The Missing Links 2020

2020 seems to have been a difficult year for everyone, so I was very pleased to visit many places on my 'Missing Links' list over the summer and autumn.

 

 

Cromer, Norfolk

 

It was very good that we managed to go on our summer holiday at the end of August. Cromer was small and pretty. Because of Covid19 restrictions we ended up having takeaway pizza every evening. It was very pleasant taking the bus to Wells-next-the-sea and visiting the Amazona Zoo.

Chiswick House Gardens

 

 

We visited Chiswick House Gardens in July. The house itself was closed but the gardens were well worth visiting and the cafe was open.

 

Mile End Park

 

 

 

I was not initially impressed with Mile End Park until I realised that the best bits lay over the other side of the road with the eco park, the arts park and a lovely walk by Regent's Canal.

The Serpentine @ Hyde Park

 

 

 

Hyde Park is the biggest park in London and the Serpentine is a substantial body of water. The main gallery was closed in October so we visited the Sackler Gallery instead, which was showing an eco-exhibition about the importance of trees, we had a relaxing coffee in the lido café before coming home.

2012 Olympic Park

 

 

 

I was very pleased to finally visit the 2012 Olympic Park, after meaning to visit it since 2013. We visited it on a rather grey summer's day, but still had a lovely time despite the Covid 19 restrictions and a bit of wind and rain. We had coffee and enjoyed seeing the stadium, the rings and the River Lea.

 

 

Alderglade, Uxbridge

 

 

 

We visited the first part of the Colne River Nature Reserve in Harefield at the beginning of March just before Lockdown kicked in. I found that another part of the nature reserve which could easily be reached by public transport was Alderglade. In July 2020 we set out in search of Alderglade, which was a walk from Uxbridge and along the River Fray. It was a very pleasant day and we ended our time there by drinking Guiness in the Swan and Bottle.

Last Bus Home

I reworked a number of old stories in 2017 specifically so that I could publish them on Wattpad. Four of them were from Shadow magazine which I first worked on in the late 1970s. 'After the rain' is in my 'L's Flash Fiction' reading list and Last Bus Home expanded into a serialised short story. The last two Shadow stories are 'Girl on the pier' and 'The Midnight Cat'. A summary of Last Bus Home follows.

Last Bus Home
My lonely late nights were transformed after mysterious, spirited Miranda entered my life.

Week one
My first sight of the strange girl in the rain.

Week two
The flowery girl speaks, already I feel a change coming over me.

Week three
I travel home with Miranda, she sees everything so clearly.

Week four
We travel to a graveyard and I see what's wrong with the world.

Week five
Walking with Miranda is like walking on air.

Week six
I wait for the Spring and my new friend.

25 years of yoga

I worked out that it was probably September 1995 when I took part in my first yoga class in Uxbridge. My daughter and I did quite a bit of yoga in 2018, most memorably Mindful Yoga at the West London Bhuddist Centre near Hyde Park. I started doing yoga again in August 2020, which is why I started reflecting on those Uxbridge classes. My yoga practise centres around the following 7 yoga poses which I find easy enough to do regularly.

1. Easy pose

2. Cat and Cow

3. Cobra

4. Crocodile

5. Forward Bend

6. Bridge

7. Corpse

Fantastic Reads and Reality Bites for 2021 and 2022

 

Choosing a big reading list for the whole year has worked very well in 2020. So much so that I decided to go ahead and choose books for big reading lists in 2021 and 2022. 2021's theme will be Fantastic Reads featuring 14 fantasy titles. 

 

2021 – A Year of Fantastic Reading

 

January to June

1.     Northern Lights by Philip Pullman

2.     Circe by Madeline Miller

3.     The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

4.     Heroes by Stephen Fry

5.     New moon by Stephanie Meyer

6.     The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell

7.     City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

 

July to December

1.     The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman

2.     The girl of ink and stars by KM Hargrave

3.     The haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

4.     The Winter Ghosts by Kate Mosse

5.     Eclipse by Stephanie Meyer

6.     The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

7.     The Maze Runner by James Dashner

​ 

 

The 2022 list is called reality bites, however I will also be reading at least a couple of fantasy titles as I will want to finish reading His Dark Materials and the Twilight saga.

