frolics in the snow

Well, you'll be pleased to know that I've nearly finished coughing and spluttering now, and about time too! Gosh, that took a while, sneezing and sniffing and generally spreading germs about the place.

Still, a nice excuse for some honey.

Things have turned a little wintry round here lately. I ventured to work on the train this morning feeling like an intrepid explorer, and was greeted with this charming scene as I arrived at the office.

Hmm. I was also greeted with a telephone call telling me I needn't come in if I hadn't already set off - 3 hours after I'd set off and 5 minutes before I arrived. But we won't talk about that!

Instead, let's talk about the sun coming out at lunchtime, and the little toddle I went on round the campus.

There, see? That's much more picturesque. Still rather nippy, but Very Pretty Indeed I'd say.

Almost worth all that messing about this morning, I'd say. Mind you, I'm pretty glad I'm working at home tomorrow...

a mini adventure

Today I had my first meeting at my new job. I start properly next Tuesday, so this was just to meet the other people, arrange my working days, and get a few forms signed.

the picnic area outside my new office - I'm looking forward to eating lunch here

I had a lovely morning. The other research I'll be sharing an office with is great, very cheery and chatty, and we got on well. What a relief! The whole department stops for tea and biscuits at 11.15 every day - a sign of a civilised workplace in my opinion ;) And next week, they've arranged to have cakes in honour of my arrival!

And I'll be able to go to the knitting club on Tuesday lunchtimes. Yes, that's right, my new job has a knitting club.

I am going to have to get used to getting up pretty early though, as I'll have to leave the house before 7, which I am just not used to doing. But it is beautiful at that time in the morning, so I'm going to try to be positive about it, and daydream myself awake on the train.

cycling is rather more popular than in Sheffield!

It's at times like these when I'm ever so grateful for my folding bike. It's the green one at the front of that photo above, the one that looks like its wheel is all bent. It's a Brompton, and I've had it for about ten years I think. It was expensive, and I seem to remember saving, and asking for money for Christmas to put towards it. I'm glad I did. Brompton are a really interesting company, and their website is well worth a bit of a wander round.

Apparently, 'the Brompton owner is free and independent - she chooses where to go and when and how.' Well, that's me alright (!), and this morning, I 'chose' to go to work :) Which now involves cycling to the station, folding up my bike, jumping on the train (without booking 3 days in advance or arguing with train staff), jumping off 45 minutes later, folding my bike up (it takes 9 seconds, I timed it), and cycling 3 miles to my new office. Not a bad commute. I reckon folding bikes should be issued as standard to everyone.

Anyway, enough raving about my lovely bike, and my fab new job. I'm also quite excited about getting to know a new city, even more so when I spotted this family of geese pottering about in this little area of greenery in the city centre.

Geese? Trains? Folding bikes? Knitting? Tea and biscuits and cake? I think I'm going to enjoy this new job!

simple living at the weekend

our ingenious Mary Poppins style shade

We've been outside a lot this week, the weather's been gorgeous, and it's a shame not to take advantage when it could quite easily be cold and rainy tomorrow. This is my friend's garden, which I love - it's tiny, much smaller than ours, but it's so lush and welcoming, mirrors and old brick walls peeping out from behind the plants, all cosy and inviting. Can you see the shading system we rigged up today? This photo's been making me laugh all afternoon.

tea on the lawn

Saturday morning was our regular trip to the Women's Institute country market. This is a small market and cafe that runs in a scout hut for 3 hours each Saturday morning, filled with local and home made produce, cakes, jams, home grown plants, and all kinds of crafts, and it's just round the corner from our house. We're there most weeks, meeting friends and enjoying a small home made something.

Saturday morning at the country market

This Saturday's visit brought with it the prospect of a new adventure. You see, there was a notice up saying they're looking for new producers. And I kind of got chatting to the woman who was selling the cakes...

