My Moon-Shot - family life with a green twist - Clare F Hobba
A green family who likes foraging, hiking and history (My Moon-Shot)
Monday 15 April 2024
Somebody was taking care of me
Monday 1 April 2024
Lost property
The other week I had a crazy time where a lot of things
were in play.
I was preoccupied.
I had just been doing a printing course with Carenza and it
was the end of a long day and I was heading home.
As the train pulled out of St Pancras I looked out of the window and had
the shock of recognition - that familiar backpack under the bench was mine.
I stood up and said ‘No’ and everybody in the coach looked
at me.
I managed to refrain from pulling the emergency cord.
I patted myself down – purse phone and keys were in my
pockets.
Should I get off at the next stop and go back?
But the trains were very sparse due to engineering works – I had
already had a long wait. I would just resign myself to the loss of the
bag, now quite old and faded.
However, as soon as I passed the point of no return, I began
to recall the things in the bag which I valued.
My Swiss army credit card (like a pen knife but cooler)
A compact backup phone battery Nigel had sourced
But the thing that had me saying ‘Oh’ (to the further alarm
of my fellow passengers) was the gift Carenza had just given - a craft-market hairslide
in my colours and a card she had made me herself.
Once home, I gloomily registered with lost property.
There were no matches.
A whole ten days later, I received an email saying the bag had been handed in. It didn't refer to the contents.
Nigel would pick it up on his way back from work. But when he got to Lost Property it was shut.
Eventually, nearly two weeks after losing it, I could bear the suspense no longer, took the train and picked it up myself. I could barely wait to unzip it.
Everything was still there. Including my lovely card and hairslide.
I asked about the person who handed it in, but their details were not available.
Whoever you are, thank you. You've restored my faith in human nature. X
Thursday 21 March 2024
Better Adventures
So when the grey days of late
winter are crowding in and those friends who can afford it are taking airborne
flights to warm shores, how do I get a break?
Last weekend I got a very
different kind of break.
On Saturday I went with Extinction
Rebellion friends and made 3D models of deep sea creatures like sea angels,
dragon fish and Dumbo octopus. These models will be used in a spectacular
parade to protest against the damage done by deep sea mining.
On Sunday I joined Carenza and
took a beginner's course on screen printing. I came away with ten moody prints
of an image I made of the Primaporta Augustus.
At the end of the weekend I had
learned several new skills and worked closely with a new set of people.
And I came away with a sense of wellbeing that will
hopefully last longer than an out-of-season suntan.
Tuesday 12 March 2024
Mother's Day Restored
Last year, I failed to establish a quorum for Mother’s Day.
My powers of emotional blackmail were clearly beginning to wane.
However, this year, Nigel and the twins turned out for a
Mother’s Day outing. This despite
Carenza having run a half marathon (involving 630m of elevation) just the
morning before, and Perran having his bags packed for a fortnight’s work trip
to Europe, leaving that afternoon.
Pascoe gets out of Mother’s Day on account of living in
Edinburgh, although he did put in a lovely phone call.
We went to Kenwood House in Hampstead (English Heritage,
free admission) where there is a stunning art collection. It took my breath away.
Perran and Carenza incidentally recreated moments which
recalled their childhood:
·
They both supplied me with handmade cards
(although nowadays elegantly lino-printed).
·
Due to a London Transport event, they arrived and
left on by old-fashioned bus with a proper conductor and paper tickets – the kind
of vehicle which used to fascinate younger Perran (and still does).
·
On encountering a dressing up opportunity in
Kenwood house, they did not hesitate!
However, even I had to acknowledge they are very much adults
as nowadays they are the ones who pay for Mother’s Day lunch. There are some compensations in one’s babies
growing up!
Thank you for a great day, Perran, Carenza, Pascoe and
Nigel.
Wednesday 28 February 2024
Danger, Unexploded Bomb
Tuesday 20 February 2024
Mudlarking
Sunday 11 February 2024
Beware the split-level patio
Carolyn and David travelled from the North East, Nigel and I from the South East, and we met up in the Peak District. As usual the agenda for the weekend was long walks, pubs, a bit of culture and a trawl of charity shops.
However, this time our attention was grabbed by the landlord
of our accommodation.
