Gone West... Life is Peaceful Here

I'm currently in Cornwall. On my own. I'm still working for clients. And I'm trying to write. Trying really hard. The beauty of being freelance is that I can work from anywhere really, as long as there is a good WiFi connection and power. I can go anywhere.

So I decided to trundle off to Cornwall because I am lucky enough to be able to stay here free.. And it is beautiful. I am situated in a tiny village called Kingsand which is on the Cornwall / Devon border of the South West Coast path. I can walk for miles and miles with beautiful views over the coast and cliffs. I have already seen at least thirty butterflies since I have been here.

It's kind of my safe place. My place of firsts too, I've been coming here for 22 years. I saw my first brawl outside a pub, I also saw a stripper here when I was about ten; it was someones birthday in a pub and I stood on an outside table to see what was going on. I think I first got really drunk here when I was 15 too.

Green

Sometimes I just crave green you know. The colour of the earth. It is not easy to write about it, because I feel that words can't explain that feeling of peace.

It is not always green, often yellow or purple or pink, the sound of an animal, the sound of the sea, the quiet of the mountains. The smell of soil or salt or wild garlic. 

In the city we can miss it. Mostly we miss it until it creeps up on us; a branch brushing a bus window and then the craving for it tugs us inside and we seek it out...

Today, I sought it.

Dear Women

A few weeks ago, on International Women's Day, I had another mild disagreement with a friend about feminism, where I had to cave and bite my tongue for fear of launching into an angry shouty, tirade which would defeat my purpose entirely. 

I thought you see, as I think every day that we'd moved forward, that at least middle-class, educated women living a cushy life in the UK's capital would understand that they couldn't not be feminist. Or that I couldn't understand how they could live in our world and not be one. 

I understand that the word has still held onto some bad branding, perhaps I should talk about being egalitarian instead... But to me it is not about everybody being equal, it is about having equal social, political and economic rights - all of us. For we are not all equal, as Osho said, nobody is superior, nobody is inferior, we are each unique and incomparable, and wonderful because of it. 

But if you are a woman who identifies as "not a feminist", it surely means you support the view that men as a collective are better and more valuable than you. Deserve more. Can dictate and control our entire sex. How can you think that? How can anyone man or woman, think that? Why is anyone superior?

So I decided to write a letter to every woman to illustrate what I want for them, for us, for men. After you've read it, please tell me that you still don't need feminism. 

Dear Women,

How are you, you marvellous creators you?

I wanted to tell you a few things that I really want for you, maybe you could tell me if you want them too...

I wish that you will not always be judged by your looks as if that is all you have to give. I also hope that you will be able to wear what you would like with no backlash or judgement. Wear make up or don't, whatever makes you feel your best. Men too.

I want you to be able to walk on your cities streets on your own without feeling ashamed, embarrassed or fearful. I don't want you to suffer rape or sexual abuse because you are a woman and others feel they are entitled to your body.

I want governments and economies to support you, to realise that you have as much to give as a man and to show this through wage and economic equality.

I want you to be able to vote if you want to, to decide things about the country you live in. 

I want you to concentrate on being mothers if you want to and raise your sons and daughters just the same.

Or be sports stars if you want to, write books, run countries or sew and bake if that's your thing. 

I pray that you have choice. I hope that you can do one thing or everything you want.

Blossom Day with LJ... Gambling, Gin and Gordon..

So you know when you have one of those perfect London days... I had it on Saturday... I'm not a fan of those "look at my perfect life" blog posts as a rule, they usually shield a multitude of less than truths, in the manner of an Instagram filter. But this day was just lovely, so I'm posting...

It was a late start and by the time me and LJ left our house it was 3.30. Straight to the bookies for our yearly visit to bet on some horses names we liked for the Grand National.

Then a walk through the blossomy streets of SW London.

Before long we needed a respite and decided to make our way to London House in Battersea Square.. Gordon Ramsay's latest venture...

The little bar attached to the restaurant... no reservation you see... is an easy way to spend a Saturday afternoon... It was the first time we'd been there and to be honest we are a little worried about how many times we are going to return and spend money we don't have.

The lights have me lustful and the art is ethereal..

