Calendar for February

My image for February is used with permission from Swallowfield. I love her pictures so much. For well over a year I have dithered in her Etsy shop for embarrassingly long periods of time, trying to decide what to buy and then liking too much of it and having to leave. One day I will be firm and decide. But it is so, so very hard...

Lots of love for February, and all the romance it brings.

Built for comfort, not built for speed

Lynn was blogging about her Grandma today, which was odd, because I was thinking about mine.

It was knitting that did it. I learned to knit when I was a teenager, and my main time to do it was in the car on long journeys. However this meant being seated next to my Grandma: trapped, like a caged animal in a zoo, unable to escape her critical gaze.

She would watch for a while. I would know she was watching. I would knit defensively, trying to wedge myself into the car door. I knew what was coming, and it always did.

"You don't knit t'gain way." (This is Yorkshire dialect for "Your knitting style is a very slow and laborious one". 'Gain' is from the Old Norse, 'gegn', apparently, and it's not something she made up at all. Though Mr Coffee and I were convinced that she did make dialect words up, and as she was older and more Yorkshire than any of us we couldn't contradict her. One day I'll tell you all about Dick's hatband, and how queer it was, and no-one will understand what I'm going on about.)

Knitting again after a 20 year break means that, God rest her soul, I don't have to listen to her complaining about how slow I am. And I think I do okay.

Certainly the Littlest Latte was happy cuddling up to her new hot water bottle cover, knitted with the yarn that Mr Coffee brought back from the market but forbade me to make into anything that would be on show because it was such a bright red.

 

I may not be super-speedy - but I'm a whole project down. And yes, for you aficionados, that IS moss stitch, and I am officially a genius.

Decorating the Coffee House Way - an occasional series

If you're ever painting a room - say, for the sake of example, the kitchen - and you think it would be a good idea to use masking tape to run round the edges of the kitchen cupboards and worksurfaces to protect them from the paint, here's a tip - DON'T.

And if your husband ever suggests that this might be an idea, and even goes so far as to be found with the roll of masking tape in his hand, the best thing to do is just sit him down and use the roll to tape him to the chair until his impulse passes.

In fact, why not go downstairs into the cellar right now, and if you find any masking tape you can just throw it away, just in case.

You'll feel better. I promise.

Yours, swearing the morning away with white spirit and a hot cloth,

The Coffee Lady

It's GREAT!! But will it be funny?

Thanks to The Daily Show, I know more about American politics than I do about anything that happens in Britain. I admit that when I hear the words 'Prime Minister', I still look around the television screen for evidence of Tony Blair.

But it's a worrying time for satire when something good happens. And the new President of the United States could be a real problem for someone like me, who is mainly into global news for kicks and giggles.

But last night Mr Coffee and I sat on the sofa and howled at this.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Obama Inauguration

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

So it might just be okay.

Ready? Let the intellectualism begin.

It would seem an opportune time to do a post about books. Because we haven't had one for a while and because, well, I need the proof. When I first started blogging, I thought I would use it as a way of recording books I had read.

Weeks have passed, and I have given you complaints about being tired, pictures of a bike taken by a four-year-old, and a conversation overhead in a ladies' toilet about suitable shoes for older men. You can be excused for having thought of me as someone who never reads any books.

So here is pile of some of my recent reads that I just flung (flung! I say! I didn't arrange them, of course not) onto the floor.



The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle, recommended to me by a yoga teacher, is a book about living in the present moment. It's an ongoing project - not an easy one for someone like me who has practised anxiety almost professionally for many years. Sometimes I read the book and think, yes, this is IT! And other times I read it whilst muttering and frowning unattractively.

The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama. Look, I know my limitations. I'm not going to try to paraphrase the Dalai Lama.

The Room of Lost Things, by Stella Duffy. I get so bored of literature being All About London, that a book focused on the people living in a small area of London didn't immediately appeal. But in fact it was a wonderful read, an insight into the shifts in a community over generations, a book of connections and loneliness.

The End of Mr Y, by Scarlett Thomas. Mr Coffee read this and went on excitedly about how much he had learned about quantum physics and other worthy subjects during his enjoyment of it. I read it wondering why on earth people were talking about quantum physics and other worthy subjects all the way through, particularly at times when men were trying to track the characters down and kill them, or when they were alone in a room with the love of their lives never knowing if they were ever going to meet again. It was exciting; it was frustrating: personally, I didn't come away remembering a thing about quantum physics.

Never The Bride, by Paul Magrs. Oh, this is FUN. So much fun. Dark and insane and FUN. Two little old ladies - one with a hidden past - encounter gothic horror, dark magic, ancient vampires, alien visitors and evil hoteliers as they take their tea in the atmospheric seaside town of Whitby. Insane and fantastic. I have the next two books in the series in a pile at the side of my bed.

The Telling, by Jo Baker. Maybe you're looking for a ghost story, or maybe a love story. Perhaps you want to read about a contemporary woman; or maybe you fancy something with social history woven into the story. Obviously something with strong characterisation and emotional truth; a page-turner, a beautiful read. Well this is ALL THAT and more. And I'm not just saying that because the Eldest Latte knows the author's son, because if I didn't like the book I could have just hidden it behind the sofa and pretended I'd never read it, couldn't I?

And now for the latest project. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke.

I have read - ooh, 20 pages now, and it is very good. But it is BIG. Look.


I have measured it in the accredited Coffee House Unit of Measurement for Books, and it is scary. It is bigger than a whisky. It is bigger than an espresso.

Wish me luck. I'm going in.