Now, before I go getting all overexcited, I should make it clear that I have absolutely no idea whether I'm capable of making anything that anyone else would want to buy. Heck, I don't even know whether I'm capable of making anything that would pass being inspected for quality by those women - they're seriously good.

(I should also point out that, much as I love baking, and much as I love eating what I bake, there tends to be a devil-may-care attitude towards both recipes and cleanliness in my kitchen that I wouldn't want inspected by anyone obsessed with hygiene, so I wouldn't be making cakes or anything food related...)

But I must confess to being just a teensy bit excited at the prospect, however unlikely, that I might be able to sell something I've made there.

What got me asking questions this morning though was thinking about diversity and resilience. I'm a great believer in diversity, in gardening as well as in life. Diversity in the garden means resilience to disease, and I reckon diversity in skills and work means resilience to the vagaries of the economy and job market.

I'm a great believer in the virtues of a patchwork lifestyle, and I've been practicing at mine for several years now. For the past three years, for example, I've been working on my PhD full time, working two days a week as a personal assistant to a disabled woman, working a few hours a week taking notes in lectures for students with hearing impairments, teaching undergraduates, and working on voluntary projects for our local Transitions group and the Permaculture Association. And that's on top of growing food in the garden, improving my sewing, making presents, and having a go at making my own clothes.

Not all of these things bring me an income, but they all bring experience and add skills, and they weave together like a patchwork quilt to make my life as full and as interesting as it is. And the value of doing lots of different things, a vital one of which is budgeting and spending less, is resilience.

I'm starting my new job next week, and even though it's only two days a week, it's rather different to anything I've done before, and I think it's going to take up a fair bit of my mental energy for a while. And, of course, there's still that pesky PhD to be getting on with, so I'm not going to be taking up my knitting needles to fill the stalls any time soon.

But I don't think it does any harm to be on the look out for new ways of doing things sometimes, being open to suggestion, and thinking about taking risks. It might well be that you can figure out how a skill you have might be a way of earning a little part of your income, even if it's only enough to pay for tea and cakes on a Saturday morning...

out with the old...

the sunshine and the rain clouds

wildflower seeds to plant in the garden

Yesterday was my last day at work. No fanfare, no speeches, just a couple of quiet goodbyes, and a copy of the new Rose Elliot cookbook.

It felt strange walking away after three years. Not strange enough to want to go back, mind you. And by the time I'd walked home via the new Food Glorious Food exhibition at the museum (of which more later), I'd almost forgotten about work altogether. Amazing what a good walk can do.

So far this month my main job has finished, the casual work I do has come to an end, and I've finished working on one of my voluntary projects. This was all part of the plan, but it does rather feel like obligations and commitments are dropping out of my life at a rate of knots.

Which, I'm discovering, is a rather nice feeling.

It's even looking like this PhD might just be finished one day.

So what have I done with my first free day? Nothing out of the ordinary. Had breakfast in bed. Went to the post office. Visited some friends and spent a long time looking at knitting patterns. Comtemplated the completely outlandish prospect of altering knitting patterns. Ate biscuits. Drank tea. Walked home through the fields. Planted wildflower seeds. Made flapjack. And curled up on the sofa with a cuppa. Just an ordinary day.

Back to work tomorrow though. The serious business of being a full time student again, for a whole three weeks. And there's plenty to fill the time with.

There are a few more cheery little projects on the cards for the next couple of weeks though. A new knitting adventure. A bit of cycling. A couple of fabulously patterned sheets just waiting to be turned into fabulously patterned skirts. Being Rock Star Girlfriend at Peter's exciting new project tomorrow evening. A weekend picnic in the lake district.

So it's not going to be all work...

adventures

It's been a funny old week. There I was at the beginning, bumbling along from one thing to another, and then all of a sudden on Wednesday I got offered a new job. Thank you so much to the people who commented and said congratulations, that really does mean so much :)

I've been like an over-excited small child at Christmas these last few days. Would you believe I was awake stupidly early in the morning thinking 'ooh, I'll have a new office!' 'ooh, I'll be able to put things into boxes!' 'ooh, I wonder if I'll be able to see the lake from my window'. Surely it's not just me who gets excited at the prospect of a whole new adventure? Because that's what this feels like, an adventure, and I haven't had a good old fashioned life-changing adventure for a while now.

