10 things

Bulrushes in Dulwich Park

• I met up with a friend in Dulwich.  We went to the Dulwich Picture Gallery to see the Whistler exhibition.  I loved the pictures in the exhibition - the detailed prints and etchings of life alongside the river were my favourites.  It is only on for a few more days, but well worth a visit if you are in the area.
• I had never been to Dulwich before.  It is a very pretty part of London, with a delightful park to wander around.
• Yesterday, I went up to Cambridge to see my sister and her small daughter, who is nearly two.  I spent a wonderful morning reading books, building duplo, sorting Postman Pat's letters and cooking play food.  My sister, who is due to give birth to her second child any day now, had a chance to put her feet up and do a little bit of cooking.  When she thanked me, as I left, for coming to visit I was instantly transported back eleven years when I had two small children and my sister, who was only about twenty at the time, would come to see me and spend hours just sitting on the floor with Cam and Olivia, building train tracks, playing, cuddling and reading books.  I had forgotten what a wonderful thing that was: adult company for me, and an adored entertainer for the children.  It's a good feeling to be able to return the favour for her.

  

  Small niece, looking at books

• In between visits to Dulwich and Cambridge, I have been studying pharmacology for an exam I have coming up later this term.  I find pharmacology really interesting but incredibly difficult to learn.
• Olivia was back at school for less than three days and she already had two birthday parties and a sleepover lined up for this weekend.
• I have had a great many turnips in my veg box the past few weeks.  I am rather enjoying them, although it can be a struggle to find many recipes for them as they are seen as quite an unusual vegetable these days.  I ate one raw and discovered that it tastes very like a radish.  Who knew?
• I baked an apple and almond loaf cake - it looks plain but tastes delicious.  I rather like cakes that do that - they seem quite classy and sophisticated.



A very pleasing new biscuit tin

• I have a self imposed tradition of acquiring a new biscuit tin each Christmas, which then becomes a new cake tin once all the biscuits have been eaten.  M and S is usually the best source for beautiful tins at Christmas, and this year's did not disappoint.
• I have read a run of really good books lately: The Butterfly Isles by Patrick Barkham, The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith (aka JK Rowling) were both gobbled up in a few days and I am now on The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion, which is another excellent read. 
• The cowl I knitted from leftover sock yarn has proved to be very disappointing.  It looks pretty but rolls up into a fat sausage whenever I wear it.  I think I probably should have used a thicker yarn, used a different stitch, and made it longer.  I shall go back to my default setting of knitting socks and shawls.

My newly finished cowl...

In its default setting - rolled up...

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     I was very kindly awarded a Versatile Blogger award by Phoebe at The Stylish Baker. Thank you, Phoebe!  Having blogged for nearly seven years there can't be that many more interesting things left to find out about me, so I have gone with my usual ten current things instead.  If you haven't come across Phoebe's blog already, do go and have a look.  Her Twelve Days of Christmas Baking had my mouth watering all December, and I made the 30 Minute Soft Pretzels as soon as I read the recipe - they were utterly delicious.

Where I was 2013

This year was a busy year.  I got used to working again.  I started to feel like a nurse.  I started to run - and I kept on running.

In March I had a lovely day with blogging friends, and Kristina gave us all handmade socks!

My parents and I took the children to the Cutty Sark over the Easter holidays

I knitted socks that matched my surgical textbook

In June I had a picnic in Victoria Park with some nursing friends

In August we went to see my parents in France, and I spent most of the time dozing in the hammock

I won some new running shoes!

I knitted some pink socks - started in the spring, finished in the autumn

Still running - I bought myself a running skirt and some fancy socks

Walking to university for lectures in October

Graham and I do parkrun every Saturday morning.  In almost-matching blue shoes.

A morning on the sofa after a long shift the day before

November leaves in London

Excellent, forgotten tights - found at the back of my sock drawer

Heading into university for the last time this year - to hand in my second year portfolio right before Christmas

Seasonal tights!

It was a good year.  A year of consolidation rather than new beginnings.  I tried to keep family life more or less the same, and incorporate work and study into it rather than let nursing dominate everything.  I didn't always manage it but it got easier as the year wore on.

