Category Archives: The Irish Household

Something about the Sofa

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The lovely Ruth at Rock+Purl wrote today about her favourite spot in her home. I thought about this, and realized that despite my lack of love for our flat, I do have a place that I spend most of my time, and that gives me lots of comfort.

This is our massive sofa. It’s in our living room, right under the south-facing window, which means on most mornings, this is the warmest spot in the flat, and me being the cat-like creature that I am, tend to secure this corner with some sense of territory.

There is always a pillow and a blanket there, because this sofa has been a bed for so many people. Ruth herself has slept on it, and our best friend Chantelle lived on it while she was writing her Master’s dissertation. A number of friends have spent the night on it: it’s long enough that 6′ 2″ Daddy Irish can sleep comfortably on it, and a pair of our friends have slept on it on each end, feet meeting in the middle.

During the worst of my depression, this was where I stayed. It was my safe corner, and had everything I needed. My knitting, my books and magazines, my writing tools: I would knit, read or write as I needed. It’s even where I spin, as it’s a comfortable enough height for me to sit with a bunch of cushions against my back to treadle along with a DVD on the telly, or an audiobook on my iPod. Hopefully soon we’ll be getting a dock sound system, and it’ll be easier for me to listen to my playlists and audiobooks without using my headphones.

In the last year, that windowsill has been home to my plants that I grow from seed. So while there is currently only a bright basil plant there to provide me with colour, soon there will be little pots of seedlings, all doing their growing in the warm sun, and potentially providing us with lush colourful chillies, too.

This is where most of my knitting gets done. A little card table allows me to write by hand in the sun. Books and magazines get read in turn. This is where Nick and I huddle up in the evenings in front of the TV – usually shouting at Pointless or drooling at cooking shows. Sometimes I’d be knitting and he’d set up the card table to paint his miniatures. Sometimes we’d both be reading.

Quite often, I sleep here.

Whenever Nick comes home, I’m pretty sure he checks the sofa before he checks my office, to see where I am.

When we do move, some time in the far future, we’re probably going to hang on to this sofa. Maybe I’ll work out how to get new covers for it, and it will likely live in whatever room I claim as my office.

You know, I think I’m going to go and knit for a bit. You’ll know where to find me.

Lifted Spirits

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I’ve been fluey for pretty much the entire week, but we still managed to get the important Christmas stuff done. It’s a smaller, shorter occasion this year as Nick and I will be back in London next week instead of after the New Year, so that we can get on with a couple of little projects, the refurbishment of this blog being one of them.

Hopefully, that will launch before the New Year, and will ring in all the better things that we are all hoping for.

But in the meantime, the Christmas bread got made last night, I finished the one knitted gift, and everything got wrapped up nicely.

The boys in the family get gold, the girls get silver. If that hints at a bit of OCD, I should inform you that I got my wrapping skills from my mother, and you should see her wrapping. It’s like Grand Designs with origami and ribbons.

(And yes, I always end up wrapping my own presents. I’m good at looking surprised.)

There are quite a few cool things and ideas for 2012, and I will share them with you soon. But until then, have a lovely Christmas, and here’s a song we should all learn the words to.

A While

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I can’t entirely blame a month-and-a-half long absence purely on the Rugby World Cup, though that did take up a good chunk of it. The All Blacks won, but not before Wales completely won me over once more, just as they did during my first ever rugby match – Six Nations 2010, Wales v Scotland – which was the match where I utterly fell in love with the game. I backed the Home Nations through the World Cup, but in this order: Wales, Scotland, and equal last Ireland and England. And that is purely because Wales and Scotland were the teams who led me into the game in the first place.

But meanwhile, not a lot else has happened. It’s been a very rough six weeks, mentally and therefore emotionally speaking, but helped along by the fact that I started college again, and this time for a fully practical course. This makes me fantastically happy, as not only do I have an awesome no-nonsense lecturer, but also because every time I come home from college, I feel that little bit more like a gardener. With every week, I feel like my practical ability as a gardener is catching up with my more intellectual, theoretical ability. So that’s always a good feeling.