Shall I tell you the most exciting things about this new job? There are two:

1. I'll be able to get my little foldy bike back into action. I've had it for years, and it's just absolutely perfect for some things, and this is one of them. I'm glad it'll be getting some proper use again! (like, 12 miles of proper use, twice a week).

2. There's a knitting club. Yep, a knitting club, on a Tuesday lunchtime. So I just have to figure out how to get Tuesday as one of my working days, without mentioning the knitting club.

3. (there's three, actually) I have a lovely cheery friend who works in the next building. Is there anything nicer than a friendly face nearby when you're starting a new adventure??

Anyway, so the point of all this rambling is to hopefully get some of it out of my head, so I can get back to talking about other things I've been up to this weekend, like making bread, planting fruit bushes, eating scones, sewing, you know, the normal kind of weekend things. More tomorrow...

good news!

Well, after all that waiting I finally got a phone call this afternoon... offering me a job! Gosh, I was SO excited, and surprised, I'd almost convinced myself I hadn't got it, but in fact, the woman was worried I would I already been offered something else and would turn it down.

So here we are at the start of another new phase of life. The job will be starting on 1st June, and is the first job I've had that will actually use the qualifications I've spent the last, er, ten? twelve? years acquiring. It feels scary to be pushed almost to the edge of my comfort zone, but I just have to keep telling myself this is something I'm capable of, it's something I've trained for, it's something I've worked towards for many years, it is, after all, something I wanted very much!

It's funny how things all end up linking together too. This is a research job, but the content has nothing to do with all the research I've been doing for years. Strangely enough, the content of the research project is closely linked to my part time job, which I took as a temporary stop gap a couple of years ago, and which I never thought would lead to anything at all. Even my voluntary work played a part in getting me this job. So all those times I worried I was taking too much on, or wasn't doing 'relevant' things, or the 'right' things, wasn't filling the gaps on my CV (whatever that means), it turns out it was all linking together, just through the fact that it was me that was doing it all...

So now there's a bit of planning to do. A lot of planning to do. I've got to hand in my notice. I've got to sit down with the budget and make sure I don't leave myself short in the 6 weeks between pay cheques. I'll have to work out a new budget, with more money, but also more travel expenses. And it might just be an excuse for some new clothes too.

(Also, it'd be so lovely to get the PhD finally finished before the job started - but that's only 11 weeks, and I'm not sure it's possible. Nice thing to aim for though!)

Anyway, I thought I'd share the mother's day card I posted to my mum, who is currently at the seaside, eating ice cream and making me quite jealous and longing to be at the seaside myself. Might have to make sure I squeeze in a quick holiday between jobs...

waiting

Gosh, it's been a while since I popped in! This last week kind of ran away with me a bit. The weekend was filled with cake and cheeriness, and preparation for The Interview, which was on Wednesday.

Now, I don't have lots and lots of experience of interviews... but this one certainly involved a considerable amount of preparing, and a HUGE amount of waiting. The two weeks before the interview were filled with reading websites, investigating the interview panel, dreaming up ever-more-ludicrous potential interview questions and trying to think of sensible answers, and talking to everyone I've ever met who's ever had an interview for anything.

Anyway, it went alright, I think, apart from the waiting in the middle, but now I'm waiting again, because one of the interview panel was off sick, and they can't confirm without her approval, and she could be off for a couple of weeks. A couple of weeks!

So, here we are waiting again, and trying not to plan life around a new job that might, or might not, start some time in the next three weeks.

Well, it's exciting anyway. I have to confess to being pretty pleased with myself for all the preparation I did, rather than leaving everything til the last minute, and it meant that when they asked whether I was an Organised Person, I was able to say 'yes' without falling about laughing... (only just though).

