Hair musings

Early morning - hair everywhere

I looked in the mirror this morning and was surprised to find my hair so long.  It seems to grow overnight sometimes - going from shoulder-length to long without me noticing.  I like to vary my hairstyle - sometimes it's long, sometimes I have a very short bob, occasionally I have a crop, sometimes I have a fringe, and sometimes I have layers cut in.  The idea of finding one style and sticking to it makes me feel bored and restricted.

I used to dye my hair quite regularly when I was a teenager and in my early twenties.  I mainly hennaed it, or dyed it various copper shades.  Now my hair is beginning to show silver streaks I am less inclined to dye it though.  I rather like the idea of having silver hair, although the in-between stage of salt-and-pepper shaded hair is less enticing.

For work I have to have my hair completely tied back.  I once arrived on a ward with a new haircut and no hair elastics and the ward sister informed me that even my short bob needed to be tied back, so I spent the day with it scraped back into an elastic band that she produced from her desk drawer; which, as anyone who has ever had to do that will know, was incredibly painful!  So now I have a little zip purse of hair elastics and kirby grips in my bag at all times.

When my hair is long I am guilty of tying it back into a ponytail almost all the time, which I sometimes think is a shame.  I am very fussy about my ponytails though, as I like to make sure they are high, symmetrical and secure.  I find there is something quite energising and uplifting about sashaying out of the house for the day with my hair swinging up in a high ponytail!  I do high ballet buns on Olivia for her ballet lessons, and she is just starting to learn to do them on herself.  However, we both find them much harder to do on ourselves than on someone else ...I haven't really mastered doing a bun on myself.  Not a satisfyingly, high, neat one anyhow.

So I shall start thinking about what I do with mine now.  Let it grow even longer and practice doing buns? Cut it off? Leave it long but get a fringe cut in?  This probably means there is a Pinterest board to be compiled....

Two new tops

It feels like a long time since I made any clothes for myself.  When I checked on my blog I discovered that it was indeed a long time ago - May 2012, just before I applied to University and started my nursing course.  Dressmaking takes time - even the simplest piece of clothing is a challenge to make in one day when you've also got to cook tea, take someone to ballet, clean out the chickens, draft an essay and read a couple of articles on diabetes.  I used to set aside whole days at a time to making new clothes, but I just can't do that any more.

So I've approached it differently.  I took my time, did a bit of pattern tracing one day, and had a happy few hours choosing fabrics the next day.  Then I had a couple of days at University and some more studying at home, before I spent another few hours pinning and cutting the fabric out.  The next weekend I sewed everything together, and finally finished the hemming as I waited at the station to pick up Olivia a few days after that.  Of course I can still make clothes when I am working or studying.  It seems obvious now I write that, but having been given the luxury of staying at home the last few years, it took me a while to understand how.

Over the past few weeks I've made myself two cotton tops.  I used the Lisette Market Dress pattern, Simplicity 2211, which I just discovered is now sadly out of print.  I bought the pattern when it came out and just hadn't got round to making it.  I made the first version exactly as the pattern directed, except that I left off the strange fake button placket down the centre front.  When it was finished and I wore it for a day, I had a number of issues with it.

• it has rather a boxy shape on me - snug around the hips and too roomy around the waist.
• the puffed and gathered sleeves look too babyish on a woman of 41
• the interfacing I used on the contrast fabric around the neck and sleeves, left the top feeling a little too stiff at these points.  The neck is very high anyway, and the interfacing in it made it sit very awkwardly on me.

Version 1 - not bad, not great

Hemming the first top, waiting in the car to pick up O

So, I embarked on version 2.  This time I left off the interfacing, left off the cuffs at the bottom of the sleeves so that they were no longer puffed, and took the side seams in at the waist and out at the hips.  I also bound the bottom edge with ribbon rather than hemming it.

I am delighted with this version.  Leaving off the interfacing made the process of putting on the neck much more sweary, as the fabric really takes some serious manipulation in order to lie nice and flat.  However, my patience (and swearing) paid off as the resulting neck is still neat and clean, but much softer to wear and somehow a little more casual too.