Coffees in... Great coffee

 

We eagerly awaited the Grand National result

None of my horses came anywhere AS USUAL

 

Little L picked the second place horse, Balthazar King and so basically we got stuck in to the G&Ts to "Spend her Winnings"

Very, very good ones too... we might have had a few. However, we were putting the world to rights so it's allowed. And if you're going to drink gin.. you might as well drink nice ones...

Then we got a little peckish.. but I didn't see our budget running to Gordon today.. despite the win and also as nice as the pretty waiters are, we may have needed a reservation... Will be returning with more pennies though for a proper meal and post...

So, we strolled to the other side of Battersea and straight into the doorway of another restaurant that I'd never been to: The Butcher and Grill. An interesting concept of a butcher's, a shop, a cafe in the day and a restaurant and bar at night serving very good steak and red wine...

Our table was by the shelves..

 

Which excited my new found chefness...

It was reallly veryyyy good.. Great steak, tasty greens and crunchy chips.. Obviously, I had Bearnaise sauce too..

Will definitely be going back there...

After supper we popped for another glass of red to at our local to finish off the night and we were in bed before midnight. Feeling satiated and slightly middle aged.. and what... Sometimes, aged 28, a jagerbomb an hour is not what one needs...

London House
7-9 Battersea Square
Battersea Village
London
SW11 3RA
T: 020 7592 8545
londonhouse@gordonramsay.com
www.gordonramsay.com/london-house

 The Butcher & Grill
39-41 Parkgate Road
Battersea, London
SW11 4NP
T: 020 7924 3999
www.thebutcherandgrill.com

50 Happy Days

So... apparently on Friday I was dead on the halfway mark of my #100HappyDays project... I sort of forgot where I was for a while, though I haven't missed one day.

When I started the project I meant to write weekly updates about what had made me appreciate the happy things that week. Then life and other posts sort of took over... 

After a little summary recap, I have realised an embarrassingly large number of posts show food - mostly my cooking though for groups of people - which I'm maintaining is mostly about the people and the hosting.

The rest either involve friends and alcohol blogs, I've written, or the arts. Nothing too shocking there. Occasionally, there is the odd thing that has clearly been frantically racked from a bad day; a quote to lift, a picture of my bed..

For the second fifty days, I hope to perhaps branch out of the safety of what definitely makes me happy and see more. 

Meanwhile here's a few of my #100HappyDays so far....

Day 1 was Valentine's...

A couple of walks n' nature...

With family and friends...

Endless bar shots..

Quotes, art and blog posts

And cooking...

 All for family and friends and because I now love cooking.. since Febresolutions 

But mostly it's just the people that make me happy...

Here's to the next 50 days...

Follow my #100HappyDays on Instagram @wordyloveslots

My Mother's Loves and Me

Me and Mama, c 1991/2

Sunday, as the whole of the UK is well aware, was Mother's Day. Without wanting to sound cynical and negative, incessant commercialism has made this day somewhat themed around trite cards and cheap flowers and oh hell I must get home in time for lunch even though I have a terrible hangover. Pubs, restaurants and cafés are full to the brim of mothers carted out by weary fathers and sugared up small children clutching homemade cards, often granny is also in tow.

I spent the day sleeping very late, which I only seem to be able to do at my childhood home and then cooking an ok roast lamb following a lengthy discussion about timings for a shoulder in the Aga. 

Don't misunderstand me; I think Mothers Day is important to remind people to appreciate their mothers or mother figures. I think for children it is important and lovely for the mothers in question to see their babies' efforts and love. As we grow older though, Mother's Day is about something altogether different; at least in my book. 

At university, I wrote my dissertation on the themes of motherhood in the works of Mary Wollstonecraft and her daughter, Mary Shelley. The mysteries of motherhood have always interested me. I think how woman are in adulthood, how they are inside themselves and how they absorb and interact with their environment and the world is often down to the way their mothers or mother figures have raised and guided them.

My mother has taught me to love and live in so many ways that seem impossible to list and analyse. However, I have tried my best to describe the ten most prevalent things that I am grateful for, every day of my life.

1) Love of Nature

This took a while for me to admit. I was a rather bookish young child and a frightfully cerebral yet angsty teenager who preferred deep thoughts and indoors. Though I had a brief spell of wishing I lived outdoors with the animals as a younger child, I soon turned into a hermitty geek loathe to indulge in bonding with nature.

