The first bleak and dark day of the New Year. What did I say that time before about the rain, when I’d come home from bright, scrubbed clean air? ‘I shall grow slippery as an eel.’ The gills have grown through. A grey day, and despite having an early night on NYE for the first time in my adult life, feeling ill. But lovely to wake up to so many messages from friends who were up celebrating (well, we’re forty now, so you were only pair-drinking prosecco in front of the telly) while I slept.
I read the opening of Orwell’s Roses, thought about my sister, thought about my friend Rhian singing ‘Bread and Roses,’ missed them both. Had a short cry – because I was feeling unwell anyway – and to purge the old year. Sometimes when it is cold, and the trees and flowers are sleeping, it is melancholy. Stillness is beautiful, but also sad. Sometimes, a little cry about winter is helpful.
I have never done New Years resolutions. Having thought about this over the last two years, I’m now quite certain that this is fear of failure. I don’t set goals, in case I don’t meet them. Writing is tough. Setting goals which we inevitably fail means we actually get stuff done but feel shit about it anyway. What a pity. As ever, I begin the year with no aims, no promises, no shoulds. The dark time of year, of resting, sleeping, dare I utter – ‘dreaming’ (eugh, no, I can’t bear it) is better for reflecting on what has gone before. Something has died. The year is over. I am in a new one, but it’s not started yet. So, I will think of the last one and count the losses, sort the gains, lay them all out so they are not missed. They will all writhe out of the cracks of the old year anyway; behind me, in my peripheral vision, suddenly in front of me. Hold them still, lay them out, order them. Study.
January comes in a vision of plum and orange. We became vegetarian and it reignited my love of cooking. And suddenly January was the most superb I have ever lived. There was no struggling to school, battling weather or job insecurity, inevitable heating failures juxtaposed with dogmas about no coats in classrooms and the thousand other little miseries. After seeing a play in Brum with the Gentleman and Cath, I stayed in. On a snowy dawn I saw two deer silver through the meadow by the plantation. I walked Brocton Coppice between the misty oaks and the great purple glow of millions of birch branches. I came home and cooked orange soups and curries, wrote, studied, read Knaussguard, Ferrante and Du Maurier and was generally enchanted. I was well rested and peaceful and felt no obligations between these quiet, lovely things: a walk, purple birch, cooking and writing. For the first ever time, I loved January. Fucken nailed it.
February shines silver with Wallasea. I did an indulgent writing research trip; which basically means I waft about romantically and get the long-suffering Gentleman to drive me everywhere. On a day so blue and bright I was disappointed by the absence of gothic vibes, I was charmed by an ancient, pretty town, stared at the pool where the three elms used to grow, marvelled at the brightness of the sea and nearly leapt for the songs of skylarks. Then in hail, wind and rain, I walked the Broomway and the wide expanse of the northern mudflats with the short-eared owls, the marsh harriers, the avocets, egrets, pipets, brent geese, plover, greenshank. I loved the marshy, muddy, shit part of Essex more than I ever knew I could.
I never like March. But I had a nice walk with Charlie around Winterbourne House, sung in folk clubs, delivered workshops, and wrote. We poked our compost and wondered to find it wriggling with worms, dark and loamy. We spread it around and watched the tulips and narcissus bloom in the grass.
In April I got into foraging. On a chilly but sunny evening I wandered down to the meadow and gathered nettle, hedge mustard, gorse and dandelion. I made fritters, tea, salads. I followed an early butterfly and saw my first blackcap of the year and listened to them sing. I noted the dates of their arrival, and the skylarks’ and the chiffchaffs. Then on St George’s day, I heard a cuckoo. Trent may have broken my heart by not making it back to the Congo, but cuckoos are still calling on the Chase. We hiked Thor’s cave in the Peaks, collected wild garlic with the Youdales, saw our niece and nephew. We had cousin Michael come to visit with Paulina and were generally ecstatic to be related.
