Surroundings
Here I am again.
Firstly, I just want to say thank you to everyone who’s been reading the blog, and to those who have been leaving comments too. I know I say this a lot, but I’m always surprised to see that more than just a handful of friends and family like to come here often. Some from my old Mitenska days, others who arrived more recently to see my pictures of Skye (and decided to stay). I tried replying to a selection of comments last week but for some reason I’d hit publish, only to find later on that nothing had appeared. This happened on two occasions. It was frustrating. I think I fixed the problem eventually.
I always read comments and try to reply - particularly if someone asks me a question. But rest assured each and every one is appreciated, even if I don’t get around to responding to them all.
Speaking of technical difficulties, we took delivery of a new printer this week. Wireless, way more clever than I need it to be. The old one quietly died after spending a few cold, damp months in a storage container (the TV met the same fate).
So anyway, this printer. Two days to get it working. Two days! We tried connecting a USB cable, looking for online help, resetting everything, uninstalling and reinstalling: nothing. I was fuming. I need to print off resources for Joe’s homeschooling amongst other things, and have no patience with temperamental electronics.
Needless to say, it was Mr Reasonable, Jay, who got it up and running.
Why am I blathering on about an uncooperative printer? Because small irritations, especially In These Strange and Trying Times, can add up. And then the stress bucket gets perilously close to overflowing. Just like the river Calder, in fact.
So we try and get outdoors as much as possible. And on Saturday we went to Hardcastle Crags, just outside Hebden Bridge. I’ve never been before - just passed the brown signs when visiting Haworth.
It was a very gloomy, overcast day with a lively breeze. I love walking through the woods on a windy day. It felt more autumnal that spring-like, with crunchy beech leaves underfoot. They kept being blown high into the air, dancing about and landing on us. Joe loved crossing the stepping stones at the river (although that ended in tears when he tried a risky manoeuvre and got a telling off).
He cheered up eventually.
It’ll be nice to go back there in the summer, when the mill has reopened and hopefully the National Trust will put on a few seasonal events.
We’ve also been out to find the location of Joe’s new school. We’re having a proper visit next week so he can meet the headteacher and one of his class teachers, and get a tour of the building. I need to buy him some bits of uniform too.
It isn’t one of the closest schools to our house but it was important to us that he attends a smaller one, with lots of outside space. He’s had a lot of disruption with house moves and school changes, so the priority was for him not to feel overwhelmed and to go somewhere not too far removed from what he’s been used to. Things in Skye felt a lot less formal in terms of uniform, being granted time off and arriving on time, but he (we) will adapt. His first school was in Lancashire and we knew the drill and abided by the rules.
Plus, if you were late in the morning you’d get locked in the school yard and you had to knock gingerly on the headteacher’s window, meekly apologise and ask to be let out.
So Heptonstall is another new discovery. It’s a village which we accessed up a steep hill and cobbled lane, and there are lots of little paths winding through the buildings and surprises around every corner. It feels like stepping back in time.
Apparently, Sylvia Plath is buried here. I didn’t find that out until a week after we’d been. I love the literary heritage of Yorkshire (I can’t wait to go to Haworth again and walk in the footsteps of Charlotte, Anne and Emily). But I want to go back soon to Heptonstall, alone, to explore some more. There are views out across the valley across the rooftops of Hebden, and lots of curious old places and - yes - covetable (no doubt listed) houses.
We know my history with listed houses. The notion of living in them is far removed from the reality. So, admiring sighs are all that’s allowed. Oh, and photographs.
We’ve been out walking close to home too. So many places to discover still.
Speaking of home, this is the view from the back garden. I can see horses again. This is a very horsy place. I grew up around horses and ponies, and the smell of hay or sugar beet literally takes me right back. A whiff of hoof oil and it’s 1987 again.
I know I said I’d put in some ‘before and after’ photos, so here’s Part One: our bedroom.
I don’t want to traumatise you by including pictures of it when we first arrived (boxes piled up and stuff strewn all over the place - it was awful and depressing and made me anxious). So we’ve tidied things up a bit. This house is a rental property so we can’t hang pictures or put shelves up. The only cupboards in the entire place are in the kitchen. And we left our lovely but rickety old wardrobe in the house we just sold. Ditto the huge old Victorian chest of drawers we had, which dominated the bedroom.
So where do all the clothes and bags and shoes and underwear, hats and scarves and jewellery go?
Well, some is stored in boxes under the bed. Some in a wooden blanket box at the end of the bed (the blanket box used to be in my brother’s bedroom when we were kids, then I kept it and removed the 1970s mustard paint and the 1960s turquoise paint underneath that. The lid’s a bit warped and loose but it’s useful and I’m very attached to it - unlike said lid).
I have a couple of galvanised metal boxes for underwear storage, and we bought some clothes rails from Argos to hang our decent stuff on. Most of our coats are either in the porch or on over-door hooks in the hallway.
An old kitchen cupboard is currently my bedside cabinet*. The plan is to repaint it in something like Farrow & Ball’s Railings (or, more realistically, a Valspar copy). I have actually repainted some furniture since we’ve been here, but I’ll save that for another post.
We’ve also put a rug under the bed so we don’t get cold feet from the laminate floors. I’d like to hang some nice curtains too but the one pair we brought with us are in the living room instead. The thing with rented houses is, you don’t want to be buying too much stuff that might not fit into your permanent home. So it’s a case of making do, in as pretty a way as possible, and accessorising with things like ceramics and books and plants and throws.
*If you’re interested, the plant by my bed is a leggy rose-scented geranium I inherited from my mum. The wooden box was hers too, and the one underneath it was my paternal grandmother’s sewing box. The book is All Creatures Great and Small, which I’m reading for the first time and loving, and the glasses… well, I finally gave up and accepted that wearing them for reading makes things a whole lot clearer.
So, we’re caught up, more or less. Homeschooling continues; we’re on fractions and decimals for maths, Charlotte’s Web for English, and our ‘topic’ has a geographical slant but despite my failing the ‘g’ word at A level (we don’t talk about that), it’s good fun. Cities, flags, tourist attractions and landscapes in Europe. And Joe has quite the bedroom library, including this book, which we enjoyed reading today.
I’m watching The Great Pottery Throwdown (Channel 4?) and Interior Design Masters (BBC), and pretty much anything half decent on Netflix.
But spring’s coming. It is. On Sunday we actually sat out in the garden with the sun on our faces and it felt good, like we’d turned a corner. Hopefully it won’t be too long before we can see friends and family again.