It’s the last day of October, which always reminds me that NaNoWriMo is about to begin. I attempted it once, years ago, and failed miserably. Apart from my assignments for my OU Literature and Creative Writing Diploma course, I haven’t actually been successful at writing anything, and I haven’t really stopped wondering if I was ever meant to write at all. I keep having ideas and aspirations, but they always eventually fade, and they seem to fade a lot quicker since my depression became apparent. Holding on to ideas is already hard enough, but shaping and colouring them from scratch seems like a task well beyond me at the moment.

Aside from blogging, I have missed my ability to write. I wonder where it’s gone, and I wonder if it will come back.

Two years ago I took part in NaBloPoMo, the blog-posting sibling of National Novel Writing Month. That went all right, but I couldn’t help but feel that I was merely blathering, and not really engaging anyone with it all. So I have yet to try again.

But just like when I previously discovered new ways to cope and new weapons to use, I have a new tool which may help.

Yes, I have abandoned the good ship Apple.

I now have an HTC Sensation XE, and it is a delight to use. The more affordable contract doesn’t hurt either, but now I have a phone that I am very comfortable using with the Posterous app. Hopefully this means I get small bits of writing done, accompanied by on-the-go photos that I rarely ever remember to share with anyone. I have been jealous of Vignette users for ages, and now I get a go.

(Somewhat on a related note, it’s also helped that I recently walked into the Lomography Store at Spitalfields and found the people there extremely friendly and enthusiastic, which is somewhat making me itch to get my Holga out and get involved again. If only film processing didn’t cost what it does…)

There have also been quiet twitchings of wanting to redecorate the blog. Nick and I are still working through a few ideas, but there may well be a new look in a couple of weeks and I’m hoping the new look will be more relevant to the content and to my life as it is at the moment.

But for now, here’s a photo of me standing on the edges of RHS Hyde Hall, marvelling at the big skies of Essex.

I am usually quite small, but damn…

Five Years

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Half a decade.

That sounds like a long time, even though it really kind of isn’t. But five years ago yesterday on August 26, Nick and I were married.

We figured, it being five years and all, which sounds a bit like a milestone, we ought to do it properly. So he took the day off – and to our surprise, we forgot there was another Bank Holiday left to go, so we inadvertently ended up with a longer weekend than we expected – and we went to plan.

We started with brunch at the London Particular. Nick had never been even though it’s a brisk walk from home but it’s a favourite meet-up place for me and Emma of loumms. They make lovely food – Nick had mackerel and tomato salsa on toast; I had mushrooms, goat’s cheese and spinach on toast – and gorgeous coffee and yet till this day my one crime is to never having quite had any of their delicious-looking baked goods. This needs rectifying.

The food was so yummy I forgot to take photos. Rest assured everything looked as good as it tasted.

Then we went off to an exhibition at the British Library.

I’d never been here before, so I was pretty excited, regardless of the foul weather. Oddly enough we had torrential rain during our last anniversary, too.

I know a lot of people aren’t keen on it, but I quite like the architecture. It’s pretty hard trying to stand out when you’re right next to the elegance that is King’s Cross, but I think it’s very attractive. I like the idea of lots of people with books in their hands hanging around the massive open courtyard area.

It’s very attractive on the inside, too. I felt both as though I could stay there forever, and that I perhaps wasn’t quite intellectual enough to be allowed to stay.

We were here to see the science fiction exhibition, Out of This World: Science Fiction But Not As You Know It. Nick’s a big sci-fi geek, and has spent our years together educating me on the best and most rewarding of sci-fi literature. Many of the books and texts that were on display, he’d read or had long known about. Everyone that was important to the genre was represented: China Miéville, Neil Gaiman, Phillip K. Dick, Ian M. Banks, Arthur C. Clarke, H.P Lovecraft, Margaret Atwood, Mary Shelley… It was amazing to see them all there, and more so to see things like Angela Carter’s handwriting, the score for the original Dr. Who theme and Arthur C. Clarke’s original paper on satellite communications, which he wrote about 25 years before it became a reality.

We also discovered that the Brontë sisters were perhaps the first ever real tabletop gaming group. Alarming, odd, but true.

But without sounding arrogant, and this is only because Nick and I talk so much about everything, we came away from the exhibition with only one real question.

Me: You know how it’s called, Science Fiction But Not As You Know It?
Nick: Yeah?
Me: Um, didn’t we know it was all like that all along?
Nick: Pretty much, yeah.