Carolyn had very kindly made the booking, and soon began to receive
very long emails with detailed instructions for the house. Amid the many paragraphs were concealed vital
information like the postcode, keycode and wifi password. It was like a very inconvenient wordsearch
puzzle.
When we entered the (very pleasant) house, the folder which
was left out for visitors did not disappoint.
There was a lengthy screed on how to raise and lower the
(perfectly normal) blinds.
The patio was on two levels and there was a whole page about
not tripping or falling down the four-inch-high step, and outside, an outsize
yellow traffic cone to mark the hazard.
The section on using the wood-burning stove was positively
Dickensian in its detail.
After all this, I saw Nigel hesitating in the hallway, a
frown on his face.
‘Anything the matter?’
‘Yes. I couldn’t find
the instructions for how to walk up the stairs.’
Monday 5 February 2024
The Cult of Beauty
Tuesday 30 January 2024
My hero
- Up to 50 times more emissions per passenger mile than an ordinary commercial flight.
- Average number of passengers per private jet flight last year was 2.5 with 40% of flights taking off empty. People are even using private jets to ferry their pampered pets about.
- There's an illusion these flights are for VIPs on very important state business. But the busiest day at private jet terminals is Valentine's Day. Hmm.
Monday 22 January 2024
Beating the January Blues
Having been ill over Christmas and then back at work before fully better, I'd got into a weird trogladitic existence where most of my time was either working at my desk, or resting up in bed.
Tuesday 9 January 2024
The Navy Lark
Thursday 21 December 2023
Standing on one leg in a muddy field
Saturday 9 December 2023
The Christmas scenes they deleted from Love Actually
It turned out to be far from a well-kept secret as every single
twenty-something in London was already there.
Every one of them was taller than me, but I just about managed to keep
my feet on the ground in the good-natured jostle, just hoping that none of the
high notes started a stampede. Nigel
didn’t mind at all, as several of the young lovelies complimented him on his ‘beautiful
voice’. Pah!
On the way back from carols we got caught by train
cancellations. We spent an hour at Farringdon with nothing to sustain us except
a massive chocolate advent calendar Nigel was given at work. We managed to call a halt at day six.
When we finally got on the train it was packed and a
previous passenger had vomited. Then another drunk bloke skidded in it and fell
over. Twice.
Explaining to a horrified onlooker, his mates said that it
wasn't him who had been sick. 'It's legacy vomit'.
Nigel and I agreed that these might very well be scenes from
a typical British Christmas. So why on
earth had they been left out of the final cut of Love Actually? There’s simply no explanation.
Thanks to Carenza for the pics
Saturday 2 December 2023
Jack the Ripper hijacked our birthday
Monday 27 November 2023
A weekend away in a time machine
Friday 17 November 2023
Remembrance of a different kind of courage.
Monday 13 November 2023
Fireworks
Saturday 4 November 2023
foraging discipline
Thursday 19 October 2023
Hit over the head with a rubber hammer
Following his emergency operation, Pascoe is making a steady recovery – I speak to him on the phone and am reassured.
He said ‘I can’t wait for the training montage to
start.’ I imagine a clip from the
‘Rocky’ movies.
I, on the other hand, have felt like I’d been hit over the
head with a rubber hammer.
There was one week where Carenza had given up a week’s
holiday in France to nurse Pascoe in Edinburgh and I was off-duty in St
Albans. I was so grateful for her
selflessness, but it also felt very wrong not being there.
I distracted myself with some undemanding household
tasks. I took up some winter trousers,
but when I looked at them afterwards was puzzled by my approach – are
asymmetric trousers in fashion this Autumn?
What had I been thinking?
The only thing which went well was making forty jars of
various chutneys. I have been doing this
for nearly four decades, so auto-pilot kicked in. Okay, so my mild apple chutney is much hotter
than my hot apple chutney this year, but apart from that, all is well.
So when I think of that week when I was good for nothing, at
least I was good for chutney.
Friday 29 September 2023
A bit of an emergency
As I write this, I’m on the train
returning from Edinburgh Waverley to King’s Cross for the third time in a
month. The first time was a social visit
to Pascoe. The consequent trips have
been due to his medical emergency. Since
May, Pascoe had been repeatedly visiting his GP with stabbing pains in his
abdomen, and been sent away with indigestion medicine. Eventually he paid for a private scan - he
had a massive gall stone and inflamed gall bladder, endangering his liver. It should have been operated on long before
it got to this. The emergency operation which ensued required a huge incision
(25 staples long), rather than keyhole, a couple of days afterwards when it
looked like he might not make it and then a sudden and dramatic upturn on
Sunday following prayer by not just our church at St Luke’s but also the church
of one of the hospital doctors.
