TagLily
We heart working from home.
The woods at the end of our garden are awesome. AWESOME. They’re a mixture of ancient woodland & newer (early 20th century) plantings. They have a stream, countless springs and a canal running through/next to them. Deer, ducks and pheasants are spotted with surprising regularity and horses & cows graze on the farmland at the edges. They were a hive of industry 100+ years ago: the old quarry cliffs remain exposed, some of the dug-outs are still massive holes in the dirt, and there are the mysterious remains of structures everywhere. They were a leisure spot back then too: the shape of a large pond with man-made islands and a mini-jetty remains, and there are stone-walled lined paths & steps throughout. More recently, the eastern end hosted a prisoner of war camp (for Italian prisoners in WW2) and a fireworks factory that exploded in the 1950s or thereabouts – the shells of the buildings remain. We’ve walked in the woods almost daily for 15 months now and we regularly find new bits that we haven’t seen before. As I said, AWESOME.
Today though, we didn’t walk far – just to the horses field. Lily sprained her leg on Monday so we wanted to take it easier on her behalf. Also, we’re lazy and it was hot.
The horses’ field is down near the canal. This is the view from about halfway across the field – you can see the bridge over the canal on the left.
This is the view from the same spot facing the other way – speckled with daisies, buttercups and pink clover flowers at the moment.
(I forgot to take any pictures until I was halfway across the field – a genuine mistake but admittedly, there is a bit of a blot on the landscape when looking across the whole field from the woods: a red corrugated steel warehouse, mostly covered with trees but noticeable all the same.)
While I was taking pictures, John and Lily had a little rest in the sun:
A sunny day in a field with her favourite humans, after a dunk in the beck? Lily got a little blissed out:
Make that a lot blissed out:
Everyone got quite comfy:
Until …
There is a reason we call it the horses field… They came over to investigate/bully us out of there. So we picked ourselves up and headed back into the woods and home.
Lily-dog does not like having her photo taken. In the year and a bit she’s been living with us, we’ve taken maybe half a dozen pictures of her that aren’t paparazzo shots of her bum in retreat.
So at the start of 2010, I set myself 10 goals:
- 1. To make a meal using only ingredients I’ve grown, raised, caught or killed myself.
- 2. To travel to a place on my “top ten places to go before I die” list.
- 3. Finish writing my second novel.
- 4. Learn how to make sausages – wet English style ones and cured ones too.
- 5. Spend at least a day fishing out on the North Sea.
- 6. Finally finish learning how to drive.
- 7. Make a full outfit’s worth of clothing for myself – including spinning any wool used.
- 8. Learn how to program and make a mini-game/application using Ruby.
- 9. Climb a mountain or at least a jolly big hill.
- 10. Participate more in the real world – plan/run a real life green event or scheme.
I achieved just two of them. TWO!
I am, understandably, a bit disappointed with that but as I mentioned throughout the year, the goals were supposed to put me on a journey rather than being the destination.
The two goals I did achieve (“To make a meal using only ingredients I’ve grown, raised, caught or killed myself” and “Learn how to make sausages”) were part of my overall desire to adopt a more simple, DIY life and I think that’s going wonderfully in the right direction. The making an outfit goal was part of that – and while I didn’t meet that goal, I did learn to spin wool, I experimented with dyeing yarn too and I also made some attempts at sewing clothes. The fishing goal was a failure due to procrastination and disorganisation – it’s on the list for next year and by-huff-or-by-puff, it’s going to happen.
The last two (“Climb a mountain or at least a jolly big hill” and “Participate more in the real world”) were in an effort to get me out from behind my computer and/or off the sofa. With Lily’s arrival in March, we started walking in “our” woods every day and most weekends (one or both days) see us heading further afield for strolls. That’s a good thing. I didn’t realise what a small-talk-instigator dogs are either – I think we know considerably more people (and their dogs) than if we’d gone out wandering in the woods on our own. Another good thing. Also, while it’s not green-related, I get out and meet people regularly through my work & play at Bingley Little Theatre – this year I’ve helped with two productions and summer showcase, as well as helping teach two classes a week. A frickin’ ace thing.
I have less-than-almost-ever interest in learning to drive. I’m not scared or anything, there just doesn’t seem a lot of point to it. Occasionally I think it would be useful if I could drive somewhere instead of having to enlist John but I don’t have enough sustained motivation to start learning again – and finding the time/money is another issue. I’ve also rethought my position on my travel goal – as I wrote in my November goal update, the way we’d have to do it feels too much like consumerism, to much to have and not to be. So I’m not bothered that I haven’t achieved that either.
The novel thing and the Ruby thing are probably my biggest disappointments – nothing other than procrastination/excitement about other things stopping me there really. A revised version of the novel one will be on my goal list for 2011. The Ruby one probably won’t be – but that’s not to say I don’t want to learn — I think I will love programming when I get into it – I just need to find a new book/teaching method first.
So that’s it for 2010. The goal achievements were worth the disappointments. The rest of my life was similar – had some awesome wins, had some dark spots, some new starts and left some things behind.
Team Peach expanded (Lily-dog and the chicken tribe) but sadly contracted too (we lost Carbon). I’ve eaten a helluva lot of good food, read many many good books (highlights: lots of stuff from the first half of the 20th Century including ‘Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day’ by Winifred Watson, ‘Good Evening Mrs Craven and other stories’ by Mollie Panter Downes and ‘The Death of Grass’ by John Christopher), learned a lot of new stuff and laughed loads.
As That Tommy Hall would say, 2010, you’ve been a year.
1. It’s cold but doesn’t look too frosty, so I can’t understand why the grass is crunching so loudly underfoot. Then, picking up a stick for Lily, I see them – thousands, millions, of individually frozen dew drops decorating each blade of grass. I tip some into my hand and they almost immediately melt into puddles.
2. Lily watches the other springer run around. Her stare is part caution, part remembrance of things past. She can run fast, with her ears flapping behind her and her tail helicoptering her along, but it’s nothing compared to him.
3. The Brightbox December meal is full of laughter, good cheer and even better food. After a grown-up main course featuring a lot of green vegetables, I have a nutella and mascarpone calzone for dessert. It’s as ridiculously sickly as it sounds. (Bonus: where we’re sat at the end of the table, we watch it being made – the giant dollop of nutella, the striking white mascarpone, the crimping of the crust then the flickering flames of the oven reflecting off its crust while cooking.)
4. Lily spent the evening with our neighbours – they drop her back to our house just before we get home. We ask her what they got up to together but, of course, she can’t tell us and that makes us a bit sad. Then John logs onto his email – they’ve sent us a photo of Lily stretched out on their kitchen floor, getting a belly rub from Ade while their dog Benny licks Ade’s ear. Everyone in the picture looks very happy and we laugh.
© 2024 Louisa Parry