All this has been on my mind a bit today. After all the build up, and the event, today's felt a bit flat, especially with the waiting (did I mention that already?). And I've been pondering the nature of work as a whole. I quite often joke that I don't really approve of 'work', but what I really mean is that I personally can't get stuck into the idea of working full time, doing something that I might like, or might not, to earn enough money to spend on things that if I wasn't working all the time, I'd be able to do for myself. Rhonda writes beautifully about this, much better than I ever could - particularly about cutting back on what you spend, and about simple living.

I'm actually more than happy to work, and frequently do many hours more than I would if I was 'working full time'. But that's because I'm starting to class all this business of living as work, not in a negative way, but in a 'good honest toil' kind of a way - growing food, making meals properly from scratch, baking bread, making presents, sewing and mending, fixing things rather than getting someone in to fix them, going without, and generally making do.

The time I spend on these things is instead of the time I would spend working in a job full time. If I did that, I wouldn't have as much time to do all those things. But it takes sacrifices, and lifestyle changes, and I'm fully aware that not everyone is in a position to be able to do it - I do consider myself lucky.

Several things helped me on this road - having a good, long think about what I wanted my life to look like, and working out how I could get there; making sure I didn't have any debt left; slowly cutting back the food budget and making changes - making my own yogurt, bread, pizza, crumpets...; working out quite a tight budget and sticking to it (which took me a Long Time!); dealing mostly in cash; saving for things like van insurance before I spend anything; planting veg in the garden; meeting friends at home for tea and cake rather than expensive cafes... Little things, but slowly, slowly they're adding up and it's all coming together nicely.

Goodness, I was only going to write about my job interview, and look what came spilling out! I think in a kind of way, I'm secretly trying to justify to myself why it's perfectly acceptable for me to only want to do 2 days a week of paid work, when to many people this doesn't at all count as a Proper Job.

But you know what? I actually don't have to justify that to anyone :)

So instead, I'll think about the lovely day out I had yesterday, wandering around a city I haven't been to for years, meeting up with an old friend, and drooling over the window display in Betty's - chocolate badgers, people, chocolate badgers!

(I suppose this is one of the downsides of a tight budget - no spending £12 on a chocolate badger. But then, I just would NOT have been able to eat it anyway, so I think, all in all, a photograph is better...)

Saturday pondering

Well, we finished off those tasty buns for breakfast in bed this morning, a tranquil start to a busy day. They were just right, and I'm glad we didn't give into temptation and eat them all yesterday... 

Today's been a bit of an all-over-the-place day. I'm writing, writing, writing at the minute. Or rather, trying to... Isn't it funny all the little games you play with yourself to make things exciting? (or is that just me??). Last night I scheduled out an entire itinerary for today, as if I was at some kind of event, with specific time slots for work, divided into specific activities for each slot. There was time for gardening (including reading a gardening book...), time for a bit of house keeping (yes, it does happen occasionally round here, increasingly often), and time for writing a thoughtful and considered blog post at the end of it all (hmm...). 

Well, I pretty much stuck to it. It was actually nice having that piece of paper telling me what to do. I got in a nice walk this morning to water a friend's green house plants, being horrified when I got there that I had ONLY watered the greenhouse the other day, and hadn't done the pots in the front garden, which were all dried up and looking incredibly thirsty... I'll offer to replace those if they haven't perked up by tomorrow! Lesson learned about slowing down and paying more attention... 

I've spent a lot of time sitting in the garden, working, eating, reading, drinking tea. I love these old green glasses, they make me feel like a princess drinking out of a goblet :) 

And I spent a lot of time sitting on the concrete path of the garden, writing and staring...