Today I leave him in his flat, supported by Perran,
well on the road to recovery, but still weak.
Yesterday, I was talking to Pascoe’s friend Kritika about the strength
of love she felt when she gave birth to her baby daughter. There is nothing like nearly losing your
child to revive the strength of that bond.
Friday 1 September 2023
How to bring a festival home
This summer I was privileged to attend
three very different festivals and I ask what I can take from them back into
everyday life.
Primadonna – a literature festival,
with the emphasis on women.
Edinburgh Fringe – a massive festival
comprised of over 3k shows in a huge variety of venues.
GreenbeltFestival - arts, faith, activism. In a world on fire, we’re somewhere to believe
in.
There’s a glorious ‘festival’ way of
being - which elements will enhance my everyday
life?
Trying new things
Because
a festival is time-limited, it helps make your mind up. This kind of thinking found me trying out a
women’s urinal for the first time, and (less bizarrely) a workshop on cyanotype
printing.
Fresh air
Wouldn’t
work life be less fraught if one had to potter across a grassy field to get to
every meeting? I need to incorporate
more little strolls into my working life.
Chat
At each
of the festivals, the best thing was people – the friends/family we went with
and the strangers with whom we chatted while queueing for the loo/ bar/ show. I definitely want to spend more time idly passing
the time of day with friends, old and brand new.
What won’t I miss?
You’d
expect me to say the toilets – but the ‘mobile thrones’ at Primadonna and the
composting loos at Greenbelt were fab.
I guess
I might say ‘burning the candle at both ends’ but in fact a level of tiredness
softens me up and readies me for revelations both intellectual and emotional –
festivals make me cry…and that’s not a bad thing.
Picture by Pascoe Harvey - me at Edinburgh with the wonderful Katy Berry
Tuesday 15 August 2023
Birds don’t live for ever
Since 2018 we have kept doves, but it took until the 2020 lockdowns for them to become part of the rhythm of our days with Nigel feeding them by hand and talking to them as they snaffled their dried peas and corn.
Being completely white, doves are difficult to distinguish
from one another. However, this
anonymity has surely saved us some heartbreak. Doves are vulnerable to
predators - their pale plumage makes them an easy target for our local
sparrowhawks and peregrines and cats. Yet when we see feathers scattered on the
ground (carnivore confetti) it is often hard to tell exactly which dove had
been taken.
One bird, however, has been our particular favourite - an
excellent mother she has raised many chicks in our dovecote. Over the years she has had two long-term
partners with whom she has billed and cooed.
We could tell her from the others by a black feather below her eye,
giving her the name Tear. Every so
often, Tear would vanish for a few days to incubate eggs, but now, for several
weeks, she has not reappeared.
Similarly, it was during the Covid lockdowns that Nigel
encouraged our garden robin to feed from his hand, and soon mine too. The robin was always particularly friendly when
feeding chicks. He would look about him
cautiously then swoop towards me. Fluttering
in midair, onto my fingers he would place his feet, looking as if they had been
drawn with a sharp pencil. Swiftly he would tilt to peck a strand of suet from
my palm, then make off with his haul to his nest in the bushes.
This year, he had raised one brood of round speckled robin
chicks and was on his second. As the
nesting season wore on, he looked increasingly tired and shabby, and now he too
has disappeared.
In both cases, we’ll never know for certain how they met
their end, and there is a kindness in that.
It is good to remember both Tear and Robin as we last saw them, waiting
on the patio for us to come out and bring them food. To catch our attention Tear would peck at the
window and Robin would tweet loudly.
And now I think about it, perhaps it was they who had trained us,
rather than the other way about.
Saturday 5 August 2023
A Camp and Windy Weekend
I love camping. It is an utter idyll to sit by a firepit with a glass of wine and good company. You don’t have to go out because you are already out and in prime position to watch the sunset, hear the dusk chorus, spot the bats flitter past and catch sight of the first star.
