Van is booked and a few days work on the horizon now. Today was for admin. Booking these annoying tests ahead of travel. Digging around in old invoices. Going to the bank.
It’s cold and dark. There’s beauty in the winter but not so much in London. I’ve been comforting myself with projecting forward to getting away for a week on the 29th. But there’s a good two weeks to fill up first.
It’s ten and I’m in bed. Early start tomorrow. I’ve been reading my almanac. This full moon in cancer is at least proud and visible in the night sky. Something bright to look at. And there’s all sorts of advice about what to plant in the garden, and tide charts. Recipes. Even a little story. “The farmer and the boggart.” I’ve bought this little almanac every year for a few years now and it is a companionable read. It helps me know what to look out for. Makes the grey days a little more mindful.
Holly and robins. Mating foxes. A nebula just shy of Orion’s Belt. Chickweed, pheasants and rhubarb. Good fresh gruyère from France. And I should’ve picked it up earlier as I’ve missed The Holly Man of Bankside, swarming over the Millennium Bridge to the Globe with his troupe of mummers on Twelfth Night. Likely I would’ve gone and enjoyed that – something geeky and trying to be ancient right on my doorstep.
Chinese New Year is coming up though. I’ll be in The Azores so I won’t be able to go to Chinatown. It’s going into the year of my animal – The Tiger. I’ll have to mark it somehow out there. I’ll be staying in a spa hotel that night so there’ll be plenty of opportunity to celebrate and luxuriate in catlike comfort.
It makes me want a garden this almanac. Living in a top floor flat is nice for light and for the view, but it sucks for cats and you can’t plant garlic. Best keep up with the tidying, and start to dream of possibilities. Or get a planter and put it on the fire escape…
AlBarclay 