As I grew older and I learnt more, little murmurs of the exaltations I had experienced throughout my life seeped into my consciousness.

Then I studied the Romantic poets and I learnt about the sublime and suddenly what my mother had gently taught me all my life made sense.

Love of nature gives us so much as we move through our lives. From appreciation of transient beauty, of blooms that come and go to the awesomeness of the sky and the sea and the ocean, I am enthralled. I now delight in a weird nature programme as much as I would in a documentary on Sylvia Plath.

Devotion to nature  and the pleasure you gain from it both keeps one grounded and soars us to a god-like high in appreciation of the vast enormity of the universe and your small place in it.

2) Love of Making Things Beautiful

My mother is a bejewelled butterfly, an accessoriser, a decorator, a gardener. She will tie a ribbon on something at any opportunity, her dinner party tables are worthy of their own exhibition and she would be paid a princely sum for her interior design skills.

I, in turn, have always loved to make things pretty and look lovely. From the hours I used to spend making homemade cards as a child to the lighting of candles and decorating of walls that I enjoy now. There isn’t a surface in my house that isn’t filled with a piece of cheap pottery, a photo frame or a candle. At university, we couldn’t really afford expensive Christmas decorations so instead I bought rolls of cheap wrapping paper and papered our entire living room walls for a house party. 

I think it is all about one’s personal environment and creative endeavours being an extension of one’s inner self. I like things to look nice and to feel homely as an aesthetic welcome. That is something that I have definitely learnt from Mama, you can make people feel comfortable, safe and happy through the small details.

3) Love of Colour

Life is colourful, express yourself. Express the world. Don't live in the dark muted tones, you are only hiding. I remember my mother always telling me that people who wear black all the time look miserable.

Maybe that's sexy to some people, not to me.

4) Love of My Flaws

One of the hardest things in the world and something I still work on every day. That bookish child and cerebral, angsty teenager that I mentioned earlier was somewhat brooding and somewhat self-critical, indeed she still is. I spent a large part of adolescence not liking myself very much. It is only in the last few years really that I have learnt to think of life differently. To live life as the gift it is and not to berate myself constantly for the many many mistakes I make but rather learn from them and use them for good.

We will never be the best at everything, we will never be perfect. Perfection in fact is an illusion. Sure you could have skinnier thighs, a better paid job, a boyfriend, or perhaps you don't think you're nice enough or you don't see your friends enough... Turn off the inner voices and focus on living daily, being mindful of yourself and those you care about and come into contact with. If you can love the little things you will soon love the big things.

I succeed in this about 75% of the time, which I believe to be reasonably good. My mother is responsible for teaching me how to think like this or at least guiding me towards it. It has changed my life.

5) Love of the Universe 

If you can't take the hippy-vibes or are a die hard cynic.. you may want to look away now... I'm not going to write a big long speech here. I only like to talk about this to people who are open to it really.. it's all about the positive thoughts, actions and questions. The picture above says it all.. Again my mother introduced this way of thinking and I embrace it wholeheartedly..

6) Love of Positivity 

Dream, love, be kind to others, smile and think the best and you'll find that life can treat you quite well..

7) Love of Talking

I don't know what my first words were but I know that I sat at adults' dinner tables from the age of three talking nineteen to the dozen, with very astute opinions in many things.

All my school results would have remarks about talking too much, about distracting others who needed to listen more than I did... (there's the casual arrogance again)

Meanwhile, I would get irritated with my mother as she stopped to chat to someone in the school car park.

I still talk too much, I could talk all day in fact to those I love. Gab gab gab, nonsense, nonsense, nonsense. The weird thing is people who don't know me, may think I'm shy, because I don't necessarily talk before I have got stock of someone, of their boundaries, of their interests. You see, generally I talk to air my soul and sometimes you just don't want to do that with strangers.

Again, it was my mother who allowed me to talk this much rarely telling me to shut up or be quiet as many a parent are apt to... She once told me and a friend off for gossiping when we were about 17, but we were being mean. She rarely told me to shut up just to silence my flow of chatter... however irritating it may have been.