2022 Reading List – Reality Bites

 

January to June

 

My year of rest and relaxation by Otessa Moshfesh

The lady of the rivers by Philippa Gregory

The woman who went to bed for a year by Sue Townsend

The Hoarder by Jess Kidd

The keeper of lost things by Ruth Hogan

The amber spyglass by Philip Pullman

 

July to December

 

If I stay by Gayle Forman

I capture the castle by Dodie Smith

Wild by Cheryl Strayed

Nine perfect strangers by Liane Moriarty

A gathering light by Jennifer Donnely

Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer

​

All Grown Up

'All Grown Up' is the third of my 'Still Life' poetry collections on Wattpad, it contains the poems that most reflect my grown up thoughts on life.

'Opening the door' is about being bold and stepping into the unknown.

'The shadow people' is about the invisible forces that shape our world.

'Alone' is about the profound difference between loneliness and solitude.

'The sufferers' is about the deep pain sometimes involved in just being alive.

'Crossing the bridge' has a similar theme to the first poem, it is about leaving the familiar behind and moving into a completly new landscape.

The Dolly Project November 2020

 

With the announcement of a second lockdown I decided to get on with another creative project I had been putting off. I remember putting plastic boxes of my dolls into our attic thinking that I would sort them out properly in the fullness of time. I decided that the time had now come. In the end the project was less daunting than I thought it would be.

My six original dolls would stay in their cloth bag. I kept a small selection of dolls as a reminder of my doll making days; four big, four medium, four small. Six I gave to my mum to give to charity. That left twelve which I thought needed makovers before they could become gifts.

The pictures above and below are of these makeover dolls. I also decided to knit them an extra blanket. It has been good to work on my dolls again. I have gradually been sorting things out in my house since 2019 and I think this will continue into 2021.

Virtue Haiku

I started my virtue project in 2007. First I was using wise quotes from wise people like Mother Theresa and the Dalai Lama. Then I started to write my own Virtuous Haiku inspired by these wise quotes and wise people.

The four cards at the bottom were also inspired by a book of typography. Diligence is a great virtue, but Humility, Patience and Kindness are often what I need to get me through life, as well as a lot of love, peace and forgivenss.

Eat Pray Love Holidays - a retrospective

With my future holiday plans still being very uncertain I decided to look back at my past Eat Pray Love holidays of the 2010s.

Eat-Llandudno 2016

The trip to North Wales was the first of our difficult holidays, it was also memorable for the lovely pizza restaurants in the town. The pizzas were so nice we ended up having pizza every evening. Cromer was also memorable for the amount of pizza we ate.

Pray - Whitby 2014

Our stay in Whitby was in the shadow of Whitby Abbey and the legend of Dracula. We attended an outdoor Dracula themed drama event in the ruins of Whitby Abbey and also have fond memories of folk week and the children's fairground our holiday apartment was situated by.

Love - Edinburgh 2012

Edinburgh 2012 was the last holiday I had with my dad, who I loved very much and who I lost in 2013. My dad was born in Edinburgh in the late 1920s and it was lovely to revisit the places that were so special to him.

Fabric Brooch Cards

My fabric brooches have developed a lot over the years. One of the first craft fairs I visited featured brooch cards, I bought one and thought what a good idea it would be for me to develop them myself. At the moment I have four fabric brooch cards. 'Thinking of you' features my crocheted poppy and 'With Love' my embroidered heart felt brooch that was originally a pendant. 'To Someone Special' includes my original crocheted flower brooch and 'All Good Wishes' features my virtuous fabric flower brooch.

Revised 6B460 Review

Revised 6B460 Review (written in August 2020)

 

My first 6B460 review was meant to include a review of a visit to Belfast, but because of the Covid19 Lockdown all my travel plans got altered. I still plan to visit Belfast, but my thinking has led me to plump for a prefered alternative travel goal instead.