Version 2 - much better tailored to my shape, and with more grown-up sleeves

Thick, richly embroidered Swiss ribbon

For both tops I used fabric that I absolutely love.  The first one uses a wonderful spring-fresh quilting cotton from Amy Butler and the second one is an insanely patterned printed cotton which I bought in Switzerland in 2010.  It has little scenes of Switzerland on it, including my favourite - a tiny fondue pot!  The ribbon on the hem is also something I bought in Switzerland - a traditional Swiss, floral, embroidered ribbon.

There will be a third version too - incorporating all the changes I made for the second one.  I am just dithering over fabric choices at the moment.  A home made top deserves distinctive and beautiful fabric, and one of the reasons I love making clothes is that I end up with something you would never be able to buy in a shop.  I wear jeans a great deal, and their plainness is off-set nicely by a fancier top. 

This term at University we've been talking a great deal about how we will cope with the stresses of the job once we qualify, and one topic that keeps coming up is that of hobbies and interests outside nursing.  Mental wellbeing is something I wrote about a little bit on this blog back in October last year, and I now consider my mental health much more than I used to.  I am beginning to realise that although I love having new clothes to wear, I actually love dressmaking just as much for the creative challenge it provides.  All the measuring, adjusting, fiddly lining up of notches, pinning, overlocking and stitching requires just enough concentration to take my mind off whatever else is going on around me.  And now that I spend my working hours in a uniform with a high polyester content, the importance of beautiful, well-made clothes in natural fibres becomes even more significant.

The best tailor's chalk in the world, ever

Ready to set the sleeve

Overheard on the bus

Number 56 - Clerkenwell to Leyton

• "I would go skateboarding, but I can't find one with brakes"
• "I literally can't even look at my own belly button"
• "I wouldn't want to own a shimmery skater skirt - but a black one might be okay"
• "I maintain perfectness at all times"
• "I wish Google Images was a shop"
• "I've been asked to draw my tattoo so many times - I just can't be bothered any more"
• "That's not even a thing"
• "You know, I can just sense which bus stop we're at - it's kind of like an extreme psychic ability"

10 things

• I am not feeling the running love at the moment.  I am finding it hard, I'm getting tired of my usual routes, and I ache.  But I am still running, and for that I feel very proud of myself.
• I just found out my next placement is in A and E.  As someone who has watched every episode of every series of 24 Hours in A and E obsessively, this is one of the most exciting things that's ever happened to me!  I start in a month's time.
• I am so sick of this rain.  We are fortunate not to be living in an area that has been wrecked by floods, but oh. my. word.  This rain just goes on and on.  And on.

• I have enjoyed another run of good books lately: Where'd you go, Bernadette, The Ship of Brides, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen and my current read, Man Belong Mrs Queen.  I am panicking that this run of success is going to grind to a halt after this book.  Four great books in a row is pretty lucky.  Can my luck continue?
• My mother-in-law had a landmark birthday, and to celebrate the extended family plus friends all gathered together in central London for a magnificent cookery lesson at La Cucina Caldesi.  I learnt how to make pasta, and I am now scouring eBay for a pasta attachment for my KitchenAid.  It was a wonderful day.
• My sister's baby arrived and I am now an auntie for the seventh time.  I made my new niece a little quilted blanket out of some Ed Emberley fabric I bought years ago and never used.  I think it was waiting for R's arrival.

• My next exam is a drug calculation exam.  I need to get 100% to pass - you can't have nurses getting drug calculations only 90% right.  I like maths though, and I like learning formula and practising sums, so it's not too daunting at the moment.
• If you haven't already found them, take a look at the Metropolitan Police helicopter crew on Instagram and Twitter.  They take the most incredible arial photos of London, as they're travelling to and from jobs - often on just an iPhone.
• I have been cooking dumplings often this winter.  They cheer me up and help me to forget about the rain.

• I am listening to Sophie Ellis Bextor's new album, Wanderlust, and loving it. 

