windowframe... And then I moved to a part of the country famed for its incredibly high rainfall and traumatic floods, soooo... maybe not the best place for my mental wellbeing?
And while my past experience has shaped a lot of my hatred of heavy rain, there's also a future dread... These 'hundred year events' seem to happen every couple of years now, and in my lifetime that's only going to get worse. (Heat as well as rain, it's fair to say, but as discussed, it's the rain that gives me the fear). I can run away from this valley, but climate-change induced weather catastrophes are going to be an ever bigger part of my (and everyone else's) life the older I get. I sometimes look around me, usually when I'm having a particularly happy time, maybe sitting in the sunshine, eating an ice cream with friends, and I'm happy and comfortable and I have all of my needs met, and I wonder... are these the glory days? Is this what I'll look back on from a stricken future and remember once, how beautiful everything was? How safe we were? How good we had it?
The positive thing about this is that I'm increasingly not taking good things for granted. I am greatful for every nice meal. Every adventure. Every safe roof over my head. Every flush toilet. The downside to that is, oh, you know, the constant background dread?
Told my therapist all of this, and she was kind of like 'uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... yeah. Not much I can say to help you there really'
So anyway. Constant, grinding, unending rain does very bad things for my mental state. I have four raincoats and there have been days where every single one of them has been sitting over a radiator, drenched, from that day and the previous day, and I don't have a fresh dry one to put on to go out in it again. I change my leggings twice a day, each time I come in from outdoors my legs are achingly cold and wet. I sit at my desk hearing the rain pound on the roof window and I cannot relax, I cannot be calm while it continues.
And then that night, the flood sirens sounded, which is a visceral, gut wrenching horror for everyone within earshot. Because of what they symbolise, but also because of our inbuilt response to the sound of those, basically, air raid sirens. It is a nightmare sound. They go off and a warm, sweet conversation with friends drops into horrified silence as they drone on, and on, and on...
I need to get out of this valley.
Anyway, Justin and Dav finally got back, and that made me happy. Davey has to go back to the US VERY SOON which makes me extremely sad, but he's staying with us for his last week here, which also makes me happy. We didn't actually flood. It got close but not quite. Some mercy. It still hasn't stopped raining though.
And somehow before I know it, IT'S JUSTIN'S BIRTHDAY AGAIN, a specific date which for some reason seems to come round unnervingly fast each year. Same for him I suspect...
And today was Davey's last day in Hebden Bridge. He got rained on several times, helped me empty the foulest bins in the world, and then we went and watched our friend Sarahjoy blow dry one of her ducks (for medical reasons). I'm going to miss him so ridiculously much.