8) Love of Reading

People used to laugh at me when I was younger for reading so much. One girl even threw a book I was reading out the window. I was more irritated than anything.. I was at such a good bit.

Reading has honestly held my hand through every age of life, showing me so many various scenes and scenarios and characters and choices and events that I never felt alone or like there weren't a thousand different wonderful experiences to have in life.

I was never ashamed of being a bookworm even when I was teased for it. In fact I rather ridiculed the people that did not read. Wannabe-intellectual-snob that I was. How have they never experienced that pleasure.. I thought to myself. How sad.

My mother read to me for hours and hours before I could do it myself (that was not very long- I started young) then she read me harder books and then she bought me books and now we discuss books and swap books and sometimes I buy her books too. Reading is one of the things that I love most in life and so I am ever grateful for this nurturing from a young age.

9) Love of the Future

Never be afraid but embrace it and look forward to all the amazing things that are to come.

When I was a child, my mother used to sing to me in bed. My favourite song she used to sing was the famous Doris Day song, Que Sera Sera. It comforted me then, as it does now. Chill the f*** out, we can't see the future...

When I was just a little girl
I asked my mother, "What will I be?
Will I be handsome, will I be rich?"
Here's what she said to me

"Que Sera, Sera
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours to see
Que Sera, Sera
What will be, will be"

When I grew up, I fell in love
I asked my sweetheart, "What lies ahead?
Will we have rainbows, day after day?"
Here's what my sweetheart said

"Que Sera, Sera
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours, to see
Que Sera, Sera
What will be, will be"

Now I have children of my own
They ask their father, "What will I be
Will I be handsome, will I be rich?"
I tell them tenderly

"Que Sera, Sera
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours, to see
Que Sera, Sera
What will be, will be"

10) Love of People who Touch Your Life 

Whether they are friends or family or lovers or flings or acquaintances or people you meet just once and smile at. People are what make your life great not things or achievements or anything else. Maybe this is obvious, but if it is most people don't act like it. Don't be rude to the checkout assistant or bus driver, don't whine for no reason or snipe at a friend because you've had a bad day. At least try not to.

I have felt entirely loved in every which way by both my parents all my life and I know I am incomparably lucky for this. So, I just try to reflect a little bit back at others.

Happy Late Mother's Day Mama x x x x

The Sublime.. It's in the Stars Don't You Know...

Earth and Space - Highly Commended:

Snowy Range Perseid Meteor Shower by David Kingham (USA)

 

A Personal Appreciation of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2013 at The Royal Observatory Greenwich (from 19th September 2013 - 23 February 2014) and the Sublime.

 

It started as a sunny, October Sunday when I started to drive the not altogether pleasant route to Greenwich from South West London. Then almost as soon as I left the rain came and came and came. It was very wet rain... wet, large drops that leave everything saturated and heavy, not the lazy drizzle almost unnoticed by Londoners. 

Very soon the water ran arrogantly down the streets - fuck your drainage systems - poured over my car - it's wipers almost rendered futile and London was all grey streams and reflective surfaces . Why had I decided to break the mould and actually do something more than stumble upon roast and red wine on a Sunday, I admonished myself. I was driving though, so I hoped I'd be able to park near the Royal Observatory. 

I hadn't reckoned with my total reliance on my google maps app in an area I don't know at all - it lead me to a parking spot that required a walk. I began to walk it, a token scarf tied over my already soaking hair, my pumps slapping and squelching in what I can only describe as the pond I was walking through. I ducked into the National Maritime Museum, which had clearly been the idea of several others and the smell of human damp and sweat under cagoules and the water running down my face was almost enough to make me give up and drive straight back home. I called my cousin, a Greenwich resident, who I was meeting and who I was already one hour late for... "It's OK... You can drive here.. Just go back along the main road." Back through the rain, back in the car and I did make it. The car park was so close that I barely had to go outside - ironic given my already sodden state.

Perhaps my rambling introduction of how hateful I was feeling when I entered the free exhibition, will give some idea of how not-in-the mood I was. Wet, ill-tempered and miles from home, guilty that I was late, sliding all over the floor in my ballet pumps, aware that the building closed in two hours so we would have to rush. 

