Bah, Humbug, New Year!

I'm not really a New Year person.
Despite the In-Charge's cousin talking me through 'the year is a circle, New Year joins seamlessly onto the end of last year' - that still doesn't work for me.
It's always seemed like a straight line, the year - so 31st December appears as some sort of awful cliff that you fall off, willy nilly. Yet another leap of faith.
Sadly, I guess that makes me a member of the flat-earth society.
I'm not proud.

I have tried.
Indeed, I do try.
No doubt my family, at this point, would say 'you're very trying' - but despite all, something isn't working.
It's all a bit like this really, New Year:

Whatever, this circle thing just isn't happening for me.
It's about colour somewhere along the line. (There you go - 'line' - see what I mean?)
Colour, whether I like it or not, is the be-all and end-all.
Christmas teems with colour. It jumps out and socks you one, grabs you round the neck and sucks you in until you drown in it, until colour has replaced the blood in your veins, the air in your lungs, the thoughts in your brain.
New Year isn't about colour. It is clean and cold and brightly, icily blue.

Or - as in today's case - wet and grey and rather down-at-heel.
But whatever the reality, it's a chilling contrast to the warmth of Christmas, and definitely outside my comfort zone. It's all about new beginnings, starting all over again - like Maths homework that you got wrong the first time round. 'Return to Go' and definitely do not collect 200...
It's the point when, were it not for the chocolates, empties and new socks lying around, you'd wonder if Christmas had just been some sort of tantalising dream.

Sorry, all you New Year fans out there.
Please tell me, where am I going wrong?

We went to some lovely parties over Christmas, and even had one here, but last night was a quiet night in.
I didn't go to bed - I couldn't be that Scrooge-ish. We watched a movie (an excellent, if rather distressing one, as it turned out - The Flowers of War, with Christian Bale), but then we had an unexpected treat.
Queen and Adam Lambert live at Central Hall, Westminster.
I've not exactly been switched on this last while, so Adam Lambert and I haven't been personally introduced until now. As with most things, I'm behind the times, but it's never too late to catch up.
Last night's gig was, to quote an old friend, 'bloody-marvellous'.
Freddie Mercury - sleep on, sweet singer, rest in peace. Miss you as we do, your legacy is in safe hands. Adam Lambert is a worthy heir.

And just in case you missed it - here's a little snippet for you

And if you need any more convincing:

Still not sure?

Here's one for the road:

Oh, and London's New Year fireworks were amazing too.
Queen thoughtfully paused to let them take centre stage at midnight.

Happy New Year everyone, from rather a dark, damp, colourless west coast.

A Trick of the Light

I have been dreaming in Panavision, Technicolour and 3D recently.
Well, not recently exactly - my dreams are generally pretty full-on.
But this last while they have been - weird.

When, over the breakfast cups, I casually say: 'I had the strangest dream last night,' the In-Charge rolls his eyes and pulls a face that says: 'Here we go again'. 
But then, as I don't hesitate to tell him, he hasn't an ounce or romance in his soul.

Last night I dreamt that I flew to London and checked in to a hotel. (Why would I do that? I have lots of friends in London.) The American woman in front of me at Reception was having her earrings minutely examined by the girl behind the desk, and I nosed in just in time to see the eagle-eyed Receptionist remove a tiny, pin-head antennae from the top of each earring.
The American was mutely astonished and allowed herself to be led away.
As I say - weird.

No sooner had I got upstairs to my hotel room than the extremely over-efficient girl from the foyer came racing up to accuse me of having flown to London with a knife attached to my keyring. The knife in question was a miniature (and I'm talking doll's house here) folding penknife.
How did she know? And what had it got to do with the Hotel Receptionist, anyway? If the airline didn't care, why should she?
I admitted this gross misdemeanour and was immediately locked in my room pending an investigation.
In my dream, this seemed an entirely logical step, and I acquiesced without a murmur, just like the American..


But I was concerned about the dogs being locked in with me. They were looking anxious and had their legs crossed, so to speak.
(Did I not mention the dogs? That could be because it was only at this point in the dream that I realised I had all three dogs with me - Top Dog, Under Dog and Model Dog.)
Obviously I was dreaming in the past. I dream in the past more often than not.
Maybe everyone does.

You don't really want to know any more.
It got weirder and weirder as the night wore on.
I believe our dreams can happen in a very short space of time, but while you're dreaming them, it feels as if they go on forever.
And in some ways they do. This one has lingered around me all day, like my shadow - perpetually just out of sight.