Last summer Perran and I camped near Avebury. This July, Carenza and I were to stay at the
excellent Woodfire Camping site at Westlands, East Sussex.
We planned walks on the South Downs Way and Serpent Trail
and sightseeing at Petworth House.
However, most unfortunately, we forgot to book good weather.
The forecast said fair on Friday night, downpour Saturday.
‘We have to pack all my favourite bits of camping into Friday
night,’ I said.
So we ate looking out over acres of woodland, I painted a
watercolour and Carenza read. As night fell, we lit the firepit, opened a
bottle of wine and switched on my bat detector (pipistrelles were passing). Even the air stayed in our airbeds and we
were woken early by a family of noisy woodpeckers. (Outside the tent, not in
it.)
We also had a solid plan for the rainy Saturday evening.
1)
Go to pub
2)
Stay in pub
3)
Return to tent at bedtime
BUT I had not paid sufficient attention to the forecast –
not only was there to be rain. A MIGHTY
WIND was on its way.
The blasts bent the tent poles double and forced rain in through
the seams. I could not see Carenza in
the dark, but I imagined her lying like me with eyes wide open, listening to
the buffeting of the storm and wishing we’d checked the guy ropes before
turning in… Every time I fell asleep,
the side of the tent blew in and slapped me awake.
In the morning our tent was still standing, but we couldn’t
help noticing not all the other tents were where they had been the night before. Some
gazebos were missing altogether.
At the time, we enjoyed the first night way more, but it is
the second night we will still be enjoying years from now as we continue to recount
the tale of the scary gale.
Thursday 20 July 2023
Who was that masked medic?
The school holidays have started and I had plans. Things to achieve, friends to catch up with.
But a week ago, on a nocturnal trip to the loo, I trod on
something sharp. I felt to see if anything was sticking out from the wound, but
found nothing.
Being half asleep, I went back to bed, but in the morning
the trail of blood alerted me.
‘Nigel, can you look and see if there’s something still in
there.’
He probed with my eyebrow tweezers but found nothing.
After a week which included two country hikes and dancing at
the Folk by the Oak Festival, I was of the opinion there was definitely still
something in there.
I had tickets for an exhibition in Oxford on Tuesday and was
supposed to be driving a friend, so needed to sort it quickly.
Monday saw me at Minor Injuries. The medic could spot nothing and was clearly
sceptical. He sent me to the X-ray
department without telling me it was on the far side of the hospital. After walking all that way on the side of my
foot, my knee and hip were now throbbing.
The x-ray showed nothing, but I was unwilling meekly to give
up. So the medic had a probe with a
large needle and pointy tweezers. Ouch. But then he had it! A 3mm razor-sharp
flake of glass embedded in the ball of my right foot. He was not prepared to
dig deep but that was ‘probably all the glass.’
He gave me a tetanus shot.
That evening, while I was glad to be vindicated, my foot was
tender, my knee and hip ached and then unexpectedly, my left arm stopped
working. Maybe the tetanus jab hit a
nerve?
After a night’s sleep, however, I was able to drive to
Oxford. Phew.
But, haunted by the sensation there was still some glass in
my foot, I prepared for another trip to minor injuries, and in doing so managed
to shrink my beloved Crocs clogs in the washing machine (don’t ask).
I saw a different medic this time. I explained what happened before but she
looked puzzled ‘Who saw you?’
I described him. She
shook her head as if not recognising this person. ‘It’s just that it’s not our
policy to dig around looking for glass in people’s feet. The body will naturally expel the object.’
Whoever that bogus medic-impersonator was, I’m glad he had a
go – the glass had been cutting away in there for over a week without being ‘naturally
expelled’.
And I hope that if there’s any glass left, my body gets rid
of it soon…
Thursday 6 July 2023
Ordained by God
Jenny and I met and became friends in our first week at Cambridge. One thing we had in common was an interest in matters spiritual. Within a term, we had both committed to Christianity. The slightly older student who led us to the Lord later moved on to devote herself to Feng Shui, but we have both stayed on the path.
We live in different parts of the
country now and see each other together with our respective families at the
annual Greenbelt festival, capturing a freeze-frame vision of one another’s
lives.
Jenny has grown via a number of roles
to flower at last as a priest in the church of England and her ordination was
this Saturday near Manchester.