1. Enjoy 25 holidays with mum and Amy

I organised our first holiday to Goring in 2006 following a family wedding. After that I organised one or usually two holidays a year for us. In 2020, for our 25th holiday together, we visited Cromer in Norfolk at the end of the Covid19 Lockdown. I look back with fondness at all our times away despite all the ups and downs.



2. Work in libraries for at least thirty years

I celebrated thirty years as a librarian in February 2020, just before the Covid19 Lockdown, by visiting the British Library’s Buddhism exhibition. I was pleased I celebrated my three decades of library work with some style. At the end of March I started working from home. I hope I will keep working well into this decade.

3. Keep a blog going for ten years

I started my blog in 2013, the year my dad died. My blog is now seven years old and I have scheduled posts until 2023. So hopefully, even if I don’t write so much in the future, my blog can keep going for a full decade.

4. Play classical piano pieces in public for ten years

I started playing classical piano pieces in public in 2010 shortly after starting as a semi-professional piano teacher, teaching my daughter’s friends. After facing a crisis of venues in 2018, I managed to keep playing until January 2020. I don’t know how much public (or private) piano playing I will do in the future.

5. Practice Buddhism everyday

Living through the Covid19 Lockdown has made mindfulness feel even more important to me. I am getting better at mindfulness, meditation and ‘il dolce far niente’. I go for a walk everyday and enjoy slow tea and food, listening to music, watching films, drawing, gardening, reading books and poetry. I find I am much calmer and try to be kind and patient.

6. Live a good enough life

Luckily we managed to celebrate my mother’s and my daughter’s birthdays in February 2020, before everything shut. It was a time when appreciating a slower, simpler life was becoming more of a priority. I feel that I have done what I could with what I have and hope that will continue.

Shadow stories

I was writing my magazine 'Shadow' when I was around about 11 in 1979. In 2017, when I was 49, I concentrated on four of my favourite 'Shadow stories' to see if I could develop them into anything more substantial. Two of the items 'After the rain' and 'As the cat meowed' became two pieces of flash fiction, 'As the cat meowed' changed its name to 'The midnight cat'. 'Last Bus Home' developed into a serialised short story which I published on Wattpad. Nothing much became of 'The girl on the pier', so I shall have to develop it further in the future.

Blog Therapy

 

I have enjoyed writing since I was little. I have been fascinated by blogging and blogs since I first encountered them in the early noughties. I was too busy with my young daughter and my poetry group to start blogging at the time. When I found out about craft and creative blogs in 2010 I was quite eager to start a blog myself. I started my blog finally in November 2013 after spending much of that year thinking about what I would put on it. Now I find blogging a good way to organise my mind and my ideas and get my life and times into some perspective. Below is my working list to inspire blog posts for each month of the year.

Autumn Term Therapy

September is traditionally the start of a new school year. Even when school is but a memory, September can be thought of as a chance for a new beginning, of developing ourselves, starting on new paths of self realisation. You can begin therapy at any time, use it to help you. You have one life, you didn't ask to be here, be kind to yourself and do what's best. Therapies for the Autumn Term involve writing, whether working on my blog or writing poetry, facing fear through horror, Edgar Allan Poe or Dr Who, or just contemplating higher realms through tea or spirituality.

4by4 Book2Film Titles for Autumn Term

If not much else, 2020 has been a good year for reading. I have read 9 Book2Film titles from January to August and now feel ready to tackle 4 more from September to December. The stories seem a bit heavy but maybe the new addition of the Time Traveller's Wife will lighten things up a bit.

Sweet dreams

The above picture is one of my favourites from Amy's story 'The Legend of the Dream Box'. It hung above her bed for a few years before being replaced by one of her abstract teenage paintings, shown below.

Enjoying 25 holidays with mum and Amy

I organised our first holiday to Goring in 2006 following a family wedding. After that I organised one or usually two holidays a year for us. In 2020, for our 25th holiday together, we visited Cromer in Norfolk at the end of the Covid19 Lockdown. I look back with fondness at all our times away despite all the ups and downs.