I woke early at the start of May and tied ribbons to oaks, walked out to the belt and met the deer as the sun rose. In all my morning walks with the chiffchaffs and blackbirds and the scents of blossom and seething, wriggling life, I felt every moment I have ever been happy in my entire life rush up to me in a lungful of air. Then we went to Japan and I discovered how good a country could be, if it chooses to, which is good to know, so you know what to vote for. Biodiversity, waste disposal, infrastructure. Modern, advanced countries have these. We must not be modern or advanced. Back home, I carried on picking up rubbish, and was glad I had left, glad I had got out of my routine to remember I can, to try something new, and a bit challenging. Glad that I was able to smile at someone, point, use two words in a different language, and communicate sufficiently. It’s good to know. And I got to share and explore all that with the Gentleman.
One cold night in June, we went to the Chase to listen to nightjars. We heard them purring, saw them flapping over the tree-line, then saw two deer in the moonlight as we returned. I wrote another essay, performed more poetry and went to a Romanticism exhibition in Brum with Holly. For our fortieth birthday we had a campout and got to see lots of family, including Uncle Win, and aunty Mary Ann and Uncle Andy who all travelled ever such a long way. Then the weather perked up towards the solstice and I spent long evenings on the grass under the oxeye daisies and roses in my garden. Jen came to stay and we walked all over the Chase; she loved the birds, I loved the adder we nearly trod on. We ate a hell of a lot of vegetables. I wrote another essay.
In July I was briefly ill but discovered, with the help of a wonderful academic at Essex University, Dr Welch, that Essex Gothic is a Thing, and wrote another essay. I saw Bailey in her new flat in Hull! Then I went to Cornwall and hiked from Portreath to St Agnes and back again amid choughs and kittiwakes, the heather and wildflowers. I did solid day-drinking with Corinne and Jack, and Freeman and I did lots of cooking and baking on rainy days and thought about all the things we’d learned that year. Freeman thinks I’m exactly the sort of person who could have fun at a rainy beach bbq. I reminded her I’m that kind of upbeat whenever she sees me, because she’s there. We saw Charlotte and Dan and discussed Cornishness and cultural identity. I was excited by the new things they were learning.
I had a break from writing the novel in August. The garden was so beautiful with helenium, the lavender and fleabane wild and abundant and I wrote poetry and spent a lovely afternoon in my garden with poet Cherry watching peacock butterflies. Freeman took us to Todmorden and we walked the canal to Hebden Bridge in an excess of sunshine. We had Jess and Benjy to come and stay and took them all to the Chase to paddle in the Sherbrooke and play frisbee on the grass. Then Reuben and Lyra came to stay with us which was a big achievement of the year because we had them all to ourselves and everyone had a lovely time. I was so pleased they felt so comfortable with us and enjoyed themselves.
In September we went to France briefly to eat croissants with Will and Jen. Back home I spoke to no one all month and finished my final assignment. I handed it in the day before the deadline, then in the morning, I watched the house martins swoop around the pines in a beautiful clear sky for the last time before they left. It felt like a good luck charm, and I got a distinction for my Master’s degree, so perhaps it was.
October and November were misty and vivid. I did a foraging course and can now identify amethyst deceivers accurately. I joined New Moon Morris for the Apple fayre and had the most wonderful time being part of the side again. It’s part of me to mark seasons with silly dancing and it felt so good to be back, and to stay with Helen in her magnificent house with her excessive generosity. We hiked in the Peaks again and discovered Castleton and Rushop which were delightful, and saw Will and Jen’s newborn and Stratford Christmas market with Corinne and Tim. Then we slipped into the mouth of the year end at Christmas, which dumps us out at the end like this.
These are the good things. Some difficult things happened as well. I don’t really know what to do about those. I don’t think there’s much I can do. I don’t know if it’s the right thing to ignore them and focus on the lovely things. But what are any of us supposed to do?
So, in summary:
- Saw a marsh harrier and short-eared owl, nightjar and red grouse.
- Travelled to Japan and saw turtle doves and warblers and ate sushi.
- Got all the bird questions right on Christmas University Challenge.
- Saw some family that I’ve not seen in years.
- Made a ‘tradition’ of summer and autumn visits with Freeman and Bob, Jess and Benjy and Will and Jen.
- Learned to be a bit more at peace with not keeping up as much as I want, but as much as I can, with far away friends.
- Read Elena Ferrante.
- Have much improved teeth health.
- Got better at performance poetry.
- Learned something about servers. I mean, I think I can point to one, now.
- Became mainly vegetarian.
- Entered two writing competitions and wrote pages upon pages.
- Completed a Master’s degree in Creative Writing and got a distinction.