So, where was I?

To be honest, I can’t actually remember when I stopped writing yarnstorm. It’s all, including the blog itself, lost in the mists of time and the basement vaults of the Internet.

This seems like a good time, then, to fill in the gaps, and to introduce me, as I am now, to readers who don’t know me from my blog.

I chose to call this newsletter yarnstorm because it’s what lots of people know me for. It’s a word I coined in February 2005, long before ‘yarnstorming’ became a thing, and now it’s in the OED. It was one of their new words of 2015, but they were slow on the uptake lol. (I love a lol, lol.) So it seemed like a good name to revive, although what I’ll be writing now won’t be a continuation but more of a following-on, because I, like life, have moved on and things are different.

plus ça change…

radishes socks, pattern by Stone Knits

I say that, but in fact lots has stayed the same. I still love books, art, C20 architecture, films, knitting, baking, Birkenstocks, tulips, swimming, France, and University Challenge. However, I haven’t quilted in a long time (we have enough quilts to see us through the coming Ice Age winter), and I don’t bake as much as before now that it’s just me and Simon and a constant battle with temptation when I do bake. Rocks buns, though, are still very much a constant.

What has changed, though, is that Tom, Alice and Phoebe are all grown-up and living in London, Hong Kong and London, respectively. They have accumulated an array of degrees between them gained at various universities in London, and have lived in lots of different places. All of which means that I have got to know many parts of the capital which I didn’t know before (eg Camden, Peckham, New Cross, Camberwell, Deptford, Hackney, Brixton, Brockley, Walthamstow) and I’m still not tired of London/life.

King’s College Chapel and giant echiums

But home was never same without them; readers of The Gentle Art of Domesticity will know about the colourful, creative family life that went on in the old house. So we moved away to central Cambridge five or so years ago, initially because of Simon’s work, but it has turned out to the perfect place for us. Shockingly, the house has all-white walls. I know. Phoebe has still not adjusted fully.

What else is new? Well, when we came here I picked up where I left off with French with various courses and classes. It amuses me that my school/university French now sounds like it has been preserved en gelée and I can’t get down with the kids and manage the slang. I have a weekly Zoom class with a French teacher in which talk about all the things that interest me (good practice for this English version) and it’s like sitting in a café with a friend. I read Georges Simenon’s Maigrets and romans durs almost on a loop, and have discovered the wonderful films of Agnès Varda.

jam and recent weaving

I’ve learned how to make properly edible jam and label it accordingly, and I now have a marmalade-making week in January. I’ve gone back to dressmaking after making many a smock-top in my teens: Merchant and Mills has transformed my wardrobe. I’ve flirted with a fair few other skills and media, not all of which I loved/can do.

We have an allotment nearby where Simon grows wonderful asparagus and Pink Fir Apple potatoes, while I make a lesser effort with cosmos and sunflowers. We also grow a lot of daffodils and tulips, although the latter are a cause for anxiety because of the threat from local predators (eg muntjac deer, escapees from the Botanic Garden).

And lots more. But that’s enough for this Sunday; there’s plenty for future newsletters.

my Sunday Sunday dressing-gown

It just remains for me to say thank you for choosing to join me. I look forward to Sunday mornings more than ever, now. With my Sunday dressing gown and my Sunday morning music.

As the the French say in a way which sounds so much better than ‘Have a nice Sunday’: je vous souhaite un très bon dimanche.