It has been a peaceful but productive year, which is how I like it.

Ending the year in Norfolk with my brother's family

New Year's Eve beach walk in Norfolk

I ended the year with my brother and his family, who we don't get to see very often, in Norfolk.  We walked along sandy beaches under the vast empty skies, chatted, laughed, and eased into each other's company.  It was a perfect end to the year - with family... outdoors...relaxed.  Just how I like it. 

Graham and Cam - the same height now

Happy New Year!

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See all the previous Where I was posts here:
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012

Exams

Revision cards - hundreds of them

I have been studying for an important exam - and in those moments where I become distracted, or weary, I gaze out of the window and remember all the other times in my life when I was preparing for, or sitting, exams.  There have been many; I seem to have chosen a path in life which has required many exams along the way.

• When I was sitting my GCSEs, I spent the morning before my English Literature paper sitting in the Oxford University Parks, kissing my boyfriend in the sunshine.  Not to the detriment of my studies though - I rocked up to school at lunchtime, sat the exam and still got an A.
• When I was studying for my A-levels I took things more seriously.  I think they still remain the exams I studied the hardest for. 
• At University I only sat exams in my final year.  Graham borrowed some of my notes to revise for the Cold War paper, and was very tardy at giving them back to me.
• A week before my University finals, I packed my little tent into my car, drove to the Norfolk coast and stayed there for a few days to revise in peace, by myself.  I lay in my tent, with the doors pegged open, reading American history textbooks and American war poems in the breezy sunshine.  I was very content and came back to campus to sit my finals with a nice suntan.
• It took me just under three years to qualify as an accountant.  During that time I sat sixteen exams, and passed them all at the first attempt, whilst working full-time as a trainee accountant.  Even though I am no longer an accountant, I am still very proud of that achievement.
• It felt a bit as if life was just one long exam at times, though.
• The tax exam was a bit too close for comfort - I got 51% and the passmark was 50%.
• During my very last accountancy exam, which I sat in Hackney Town Hall, I felt my first baby move in my belly for the first ever time.  I sat there, beaming to myself, and the invigilator quietly walked over to check if I was okay.

Now I am back at University for the second time, and sitting exams for the umpteenth time.  They don't get any easier or more pleasant, but the revision drill at least feels familiar; I know what needs to be done.  Even with all my experience of taking exams, this will be my first ever biology exam and the first time I have sat an exam in a church crypt.  

The nerves are starting to kick in.

My exam venue

Endings and beginnings

A green and pleasant land

Yesterday I went back to Oxfordshire, to the village where I grew up, for the funeral of an amazing and much loved man.  Jack had lived a long and full life, teaching so much to everyone he met over the years, and the day had much laughter and reminiscing as well as tears and sadness that Jack was no longer with us.

I met childhood friends whom I'd not seen for decades, was hugged and kissed by people who'd known me since I was at primary school, and generally felt very loved all day.  It marked the end of an era, because Jack had just always been there.  He was a great age when he died and we all knew that the day would come when he was no longer with us, but it was still hard to take in yesterday.  He had been at the centre of the village and the community for as long as anyone could remember. 

But endings always come with beginnings and yesterday also marked a very important beginning for me.  I found out, just a few hours before I drove to Oxfordshire, that I have a place at University for this September.  I will be going to City University, in central London, to train as a nurse.  After three years at home with the children, and many more years before that working as an accountant in the City, this is a completely new beginning for me, and one that I am incredibly excited about.

It's official

I have recently started a voluntary job at my local hospital as a helper on the wards - I serve lunch, chat to patients and help them with small tasks such as fetching them books to read from the hospital library, pouring them drinks, chopping up food and propping them up with pillows.  I am based, at the moment, on a general ward for elderly women, and some of them are very frail indeed.

After the funeral yesterday I chatted with some of the people who had helped to look after Jack in his last few weeks.  They told me what I have seen for myself at my local hospital - gentle kindness from nurses means so much to people who are at the end of their life, and to their families too.  The best nurses are the ones who remember that little gestures can have a big impact.

I will try to remember that as I return to the whirl of study, travel, work and childcare juggling in September; Jack's still going to be teaching me things.

