Week 11 First Furloughed Week
Monday 1st June was another beautiful sunny day. I ran around doing the usual stuff for a Monday, cleaning and helping the girls plus a bit of exercise. We had our video call with John but decided we would move it to later on a Tuesday from next week. Then it was time to go out for Ukuleleland practice. I was feeling rather nervous about this. Kevin had suggested that we practice in his back garden which has access straight into the garden and he would have chairs set up for us all. Geoff didn't make it due to a mix up with messages and a lost phone, but Ben, Naomi and myself made our way there. It was a beautiful evening and really wonderful to hear the sound of us all playing together.
It was especially good for working on our trickier songs like "Someone to love". We started working on this just after Christmas; it has multiple parts and we each take a vocal lead at different stages. It hasn't been easy practicing it online. We have a way to go to get it polished, but it has the promise of something good.
BTW, these are my funeral shoes for my Grandma:
On Tuesday 2nd June I was surprised by the coincidence that the Grayson Perry exhibition came up in my Facebook memories.
I had spent the morning doing some tidying jobs including taming the mass of DVDs that had been spilling out infront of the telly. After our field trip the girls helped me sort the last few into ones that they would priorities etc. I could then put it all back together. It's not super tidy - but heck it's so much nicer than it was!
I did share the cake for pudding that evening. The bubbly went in the fridge ready for the weekend.
As I started to walk down to see her, I noticed something peculiar in the sky.
It was still really hot and I underestimated the distance to Mush's as I haven't been to her new house before. I was glad to get there and sink into a comfy chair. There was even a cold beer to enjoy. We chatted for a good long while. She's someone I always enjoy talking to. We're very different people in many ways; I am far more cautious; she can be wild - always the most outrageous on a night out - always wanting to stay out a bit longer - not head to bed. But there are many things we have in common, many experiences we understand of each other. We aren't always close in terms of doing things together, but I trust her deeply. She knows things about me that I just don't talk about normally. I think, like with the rest of the mummies, we went through alot together when our kids were babies, and that bonds you in a way that is perhaps similar to a bond you share with your family. Time can go by when you don't speak or see each other - but that connection doesn't disappear.
It is a positive of the lockdown that the Mummies have been far more regularly in contact given that we can do it virtually and we have less going on in our lives. I hope that doesn't fade when lockdown eases.
It was indeed a more miserable day on Wednesday. In the morning I decided to sort out the girl's old artworks that had been hanging in a dusty mess on the kitchen wall. I have a huge folder to keep them all in. They needed a good dusting and I tried to sort them by year into pockets.
Bunnykins pictures always make me smile. I remember her going through a phase of just relentlessly drawing girls and princesses with big smiles and long, gravity defying hair, maybe vertiginous heels, bright frocks and exuberant arms. They would appear on scraps of paper, in notebooks, in works back from pre-school. Just popping up like daisies. They would sometimes have names, or little exclamations or stories. I have several across the pinboard behind my computer monitor where I type now.
Aw...
There has been a great program on telly during lockdown - Grayson Perry's art club. I think one of the best messages of this has been that you don't have to fit a prescribed style in order to be "good" at art. You just have to want to create. Art isn't about recreating a scene with some sort of perfection, it is about finding your style, finding your voice and finding joy in what you do. The joy in the pictures of young children is evident; getting them to keep it is the really hard part.
Stella had been messaging, worried that her birthday present hadn't yet arrived. Within less than an hour, there was a sound of tumbling packages and there on the mat were two packages; one with Stella's present and one with a present from Marian, Andy and the kids.
Two pairs of beautiful earrings. The multicoloured ones from Stella and the green drop ones from Marian. Lucky girl am I! They are lovely 😍💗.
We were supposed to be having a picnic tea, but rain had stopped that. I made the dreaded moussaka that uses up the various aubergines we get in the veg box each week. It takes a heck of a time to make though and Bunnykins makes a fuss at eating them - even though she is generally great with her veg.
While tidying up, Mark made us stop and got Woo and I back to back. I didn't like the result. I am now the third tallest in the house. Given I am over 5'11" this is a pretty surprising thing to have to come to terms with.
On Thursday Bunnykins carried on working on the map.
The evening was my ukulele lesson with Ben. At 8pm we break for 5mins to go clap for the carers. I have been trying to avoid social media so hadn't spotted that the lady who started it had suggested that after 10 weeks it was probably time to stop and let the government thank the nhs properly. I entirely agree with that sentiment. It makes my skin crawl to see the prime minister on his doorstep clapping and getting photo opps for joining in with this - yet the NHS workers don't have proper PPE and haven't had a pay rise for years. I have relatives who have been working extra shifts that they wont be paid for - they just get additional days leave accrued - but they probably wont get a chance to take it.
But as I said, I hadn't heard about it stopping. I went to the doorstep with Bunnykins. The silence was eerie. No clapping. We heard the bells strike in the park for 8pm and still nothing. I realised how much I missed seeing my neighbours on the doorstep and hearing people from all across the park roads. It brought a wonderful sense of community. Karen next door has suggested we do something else instead as a street, which I think is a great idea. Question is - what? But we'll get there.