People and Space - Category winner: Moon Silhouettes by Mark Gee (Australia)

And then we went to see the photos. 

Overall and Earth and Space winner: Guiding Light to the Stars by Mark Gee (Australia)

I should mention that I am no scientist, whilst I proffer a mild interest in the sciences, it is mainly in basic biology - anything that links into art and literature or anyone that does. I hate Chemistry, though I comprehend it. I can't understand Physics and I don't pretend to; the only part I really enjoyed at school was Space and the Universe. That does interest me. 

Deep Space-Category Winner: Celestial Impasto: sh2–239 by Adam Block (USA)

The images ranged from depictions of the transit of Venus, comets, nebulae, aurorae and more and some pictures include parts of our tiny earth in them showing further scale and perspective. Winning entries have come from all around the world and this year was a record breaking year, with more images entered than ever before.

As I knew before I visited, every image was stunning, in the literal sense.   

When I saw this exhibition was on, I had to see it. Not just because of the sheer magnitude and art of the images but because of the feeling of smallness in the world that looking into the sky at night (and depictions of it) gives me. Some people hate that, I love it, it thrills me, a reflective thrill - sometimes slightly melancholic, but a thrill none-the-less. It does what views of cityscapes do (also called sonder); what vast natural and rough landscapes do, what outpourings of international emotion - good or bad- do, what great machines or lavish buildings do. It relaxes me, it scares and delights me and it makes me feel insignificant and I love it. It's like a drug. 

Our Solar System - Category winner: Corona Composite of 2012: Australian Totality by Man-To Hui (China)

The term sublime was originally coined as an adjective in the 1st century AD but I came to it in 18th-century terms at university through the philosopher Edmund Burke musings on a sort of pleasurable terror in his A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757). Burke’s definition of the sublime focuses on such terms as darkness, obscurity, privation, vastness, magnificence, loudness and suddenness. Mostly though, I studied it through the Romantic poets, Coleridge and Wordsworth who recognised the redemptive powers of nature, but also the vastness and turbulence of the natural world and the human response to it. 

Young Astrophotographers - Category winner:

The Milky Way Galaxy by Jacob Marchio (USA), aged 14

The modern philosopher, Alain de Botton says:

"It had been the icecaps, the deserts, the volcanoes and the glaciers that had given us a sense of finitude and limitation and had elicited a feeling in which fear and respect coagulated into a strangely pleasing feeling of humility, a feeling which the philosophers of the eighteenth century had famously termed the sublime."

And Richard Holmes, the Romantics biographer says:

"Physical vision - one might say scientific vision - brings about a metaphysical shift in the observer's view of reality as a whole. The geography of the earth, or the structure of the solar system, are in an instant utterly changed, and forever. The explorer, the scientific observer, the literary reader, experience the Sublime: a moment of revelation into the idea of the unbounded, the infinite."

To be honest, at uni, I didn't really get it, the literary language and fussy poetry took all my attention from identifying the feeling. It was really on my own, that I realised what it meant and grew to love the feeling of incredible smallness and insignificance. 

In the modern world, as I said it is not just in nature and the stars but in the way we live our lives, in seeing the wider picture and our role in a living breathing world of which you are just a tiny part. See below the definition of Sonder, which is supposed to be a sad feeling, I think it is wonderful.

It is why I loved this exhibition and all the talented photographers involved in it. It is why I think that sceptics who ridicule astrology and say - how can these stars and planets affect us, it's ridiculous, are a little ridiculous themselves. I mean how can they not, we are tiny, they are huge, the sun lightens our hair and darkens are skin and naturally wakens us. I am not endorsing the daily horoscope but simply looking at the unquantifiable vastness of these rocks and gas balls, surely they must have a little affect.

I'd recommend all to see the exhibition, whether you want to see a pretty picture, enquire over the techniques used or get off a little on how large and amazing our world is.

Blurb

The Royal Observatory Greenwich is proud to present the winning images of Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2013. This free exhibition showcases some incredible images of the sky, ranging from within our solar system to far into deep space.

www.rmg.co.uk

 Quote 1: The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, Alain de Botton

Quote 2: The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science, Richard Holmes

Images are all (C) the photographers and RMG.co.uk