I sometimes wonder if dreams are actually reality and our day to day lives are the dream.
I rather hope not, as in that case, my life is very odd indeed.
But not as odd as my sister's. She once dreamt that she was half a glass of water on the moon.
How does that format itself into a dream, exactly?
I've never been able to work it out.

I often wonder why it is that in my dreams I regularly revisit places, houses - streets, even - that I recognise but which bear no relation at all to the actual places they purport to be. Yet frequently they are the same from dream to dream.
So the same as what, exactly?
And I remember other places I have dreamt about, with that strange, intangible clarity that attaches itself to childhood memories. Pictures that cannot be described. Atmospheres devoid of words.
What weird games the brain plays on itself.
Like juggling with a trick of the light 
But why?

What Price the Perfect Getaway?

It's blowing a gale out here on the edge of the world today.
My poor trees, heavy in their summer frocks, are being whipped back and forth. It's not fair.
But then, as we all know, life isn't fair.

Mercifully the promised rain has not yet arrived. I've got soaked most days this week, trying to garden in the rain, so today's wind, blowing warmly - if rather too enthusiastically - from the south wasn't going to put me off. However, it seemed only sensible to do a job out of the teeth of the gale, so I headed into the flower garden which is generally fairly sheltered and found to my delight that not a leaf was stirring in my new little moon garden.

The little moon garden

There was plenty to do. The weeds and grass have encroached into the semi-circular bed, and lots of early summer perennials needed a good cutting back. I was soon wading through dense knee-high greenery, and thought as I often do, of my ex-sister-in-law's words many years ago.
'At least there aren't any snakes in Ireland.'
She and my brother were living in Africa at the time, their children still quite small, and I'd been apologising for the wet August weather that attended their visit to us, along with its consequent lush growth overflowing the garden paths. It was like a jungle, but the kids loved it, and no one minded the rain either. 'It never rains in Africa,' they said.

Today it didn't rain either, but the ground was still soft from the wet week we've had, and the weeds in the new bed came out easily, so that within moments of starting work, my mind had wandered off onto lots of other things. The dogs rummaged through their ossuary while I sat on the little bench drinking a cuppa and contemplating my newest patch - barely a year old, yet already ripe with flowers and growth. I found it hard to visualise how that small area used to be - a wilderness of overgrown fuchsia and bamboo - even though we'd lived with it for donkey's years.

It's now a place of seclusion and peace - even on a day of stormy southern winds. And the little seat that the In-Charge made by recycling two old bench ends and some lengths of teak he had stashed away in his workshop, fits as if it had been made to measure.
Not many weeks ago we made the happy discovery that it is the perfect place to catch the very last rays of sunshine when the mid-summer days are so long, the sun practically sets in the north.
Our very own little getaway.

Hard at work in the moon garden - so called for its half moon path

Everyone needs a getaway. Somewhere quiet and peaceful to contemplate something green.
I often think that in today's overcrowded world we expect a lot from human beings. I am so lucky to have so much space, but most people are squashed tighter and tighter together, and yet, more than ever before, we expect everyone to 'play nicely'.
Losing it isn't allowed.
But everyone needs somewhere to let off steam. Somewhere calm and green.

The only big city I have lived in for any length of time is London. I moved there as a student and just sort of stayed for the next twenty years. London has its fair share of dreadful housing, but it also has lots of green spaces - squares and parks, woods and commons. I was commenting to my mother only recently that while I don't ever recall having the luxury of central heating as a student, I only ever chose flat/house shares that had some sort of garden, however small.

I watched a wonderful programme the other day, about the inspirational designer Thomas Heatherwick, he of the fabulous Olympic Cauldron fame (amongst other things.)

The wonderful Olympic Cauldron

If you didn't see the programme, do watch it - BBC2's Culture Show - I think it is only available for a few more days.
He is designing a Garden Bridge for central London. A pedestrian bridge filled with trees, flowers, birds, bees and butterflies. I'm not sure if it was originally his idea, or Joanna Lumley's but whoever thought of it, 'more power to them', as they would say in Ireland.

They just need someone to pay for it. Needless to say, it will be very expensive.
But what price such a perfect, green, soul-replenishing getaway?
Maybe the Beckhams could fund it. They have plenty of money, not to mention a child named after a bridge.
They could do this one in reverse - name a bridge after a child. The Harper Seven Bridge perhaps?
I don't suppose anyone would mind what it was called, if they could sit there and breathe out steam and breathe in green peace and birdsong.

An artist's impression of the proposed Garden Bridge for Central London