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glindaI really liked this week’s Friday Five, so I started writing this on Friday, but this long weekend proved fairly busy so I’m just getting round to finishing it. I was in Glasgow for this experimental music festival I got to most years, and generally I spend most of the time when I’m not actually at the gigs, looking at art and writing. This year I’ve ended up doing much more reading. I read the entirety of Kakuzo Okakura’s The Book of Tea and a surprisingly large chunk of Prophet by Helen MacDonald and Sin Blache. (Thank you rubbish wifi connections and people packed too tightly on trains for me to be able to knit comfortably.) I really enjoyed - am really enjoying - both books even if neither of them are the books I thought I’d read this week if I got any reading done at all. I also had a lovely lunch with a friend from uni - twenty plus years of friendship, a comfort like no other - and received an adorable picture from her this morning of her toddler delightedly hugging the cuddly penguin I got him for his birthday. (My heart, it grew three sizes.) I’ve spent a lot of this weekend feeling tired, but it was worth it, I definitely needed this weekend of music and art and friendship and time to myself.
1. Do you like to spend time outdoors?
I do like spending time outdoors, but living where I do I have to clarify that my kind of spending time outdoors, is taking a nice walk along the river, or the canal, or round one of my city’s parks. I like having a picnic on a nice bench, or on a blanket on the beach. I enjoy a sheltered nook with a book, or taking a wander with my little sound recorder. Perhaps a wander round a ruined castle with lunch at the cafe afterwards. I could perhaps be persuaded - by a friend who knew what they were doing - to do some light kayaking on a loch, and I enjoy paddling in the sea on a nice day - if it’s really lovely weather I’ll even swim - but otherwise I’m not really into outdoor ‘activities’. No desire to go bagging munros or cold water swimming or what have you.
2. What is your favourite flower?
I love spring flowers the best. Tulips, daffodils, crocuses, snowdrops, primroses. Something about their resilience, about the way so many of them come up year after year, often without human intervention after their initial planting. I love the way the river banks near me burst into vibrant colour at the first sign of milder weather, the way their bright little blossoms poke defiantly out of drifts of late spring snow. There’s a reason my default icon for most of the last decade has been crocuses poking through the snow, that’s hope for me, with all my struggles with SAD, in an image.
3. Any favourite warm weather activities?
I love the sea. One of my favourite warm weather activities is walking along the shoreline listening to the waves - sometimes acoustically with my ears, others through my sound recorder. I love it so. Otherwise, I love to sit under a shady tree with a book, preferably in some woods, but a nice garden with do. (There are benches along the river near where I live, yes I do have a favourite bench to picnic with my lunch after an early shift on a sunny day - despite being less than five minutes from my actual house.) I love picnics, with friends or alone, I’ve got a nice picnic bag, and I do in fact do a good spread, my local art centre does outdoor concerts in the summer, and that’s a definite favourite, sitting on the grass with a picnic, a cold beverage and some pals? Bliss.
4. Have you ever kept a garden? If so, what did you grow?
Only the container variety. I love growing herbs and vegetables, and also pretty flowers. Currently I just have window boxes, but they’re full of herbs, primroses and alpines (things that all to well at height with minimal shelter) and I love them. I really only have succulents indoors at the moment, but over lockdown and in the first couple of years after, I had peppers and tomatoes that did really well, cucumbers that were more trouble than they were worth and even mushrooms! When I had a ground level container garden I had good luck with spring onions but I haven’t been able to replicate that since.
5. Do you know how to swim?
I do. I love swimming. It’s probably my favourite form of exercise other than skating and I take comfort in knowing I’ll still be able to do it when I’m old, when all other movement hurts I can still swim. It eases my screwed up joints and calms my anxious mind. I’m not a particularly good or fast swimmer, I much prefer a gentle breast stroke to any kind of efficient crawl. It’s just me and the warm water, back and forth, for ten minutes or an hour, however the mood strikes me. A body in motion, safe and held in the water.
1. Do you like to spend time outdoors?
I do like spending time outdoors, but living where I do I have to clarify that my kind of spending time outdoors, is taking a nice walk along the river, or the canal, or round one of my city’s parks. I like having a picnic on a nice bench, or on a blanket on the beach. I enjoy a sheltered nook with a book, or taking a wander with my little sound recorder. Perhaps a wander round a ruined castle with lunch at the cafe afterwards. I could perhaps be persuaded - by a friend who knew what they were doing - to do some light kayaking on a loch, and I enjoy paddling in the sea on a nice day - if it’s really lovely weather I’ll even swim - but otherwise I’m not really into outdoor ‘activities’. No desire to go bagging munros or cold water swimming or what have you.
2. What is your favourite flower?
I love spring flowers the best. Tulips, daffodils, crocuses, snowdrops, primroses. Something about their resilience, about the way so many of them come up year after year, often without human intervention after their initial planting. I love the way the river banks near me burst into vibrant colour at the first sign of milder weather, the way their bright little blossoms poke defiantly out of drifts of late spring snow. There’s a reason my default icon for most of the last decade has been crocuses poking through the snow, that’s hope for me, with all my struggles with SAD, in an image.
3. Any favourite warm weather activities?
I love the sea. One of my favourite warm weather activities is walking along the shoreline listening to the waves - sometimes acoustically with my ears, others through my sound recorder. I love it so. Otherwise, I love to sit under a shady tree with a book, preferably in some woods, but a nice garden with do. (There are benches along the river near where I live, yes I do have a favourite bench to picnic with my lunch after an early shift on a sunny day - despite being less than five minutes from my actual house.) I love picnics, with friends or alone, I’ve got a nice picnic bag, and I do in fact do a good spread, my local art centre does outdoor concerts in the summer, and that’s a definite favourite, sitting on the grass with a picnic, a cold beverage and some pals? Bliss.
4. Have you ever kept a garden? If so, what did you grow?
Only the container variety. I love growing herbs and vegetables, and also pretty flowers. Currently I just have window boxes, but they’re full of herbs, primroses and alpines (things that all to well at height with minimal shelter) and I love them. I really only have succulents indoors at the moment, but over lockdown and in the first couple of years after, I had peppers and tomatoes that did really well, cucumbers that were more trouble than they were worth and even mushrooms! When I had a ground level container garden I had good luck with spring onions but I haven’t been able to replicate that since.
5. Do you know how to swim?
I do. I love swimming. It’s probably my favourite form of exercise other than skating and I take comfort in knowing I’ll still be able to do it when I’m old, when all other movement hurts I can still swim. It eases my screwed up joints and calms my anxious mind. I’m not a particularly good or fast swimmer, I much prefer a gentle breast stroke to any kind of efficient crawl. It’s just me and the warm water, back and forth, for ten minutes or an hour, however the mood strikes me. A body in motion, safe and held in the water.