I'm finding it so difficult to concentrate on finishing this PhD. It's just not where I want to be any more. Well, not right now, I can see that with six months distance from it I might feel differently! :) 

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about what I want life to look like afterwards. After all, I've been doing this for six years, full time, and while I've also been working two days a week for most of the last two years, other than that I've had quite a lot of freedom. No set office hours, being able to work at home in my nightie, taking the laptop to a cafe, or a pub, or a field. I've met some wonderful, wonderful people, from all over the world, who I treasure dearly, and will keep in touch with. I've had opportunities I would never have had otherwise, I travelled on the Orient Express from Paris to Vienna, stayed in Denmark for three weeks, visited Stockholm, London many times, Austria, Sweden, Norway... 

And I've learned a lot about myself along the way too. I've moved house three times during the last six years, been in two different (very different) relationships, got an allotment and given it up, paid off the credit card I ran up with work expenses, which just then wouldn't go away, worked three jobs on top of the PhD - all at once for a while! Things change - I used to work better in the mornings, these days I don't seem to be able to get going til 3pm.  I've learned I don't deal very well with a huge project hanging over my head that I can't switch off and forget about. Often I switch off all to easily, and the wrong moments... 

I don't want to spend any more of my days staring at a computer screen. Oh, I don't mind a little bit of that... :) But not all day, every day. I don't want to be constantly worrying about something every time I leave work for the evening. I do not want to work for someone else five days a week. I want to spend time with my hands in flour, warm water, soil, in that order ;) 

When I started this blog on Boxing Day last year, I think I thought it'd be a place to put photos of the garden as I gradually tamed it as a place to sit, eat, and grow. I thought I'd look at it, and probably Peter, and maybe my mother. Well, Peter reads every entry I write, and so does my mother :) And I've picked up a few other people along the way too, which I'm thoroughly grateful for. 

One of the unexpected things that happened was that I wanted to do things so I could put photos up here. Perhaps not the right reason, you might think! But really, it's ok. It made me stop staring at the computer for an hour and do some knitting, sewing, baking, gardening, or whatever for a while instead. It made me decide to have a go at making all the presents I give this year. It made me start soaking dried beans instead of buying tinned, making my own yogurt, making soap, stop using shampoo (more on this another time...), and see my home more as somewhere to be, rather than somewhere to live. To see that they're the same thing. 

I've spent plenty of time reading other people's blogs, and learned so much from them. I'm just not sure how much I would have made the effort to put some of those things into practice right now, with everything else so busy, if I didn't have my own little corner of the blogging world. I think mostly, I've learned so much from Rhonda's blog, where she's got fabulous tutorials on making soap, yogurt, and just about everything else. Rhonda, I've read your posts on time management over and over and over these past few weeks, and I try to put some of the things in practice. Isn't it wonderful how you 'meet' all these people you never would get in contact with otherwise?? I'm trying to add slowly to my blog reading sidebar thing, I have no idea what the etiquette of these things is, so be patient!

Anyway, this post wasn't meant to be about how much I love having a cheery little blog, or how much I love other people's blogs. It was meant to be about how I've decided on a few things to prioritise over the next few months. In the next month - finish the phd (tough one, that!), without going completely bonkers and neglecting everything and everyone else in my life. Make sure I get enough exercise, and it's all going to be walking at the minute rather than anything more strenuous. And I think we'll be trying to make more of a shift towards organic/local food in the coming weeks, we'll see. 

Before Christmas? Because that's always a nice end point for some goals :) I'd like a new job, please :) Two or three days a week, with maybe another day volunteering somewhere cheery (I've got my eye on a few places). It'd be nice to use the PhD, of course, or at least some of what I've learned! But I don't want to, and don't need to, work full time doing that (and yes, I do consider myself lucky), so we'll see what turns up. I'd like to start writing on this blog consistently and regularly. Oh, and trapeze lessons. Yes, trapeze lessons, because that's what I promised myself as a do-something-completely-different-present when the PhD was finished. I might only have one, I'm not a huge fan of heights, but I have to have a go... 

So, there we have it. A huge waffly blog post full of appreciation for most things, slightly less appreciation for others (ahem, PhD, ahem), and a few goals to be keeping us going. And a nice picture of the view from the concrete path this afternoon... 