Much as I love being a geek, it’s even better being married to one.

We celebrated our geekery and took shelter from the rain by running into the cafe and having a couple of treats.

I had a jammy dodger because really, I’m about five years old.

Nick had a banana and toffee muffin. This man will not touch a banana with a ten foot pole, but bake it into something and he’s on it like a shot.

(The glasses are new. The optician said that it’s to help stop his sight from deteriorating, what with him working with computers all day long. He was told to wear them when he’s in front of a screen or reading. The optician didn’t understand that with Nick, that’s all the time.)

We started to make our way home so that we could get ready to go out for dinner. We only get to do the fancy dinner thing three times a year – each birthday and our anniversary – so we were going to do it properly. But me being me, going home via the Northern Line from King’s Cross does make me point out that my Local Yarn Shop, Loop, is one stop away, on the way home.

So Nick got me some yarn. And a pattern to go with the yarn.

Three skeins of Classic Elite Yarns’ Mountaintop Vail, and the pattern for Cladonia by Kristen Kapur

I realized that I was terribly sneaky about it, and so declared to Nick that I would take him to his Local Friendly Gaming Store, Dark Sphere, the next day, and buy him some more models for him to paint and add to his army. It made him very happy.

Our journey home was slightly hampered by fantastically tropical rain, rather reminiscent of home, really, considering the drop size, level of commitment – it did not let up for a good half hour – and the fact that it took about two minutes for the drains of London to fail to cope. We could have canoed home.

But by the time we were dressed and ready to head out to Arbutus, this year’s restaurant of choice, the rain had stopped and the sun had come out.

For such special occasions, we like to do the dinner out properly. Get a bit dressy, go somewhere nice, have three full courses and have a grown up moment at the end where I have a cup of coffee. Except, of course, I ruined that moment by, having been offered coffee and ordering it, I immediately said, “Yay! I’m being a grown up and having a coffee!”

Just as well Nick wasn’t having anything, because he would have snorted it out.

And so good to my word, today we headed out to Waterloo after a brief lunch diversion through Borough Market – I have by this point eaten way too much in 24 hours – and bought him these:

Since we’ve been home, he’s been really rather quiet, at the dining table, happily assembling them.

It’s the simple things.

Happy Anniversary, my darling Nick.

This Man

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See this man?

Some of you will know that this man is my husband, Nick. Nearly five years ago, this man made a grave error.

He made me his wife.

Now, this is rather the norm. Man falls in love with woman. Woman falls in love with man. Man and woman get married and try their best to live happily ever after. This is how it goes.

But Nick made the mistake of marrying someone who, as it turned out, degree or no degree, could not get a job in London. He married someone who had to work in retail for a long time, and therefore there was little by way of luxuries because he was often having to support her financially. Had he chosen better, he could have had someone who did have a very good job and could fend for herself, and together they could save money and go on little holidays and eventually move to a better home.

Instead, he married me. Instead, he’s had to give me as much support as he can, as well as help send me back to college so that I can start a new career in horticulture. He puts diesel in the car so that I can drive 160 miles a week. He listens to me ramble about plants and how they work and which ones are hardy and which ones like this soil or that soil. He helps me revise for my exams. He takes days off on my exams so that he can drive me to my exams and makes sure I don’t stress myself out. He goes to gardens with me and asks me questions and seems to delight in the fact that I’m slowly carving a new, happier future for myself, and for us.

Had Nick chosen better, he could have had someone who latterly did not turn out to suffer from depression. There would be no random arguments, no tearful nights, things would get done and the flat wouldn’t always be a bomb-site.

Instead, he married me. Instead, he’s had to make sure I’m calm and happy in the evenings so that I would be able to sleep. He’s had to help build a ‘safe corner’, which is the end of the sofa where I am stocked with my knitting, my stack of reading, and the pens, books and inks that I use when I write longhand as therapy. He kisses me goodbye in the morning hoping that I would find the strength to get up. He gives me a million assurances and don’t-you-worries every day so that I could think better of myself and gain a little more confidence every day. He tries to say nothing when he leaves the flat in yet another unironed shirt, or has to burrow into the dryer to find a pair of socks, because I have not been able to do it, because he insists I need to look after myself first.