It was very important to be there
but also a really long way to travel.
With Annabel (the erstwhile
bridesmaid of both Jenny and I) riding shotgun, Nigel drove us all three hours
each way. (I did offer, but he prefers to drive.)
It was a great service with the
sermon delivered, confusingly, by an arch deacon whose surname was Bishop.
Apparently he is soon to become a bishop. Bishop Bishop.
The sermon was encouraging, the
hymns excellent, and the church welcoming. But the thing that most justified
our long drive was the beam on Jenny's face.
And it's a smile which will go on
to bless the lucky church at Bollington where she is to be curate.
Monday 26 June 2023
Friends you can take a risk with
David and Carolyn are Pascoe’s godparents. When we lived in the North East we saw them every week. Now we live hundreds of miles apart, but still see them a couple of treasured times each year.
We wanted to take them to the Odyssey,
our wonderful local independent cinema, but the choice was a predictable Rom
Com, OR ‘Beau is afraid’ - a psychedelic
journey of weirdness concerning the painful relationship between a man and his
mother.
We chose the latter and at the end of
the three-hour film, another audience member said loudly ‘Well that wasn’t worth
staying up late for!’
But the four of us found ourselves
returning to ‘What did it all mean?’ throughout the weekend. We certainly got our money’s worth.
On Saturday, we met the twins in
London. They wanted to go to ‘Healing King Herod’, a show previewing before the Edinburgh Fringe at the Soho Theatre.
‘King
Herod, famed for his Massacre of the Innocents, now leads a self-development
pyramid scheme. Ancient soldiers become modern clients in an interactive,
drag-clown therapy session.’
I didn’t
even know there was a genre called drag clown.
After a
little hesitation, we all went along and raised the average age of the audience
considerably.
The
show did end with the star, Riss Obolensky wearing nothing but a nappy and rolling
on the ground smeared all-over with jam, but it certainly made us laugh and Obolensky
managed to pack her weirdness into one hour, which was certainly a better
decision than three!
But the
best thing about both shows was going along with friends who are up for
something a bit different.
Saturday 10 June 2023
Seeking Asylum on Holiday
When the real world is troubling, my impulse is to get away from it all.
In the last year, we were hosting a Ukrainian family. They were bereaved in the war and although
they were perfect guests, there was a weight of sadness on the house. We found ourselves going away a lot at
weekends. But each time we turned on the radio, the news from Ukraine found us
again.
Likewise, on our holiday to Cornwall, I was prepared to be
faced with our own family problems, such as dealing with ageing grandparents,
but not the social issues which ravage our nation. However, as we took a morning stroll around
Pendennis Point above the shipyards and looked down into the dry dock, we
spotted something which looked like a block of flats on a barge.
We were curious so Perran googled the name on its side,
Bibby Stockholm, only to discover that this barge was being fitted out as
floating accommodation for 500 plus asylum seekers. Suddenly the Cornish sun seemed less warm.
If we can’t escape the problems of our age by going on
holiday, then I guess we just have to go on demonstrating and signing petitions
and helping out voluntary organisations with extra fervour, and at least that
is one thing that a holiday gives us - we return home with the energy to do
just that.
Monday 5 June 2023
Family Holiday
We just had a family holiday. In many ways it was excellent - we stayed in a capacious holiday-let overlooking the Fal River. The weather was brilliant, so we walked and swam the coast every
day and cooked wholesome meals together in the evening.
However, a family holiday always ends up as a microcosm of what is going on in the family.
Pascoe, Carenza and Perran are all busy at work
so we made sure the house had good wi-fi
in
order to accommodate a certain amount of
working from home, also great train links in
order to allow anybody who had
to
arrive
late (Pascoe), or leave early
(Perran).
We stayed close to Truro to allow us several visits to my elderly parents who have had a tough year.
We were late departing on changeover day because one person had an important phone meeting, plus we had to take something to the dump for my dad, which meant we then hit heavy traffic all the way home, exacerbated by a train strike.
Which in turn meant it was a close thing for Nigel to catch the train north to support his mother in the act of moving house from the north to the south on the following day.
When I look back, however, I shall choose to forget all
the stresses and to remember only the sun-filled days and the evenings sharing plentiful
food and wine. After all, there's nothing to beat a family holiday.