Busy, busy...

Gosh, it's been a busy few weeks! There's been lots of sunshine and sitting in the garden, lots of garden (look at that perpetual spinach!), and a fair bit of writing. We've made more rhubarb jam, done a fair bit of sewing, and had a couple of lovely weekends away. The garden is flourishing, although the only thing we've managed to harvest so far has been spinach, cabbage, one broad bean pod, and one strawberry :) And very nice they all were too. 

I also had a trip to the exhibition of one of our friend's paintings. Lyn paints gorgeous, beautiful, strong, vibrant women, and I love to see her work. Have a look at Lyn's website for more of her paintings. Isn't it fab when someone can make a living out of doing something creative that they love? An inspiration to us all. 

For a while I've been thinking about ways I can simplify my life, making more things from scratch, spending less, doing more. Last week, I finally achieved one of my goals and handed in my notice at work. I needed those extra 20 hours a week to finish off this phd, and managed to organise my life for the next couple of months to manage without the money. 

My boss, however, had different ideas... We've negotiated, and instead of leaving altogether, I am taking July, August and most of September as unpaid leave, until the phd is submitted. While part of me would have liked a clean break, this way leaves my options open and gives me work to go back to in the autumn. 

In the meantime, my head is down writing, writing, writing. Peter de Vries once said 'I write when I'm inspired, and I see to it that I'm inspired at nine o clock every morning.' I can't say I quite achieve that every day... But I'm chipping away at it, and it's a lot easier now I can see the whole thing emerging in front of me. There's eleven weeks until my deadline, and I'm trying to channel my energy (panic) into positive writing. Watch this space... 

On a cheerier note, I gained a gorgeous new nephew last week, my third! I'll be visiting him and his two big brothers tomorrow. I'm so looking forward to it! 

Budgeting

I've been thinking about this blog and what to use it for, and after reading other blogs I think I'd like it to track my journey along the path to a more peaceful, simpler life, growing food, making presents, and generally slowing down a bit and having a cheery time :) 

I've been reading Rhonda's blog about simple living recently, and it's inspired me to think about all the things I've done already, and things I'd like to do. This is a nice way of thinking things over for myself, even if nobody else ever reads this blog.

I'll talk about money today, as in the past it's been one of the main stresses in my life. 

I've never been one for spending money on clothes and handbags, but I do tend to fritter it on cups of tea and cake in cafes if I'm not careful... It's surprising how much you can spend on that! 

A couple of years ago for a number of reasons I'd managed to run up debt on an overdraft and credit card. It got to the stage where I was having bank charges taken out, which would make me overdrawn, then I would get more charges, and I was only ever paying interest off the credit card. I decided it had to stop, and with some frugal living, changes in phone bills, and cutting back, I managed to pay both off. I cut up the credit card and closed the overdraft facility. 

Yesterday I noticed I'd gone overdrawn for the first time in about 2 years! And it was only because I wasn't paying attention, having a coffee here, a piece of cake there... So today I'm bringing myself back to reality with this post. 

I'm well on the way to sorting out my budget (although I'm still not perfect!) I now live on the income I get from two days work each week. I save £2 coins for holidays and treats, and small change to go towards an emergency fund. I feel much better about money, and don't feel that pang of dread when I open a bank statement (except yesterday!).

I don't want a lifestyle I have to work full time to maintain, and I'm fortunate that I don't have one, and neither does my partner. At the minute I'm writing up a phd (of which more later), so I effectively 'work' more than full time, and I'd rather it didn't continue. When I've finished I'll carry on with my part time job at least for a few months rather than jumping straight into a full on, full life job. I'm realise how lucky I am to be able to do that, but part of it is through the choices I've made too. 

Tonight I'll sit down and tweak my budget, to see what I've been doing this past month to get off track. Then I'll put some bread in the machine (which must have saved us a fortune since we bought it, we go through at least 4 loaves a week!) and do some sewing.