This man goes to work in the morning and comes home via the supermarket of choice so that he can make dinner. He makes dinner because he likes cooking, and he finds it relaxing. He considers the kitchen his domain. On the other hand, he enjoys my baking, so while it doesn’t happen very often, he considers it a fair trade in a way only he could know.

This man, when he comes home to find that the shirts are ironed, the folding is done, the lounge is clear, I have actually had a lunch, I’ve gone to the gym, I have knitting to show him, I have read something interesting about a new plant that I want to tell him about, doesn’t think, “Man, I have an awesome wife.”

He thinks, “My darling wife has had a good day. This makes me happy.” And he would put his things away, change out of his work clothes, and give me a hug.

These are not desirable circumstances. I don’t know if there ever are. I could be a much better wife, certainly one that Nick deserves, but both of us have to make do, considering where and how we are. And by no means is Nick perfect, but he tries his best with himself, and with me.

But I want people to know that if not for this man, I don’t know who I would be. I don’t know if I would even be. If you ever think that I am bright and funny and clever and loving, I want you to know that it is because of this man.

I am stupidly lucky, and I know it. I think every day that I hardly deserve such luck.

Someday, I will be able to give this man so much more than a randomly-purchased book that he’d been waiting for, a full underwear drawer, an ironed shirt for tomorrow, a happenstance good day without tears. Someday, I will be the wife I feel he deserves.

But until then, if you’re someone who knows me, who loves me, who cares about me, if you ever see Nick, please: say thank you.

And So It Is…

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Christmas Eve.

The gingerbread men have been a success this year, so much so that we’ve eaten a few.

The now traditional Christmas breads have been baked. The recipe isn’t actually a Christmas bread per se, but as it has apples, cranberries and pecans with lemon juice and zest, it has always seemed festively appropriate.

And the presents are all wrapped.

I’ve got knitting ready, schoolwork all packed up, and a quilt that needs handquilting. I guess we’re all set.

Merry Christmas, everyone, and a Happy New Year.

See you on the other side.

Year Four

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I know a lot of you have seen this photo before, but it’s the nicest photo I have of us. It wasn’t taken on this day four years ago, but at our wedding party in October 2006. The night before the party there was a farmhouse packed with geeks, beer and cheese, which to me really was the best part of the wedding party: all your mates under one roof and having a great time.

This day four years ago was made up of a lovely registry office that was originally a hundreds-year-old schoolhouse, his family and our best friend Chantelle, followed by a fantastic pub lunch. Everything pretty much went back to normal after lunch, which is how we like it.

I love my big lump. He’s big and tall, has the cutest nose, the rosiest cheeks, and says a lot of funny things. He’s an excellent cook, gives lovely hugs and runs me baths on command. He actually likes my hobbies and doesn’t just indulge me, even though that does involve a bit of, “Haven’t you got enough fibre/yarn already?”

It kinda sucks that his only vices are video games and books, because, well, I play video games and read books, too. Sometimes we even play and read the same things. I’ve got nothing to use against him, except the fact that his DS died on him recently and he’s hijacked mine.

We talk. A lot.

The reason we both like The Last Samurai is because at the end, Tom Cruise says to Ken Watanabe, “I will miss our conversations.” We were both in tears at that point because that’s pretty much how we imagine we will end.

Except without the samurai armour and Howitzers. Well, okay: maybe the samurai armour.

He takes me to comedy gigs and museums. In some order we are next going to: Stephen Fry’s talk and booksigning at the South Bank, Lord of the Rings: Return of the King at the Royal Albert Hall with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and a solo concert by Ludovico Einaudi. Oh, and hopefully, before it ends, The Deep Sea exhibition at the Natural History Museum.

Because he knows I like small glowing squid.

A few days ago he bought me The Dodge Brothers album from iTunes, and I love it not just because skiffle is kinda awesome, but because the lead singer, guitarist and banjo player is my personal tutor and lecturer from university. Which means for the last three days he’s put up with me singing, “You can’t walk like man if you’re too drunk to stand.”

I imagine most other men might’ve tossed me out the window by Day Two.

Later today I will be collecting celebratory cupcakes from the talented Arianna of Bittersweet Bakers, and then this evening we will be going out for dinner. As part of the celebrations, tomorrow we’ll be heading out to watch Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.

I love my gorgeous, geeky lump of a husband. I want to stay with him forever.