10 things

• I went to a fancy dress party with a theme of Icons from the 1980s, as a ZX Spectrum.  I like to retain an air of dignity as much as I can, so I rejected my family's suggestions that I dress up as Madonna or Anneka Rice, and went for an inanimate object instead. A black dress and a homemade badge was all I needed.

• Naturally, the children couldn't quite believe that the latest home computer thirty years ago, was lauded for games like Elite and Manic Miner.  They live in another world, and can't quite get their heads around how we moved from the ZX Spectrum to Xbox Live in one generation.
• As I applied eye-shadow for the first time in years, I realised that I didn't wear any make-up at my wedding last year.  That seems very odd, but also kind of cool.
• I have some new earrings, which are making me smile.

• My saxophone is down from the loft, so that I can accompany O on her new french horn and give her a middle C to tune to.  She has to do all the tuning with her mouth, for each note she plays, and this is by far the trickiest thing for her at the moment.
• Once I'd played a few notes, I remembered how much fun it is playing an instrument. I dug out some music, reminded myself of the fingering chart and had a play around.

• My saxophone is even louder than O's french horn.
• I've got the bug now. My saxophone is going into our local music shop for a service later this week and then I'm going to save up for some refresher lessons and investigate local orchestras and wind bands.
• Amazon sells tenor saxophone reeds, and even cork grease.  Is there anything they don't sell?
• Olympic preparations have come to our street.  Because we live so close to the Olympic Park, we are having residents' parking restrictions put in for the duration of the summer.  This is our side of the street this morning, waiting for the contractors to arrive.  I've never seen our street without cars; it looks lovely.

Where I was 2011

2011 was an epic year for us, an astonishing year, a year of challenges and achievements.

In April I did something I never thought I would; I got engaged.  In August, I did the other thing I never thought I would, and got married.  Both things happened in one of my favourite places, the South-West of France. 



I wondered whether to wear my favourite Birkenstocks on my wedding day...



...but in the end I wore pretty white ballet flats, and showed off my Birkenstock tan marks

On both trips down to France I went on a good number of long walks - often in extremely hot temperatures.  There was a MASSIVE snake on one of my walks in April.  Five French spring walks here: 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.  And a dawn walk à deux, a few days before we got married in August.

Walking through lush, spring grass in France in April

Orchids were everywhere when we were down in Tarn-et-Garonne in April

O ready for a walk, August

With O on St Cecile plage in Normandy, on our way home

I also did a great deal of walking with Miss Moss Stitch in the first half of the year as we walked the length of the Thames in central London, and visited a few markets too.  You can find our first ten weekday walks, covering most of our river walks, here.

Treasure from the river

Estuary mud - at Silvertown in February

Self portrait at Bankside, on one of our river walks

Mudlarking again, on the Isle of Dogs

One of the biggest things that happened to our family this year was Graham's Ironman race, which he did in Nottingham in July.  In many ways it was a bigger event than our wedding, because it took much more preparation!  I was so incredibly proud of him when he finished, and came home a whole half-hour faster than he had hoped for.

I watched the marathon part of the race, lounging on G's quilt in the sunshine



Ironman training - muddy, bloody legs after a 3 hour run in Epping Forest in March


I was also very proud when C did his first ever triathlon, in July too.  He put in so much effort; and like his father, he trained properly and consistently leading up to it.  July was a month of snickers bars, bike grease and dirty trainers.

C's tired legs, after his triathlon

C's new trainers, and an award from Park Run

At other points during the year we camped with friends, I made G an autumn leaf quilt for his 40th birthday, C started secondary school, I went to Kew Gardens regularly with family and with friends, I baked pies, I did a great deal of knitting, I found a new friend and I made a great deal of jam.

Graham's 40th birthday quilt

First day at secondary school

Coming home from Kew - at Stratford station - May

In the school playground - June

C's big nearly-teenage feet, and cousin L's little baby feet

Knitting in the sunshine, while C sailed on Fairlop Water - June

Jam stash

It has been a very good year indeed.  Sending you all my very best wishes for a good year to come in 2012.

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You can also see where I was in 2010, in 2009, in 2008 and in 2007.  I have been blogging for nearly five years!