Evolving appetites

Graham is training for a marathon again.  He came home last weekend after a long (over two hour) trail run, and his Garmin showed that he had burnt nearly 1,800 calories while he was out.  Which is an eye watering amount of calories for a single run - over two thirds of the recommended daily amount of calories for a man.  Unsurprisingly he parked himself down at the kitchen table and devoured vast platefuls of food, washed it all down with a banana and oat smoothie and then took himself off for a long nap.

The children too are eating vast platefuls of food and sleeping a great deal.  They are growing almost in front of my eyes...Cam is now within a centimetre or so of being taller than me, and Olivia already taller than her grandmother.  Teenage appetites have arrived in the house with a vengeance.

And so suddenly I find that my years of experience in cooking for four people don't count for much.  My previously precise quantities are all out of kilter, and what used to feed us all comfortably with second helpings and leftovers now barely feeds the children.

Toad in the hole

Baked oatmeal

Potatoes - ready to be roasted for a corned beef hash

Would you like some porridge with your syrup, Olivia?

Cherry and almond cake

I have gone back to doing a big brunch on Sunday mornings, which gives me a break from what sometimes feels like endless cooking and feeding of squawking baby blackbirds.  While Graham is out on a run, the children can lollop on the sofa watching tele, and I can leisurely potter about in the kitchen listening to Radio 4 in peace while I cook and bake.  I try and make at least three big, filling dishes that everyone can help themselves to, and come back to during the day if they feel hungry.  I don't bother making anything for lunch, and then we have supper a bit earlier than usual.  It makes the whole of Sunday feel lazy, indulgent and slow, which is just what I want.

Here's what has made it onto the brunch menu during January:

• corned beef hash
• herb omelettes with spicy tomato sauce
• Amish baked oatmeal (recipe here)
• banana and apple muffins
• huevos rancheros
• lemon and raisin pancakes
• savoury bread-and-butter pudding (grated cheese and bacon instead of the sugar and raisins)
• soda bread
• breakfast pizza (homemade pizza with breakfast-like toppings eg. mushrooms, bacon, tomatoes, eggs)
• spicy burritos
• oat and raisin muffins

We eat brunch at about 11am, but the children can't last that long without food.  While they are lolling and tele watching they are also eating fruit, toast or porridge - whilst waiting for brunch to appear....so basically they have breakfast AND brunch....

Olympic ambitions

It's all Tom Daley's fault.  Really - it is.

I saw this picture on Instagram, and it reminded me that the Olympic aquatics centre opens to the public in just over a month's time.  For a split second I thought to myself 'it might be rather nice to have a swim in the Olympic pool', and then the thought faded as I remembered that I hate swimming.  Plus I can't really swim either.  I can float and tread water just enough to not drown, but I can't swim properly and the only 'stroke' I can do is basic doggy paddle for a few metres.  

The last time I did any amount of swimming was when I lived in Queensland, Australia for 9 months in 1995.  It was probably a condition of my visa that I had to swim while I was there; you can't be in Australia and not swim.  Any swimming I did was either snorkeling or splashing around in the sea though, so my 'not drowning' technique was perfectly adequate.  I can't actually remember the last time I went swimming in the UK.  It may have been as a child, with my parents.  I skived off every school swimming lesson at secondary school.  

I have never taken my own children swimming.  When they were toddlers I really wanted them to love swimming and be good at it, and I knew that the quickest way to ruin that would be for me to take them.  So Graham took them, and taught them both to swim at a very young age.  It is one of my greatest parenting achievements that they both swim like fish now, and love it, despite having me as a vehement, non-swimming, role model.  They are baffled at my dislike of it.  My parents have a pool in France, but I don't swim in it when we visit them.  Occasionally if it is really hot, I will sit in the shallow end sipping a cold glass of wine, or float for five minutes to cool down - but I'd rather be sitting in the shade reading a book and watching the others swim.

And yet...when I thought of the Olympic aquatics centre and how I would probably never swim there, I actually felt a little bit sad and regretful that I don't have a life skill that every other adult in the UK seems to have.  I remembered how I thought I hated running until I actually gave it a go.

"Right!  I'm going swimming tomorrow!" I announced to Olivia last night.
There was a long pause.
"You are?"
"Yes.  I'm going to give it a go."
"Wow."