Speaking of Karen, she has been running free online dance classes at 9am for kids and 10am for more health and fitness of all ages. We have joined in every day since she started and love seeing her and all the others that join. She is now going to be helping with dance in a local school in a morning, so Friday was the last 9am Wake up and Shake Up. The dress code was crazy.
Then back to the map!....
The afternoon was quiet, the tea was in the slow cooker, not much needed doing. After going through the girl's drawings earlier in the week I had talked over dinner about how I wish they drew more. I suggested an art club for the house; that we could all draw or create something each week around a theme. We decided that Wednesday evenings over dinner would be our opportunity to share what we'd done. There was no pressure to create anything or of any particular style or medium. Honour suggested the theme of World Issues and we all agreed on that.
So anyway, I decided to take the opportunity to work on mine. I have always preffered drawing from life and my particular art heros are generally figurative and realistic. So the World Issues theme felt a bit of a challenge. I thought about what world issues are important to me and crikey there are a few at the moment. Climate change is a constant issue, but I couldn't think of how I could represent that. Then there is the covid-19 crisis and most recently the Black Lives Matter movement and the terrible things that have been happening in America that have really brought it to a head. I thought about how really we need to be embracing each other - but right now with covid-19 that is the one thing we can't do. So I decided I wanted to draw a hug. I found a cheesy stock photo and did a sketch of that. I wasn't pleased with how I was imagining it would go from there - more cheese really. For Woo's artwork with school she has been reviewing some abstract paintings and I decided that I wanted to simplify the image into colourful shapes. I never tended to do anything like that with my A-level or any previous art practice so I liked the idea.
A glass of rose fizz helped the creative process 😀
Mark started with his favourite Philip Larkin poem "the Trees"
Woo read a poem from her favourite book of old english poems. Lots of natural imagery.
On Saturday morning Hannah had suggested that we had our rescheduled catch up with the girls. We would go sit in the park and get a drink from the hatch. We went over as planned, but the wind was colder than expected.
The hot drinks were welcome but gradually more layers were added - Bunnykins went back to fetch us all hats and gloves. It was lovely to chat but it was freezing!
We were talking about alternative names. If Woo had been a boy, she would have been called either Warwick Perseverance Challis or Eden Tenacity Challis. Woo is glad she's not a Warwick but likes the sound of Eden and a while back already adopted Perseverance as her other middle name.
Bunnykins would have been called Victor after Mark's Grandpa who died before she was born. Woo went to his funeral as a little toddler. Middle name choices for boy Bunnykins would have been Eden, Tenacity or Capability. We came home to warm up and had a good look through the baby books talking about that and looking at the photos.
Mark was busy outside. He made a wood store out of the old deck balustrade. Delightfully modeled by Woo.
I carried on with some more painting.
On Sunday I wasn't feeling great, really tired, sinus-y and with a periodically aching head. I managed the morning yoga, read a little while, snoozed and then joined Bunnykins for some laid back jigsawing. We do like jigsaws - she went for the really easy ones, which was fine by me.
My feelings on the statue itself range around. I don't care about it as an object. I think that for me it feels far enough in the past to feel benign and I think this is a key problem - for white people we are just meh about it. However I readily realise that for so many people - it is not at all benign - it is a constant reminder of how this city, this country, this culture has not taken the lives and concerns of black people seriously - lip service at best. There has been a debate about Edward Colston in Bristol for a long time. Much of the city's riches come from him, he was a philanthropist who invested in the city in a big way - his name is everywhere. But that money came from the slave trade. He had complete disregard for the lives of slaves - the numbers of dead in his name are horrific. That they occurred long in the past isn't reason enough. Black people are just as much a part of the city of Bristol and they have overwhelmingly said - we feel uncomfortable with his name everywhere. We still live with constant reminders of how we are treated as second class, how we are still discriminated against, and then to go to a concert in Colston Hall - that name doesn't just bounce off with no meaning as it does for most white people...it is another reminder that their history isn't as important as the history of the white people of this city. So - for me - the statue should have gone long ago. We should remember who Colston is as part of our history - but not to venerate him. That being said - criminal vandalism doesn't sit well. Personally I see how we got to this place and so I would judge no one involved as much as I don't like it. I think the tragedy is that it had to come to this place and it had to come to it, because white people were not listening. They were saying "yes, I'm not racist, I understand that Colston and the slave trade was bad. But why on earth change a name - lot of faffing about for no good reason - quieten down over there wont you".
I had seen a lot of shock and outrage over the vandalism. I recognize where it comes from. I recognise that it comes from a cosy white world that is pretty ordered and works for those shocked white people; people who a few days ago were sharing Black Lives Matters memes and posts. Their shock is real, but it is entirely related to their own worldview that they don't realise needs challenging. It is a worldview based on white privilege where our reasoned opinion of whether a statue of Colston should stay, or the name of Colston should stay on the buildings and schools becomes far louder than the voices of black people from the same community who are still hurting. And as any one of us knows, when we are not listened to as we engage peacefully - eventually we start yelling and screaming.
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