I rummaged in my cupboard and found a swimming costume I bought over five years ago for occasional floating in the pool in France.  Olivia stood next to me, wide-eyed, as if she couldn't really believe I was going to go through with it.   She claimed never to have seen me wearing that swimming costume.

"You'll need googles," she said.  "Do you even have goggles?"
"No.  Do I really have to wear goggles?"
"Durr.  You can't swim without goggles."
"Okay - can I borrow yours?"
"I use Dad's second-best pair...but I think he's got a third-best pair somewhere that you could borrow."

Being a spoilt Londoner, as well as the Olympic aquatics centre just a ten minute bus ride away I also have two pools within walking distance of my house.  I have never swum in either, despite having lived here for fifteen years, but this morning after I took Olivia to school ("are you seriously going through with this?" was her parting shot as she got out of the car) I walked to the closest one and paid my three pounds (I don't even know if this is good value?  Is it?  It seemed pretty good to me).

In the changing cubicle I discovered that my swimming costume didn't fit.  I have - entirely accidentally - lost over 9kg in weight in the last year through running and working shifts, and the costume was gaping horribly.  I suspected that it would gape even more once I got it wet.  Happily, I discovered I could use the bracelet from my locker to clip the straps of my swimming costume together at the back, and this made it fit much better (although admittedly it left me looking like even more of an amateur - as if I didn't even know how to wear my locker bracelet).

The lanes in the pool were marked slow, medium and fast.  I got into a slow one, which only had two other people in it, and set off - not entirely sure whether I could swim a whole 25 metres in one go.  It turned out that I could just about manage a length of doggy paddle - and I stood up at the far end, heart pounding, feeling extremely pleased with myself. 

I had not expected everybody else in the pool to be so friendly.  Everybody chatted during the pauses at the end of the lengths.  There was much consternation and interest at my (lack of) swimming technique, and one man said, after watching me thrash up and down as hard as I could, "how come you're going so fast, given that you can barely swim?".  Polish Paul, in my lane, tried to show me how I could swim with much less effort. 
"This way, you won't be tired!" he said.
"I kind of want to be tired though," I replied, "I'm here for the exercise"
"No, no no.  You want to just glide up and down.  Don't wear yourself out.  I am an expert at gliding!"
As well as meeting Polish Paul, I learnt that the elderly lady in the green costume is known to everyone as The Fish, and that Mustafa, who is sixty this year, learnt to swim for his fiftieth birthday.  I suspect that if I turn up regularly at this time, I might become known as Crazy Doggy Paddle Woman.

I managed twelve lengths in total (not in one go - I stopped between each one), and when I got out, my arms and legs were trembling with tiredness ("you see - you should be gliding, like me!" said Polish Paul, as I rather shakily said goodbye).  

Graham's third-best pair of goggles

I think I might go again.

Thoughts on January

The first daffodils of 2014

For me, January has a clean, fresh feel to it.  It doesn't seem like the start of the year - for me that will always be the new school year in September - but rather, January is a tidying up and a re-grouping.  A shake of the shoulders, chin in the air, and carrying on with a renewed sense of determination.

Back at University today

A new term started for me today: a new module, new reading lists, new tutors, one new pen and no new notebook (so restrained of me), plus all my lovely nursing friends together again.  But, alarmingly, it's my last ever term of teaching on this course.  After this, I have placements until July, then the summer holidays off, and placements again up to Christmas, when I qualify.  Qualify!  It's pretty scary to even write that word. 

So I am enjoying the sense of calm and resolve that this time of year brings for me, and trying not to think too much about my time at University coming to an end.  I am grabbing as much fresh air as I can, looking out for the first British daffodil bunches in the shops (Waitrose had some this week!), running, baking bread, and reading novels.

 
And I'm also filling up all my spare days with plans of nice things I want to do while I still have a bit of time on my hands.  Its January now, and I've got the time and inclination to fritter away 20 minutes photographing blood oranges; but before I know it, it will be December and I'll be a fully qualified nurse.  Fewer blood oranges and more actual blood, I should imagine.  Not long now.
 

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