Growing up nicely

When I was 17, I wandered around my Sixth Form College reading Philip Larkin and dreaming of finding a man who would seduce me whilst reading poetry and looking deep and beautiful.

In a few short years Mr Coffee would be that man, but I had not met him yet (and at the time he was busy applying eyeliner and gelling his hair into spikes, so I'm very glad I wasn't around for that). But it was okay, because I had Lloyd Cole.

Lloyd Cole, with his clever songs and his pretty hair, was with me through my 'A' levels and my degree. Lloyd's music was constantly playing through the sophisticated stereo system I owned as a student - a Sony Walkman with a pair of tiny, tinny speakers.

So when Mr Coffee told me that Lloyd Cole was playing WITHIN WALKING DISTANCE OF OUR HOUSE and that tickets had been bought I was a bit nervous. It had been a while. I've had two children; heaven knows what shape Lloyd was in. Maybe - oh god - he had tried to keep the same hair. Maybe it would be really sad, and he would play all his old songs and I would come out of the theatre feeling like a woman, well, 22 years older than I was when I saw him last time.

It was a worry.

But there was no need to worry, because you know, Lloyd Cole grew up. Really well. He had new songs that made me not really care about hearing the old ones, and when I did, he had made them lovely again in a different way. His voice was familiar, understated and beautiful, his lyrics still intelligent, but on an empty stage with his guitar he was another musician completely to the one I had seen so many years ago. (Also, to be fair, when I saw him last time he was more famous, and I had less money, so I was sat so far away from the stage I could barely make him out.) I sat utterly mesmerised the whole way through, and left not wanting to dig out my old CDs, but to - gasp - buy new ones.

Yes, children, you are right to look afraid. The High School Musical soundtrack is living on borrowed time.

(Mr Coffee remarked that Lloyd Cole now reminds him of Kenneth Branagh in Wallander (left). He thought he was being a bit evil, saying that. He had failed to realise quite how alluring I found Kenneth Branagh in Wallander.)

I felt a little shallow for worrying about Lloyd's waist and hairline, when he is such a good musician and lyricist and so serious and all. But then in a queue in the ladies' at the interval, I stood behind a woman who was moaning to her friend that he was wearing sensible brown shoes. "My god!" she was saying. "He could at least wear plimsolls or something! How old is he now?"

It had never occurred to me to worry about his footwear. Nor do I think I would be particularly interested to know what a man in his late 40s who wore plimsolls had to say about the world. I was very happy to find that I was not the most ridiculous woman in the theatre.

And very happy to know that in Lloyd Cole and Mr Coffee I have two very lovely men to grow old with.

Where's Jack Bauer when you need him?

Last year, when I was ill (I can hear you, by the way, sighing and saying 'God, will she not stop going ON about that already?') I got into a groove.

I cranked up my Lovefilm membership and ordered loads of stuff. I planned to watch things I'd never had chance to watch, and ended up with weeks full of Kiefer Sutherland in 24. When Mr Coffee went away on a business trip, I emailed him every day to tell him what Jack Bauer was doing. Mr Coffee emailed back to say he hoped that Jack would have time to care for me while he was so busy saving the world.

"I do not actually trust him to look after me as he is very busy pretending to be a virus buyer," I replied. "He has just shot his partner in the head in order to keep his cover; if he has so little sympathy for him then I doubt he would give a monkeys about a small moaning woman asking if she could have a chair to sit on."

Well this week I am a bit tired, and in need of rest, but I am not prepared. I have no pile of DVDs. I have a big book, but it's a big book, and it would take a type of commitment I don't have this week.

Yesterday, inspired by the List Writer, I got hold of my first set of knitting needles in over 20 years and knitted a square. And then I looked at it and thought, who am I kidding? What am I going to do with this square? We all know it is never going to turn into a blanket.

I am at sea. Jack is not here to rescue me. With no-one being tortured, and the world not being in peril, how is a girl to rest and recuperate?

Finally. I'm in the New Year.

On New Year's Eve the inhabitants of The Coffee House sat down to write their New Year's Resolutions. They were the usual handful of getting more fit, eating more healthily, keeping bedrooms tidy, getting more sleep. You know.

I had some nebulous yoga-y goings on thrown in there, but I didn't really know what they meant other than Do More Yoga. Because it helped me recover from illness, and because it makes me feel better.

Last night was my first yoga class of the New Year. Our winter sequence, the teacher explained (I have searched this place for a good teacher. And she is a Good Teacher) was about conserving energy, keeping in step with the seasons. She seemed particularly impressed that I had done precisely nothing with the Christmas holidays. Winter, it seems, is a time for sleeping, for saving energy.

Well, thank goodness for that. Because I am very much enjoying going at a snail's pace. And I knew deep down that I wasn't going to be doing any running any time soon, whatever my ambitions. It's not a time for salad and activity. I don't actually have the energy, and I was feeling bad about that. But no more.

And it's no time to give up cake, especially when the oven warms the kitchen up so nicely. (This is my decision. I didn't need a yoga teacher to tell me that. I can freestyle when it comes to this kind of thing.)

So I shall abandon all ridiculous ideas of self-improvement, and aim for my two yoga classes a week, some quiet, some care, and some very early nights.

Now if you don't mind I have some sitting down to do. I've been very busy rewinding the Christmas ribbon, and it has quite tired me out.

My new thing for today is... frugal ineptitude

I grew up in the 1970s, and my friend Joanne was a very cool friend to have. She had blue jeans with tartan bottoms like the Bay City Rollers.

We didn't have a lot of money, so one day my mother took a pair of my outgrown orange trousers (look, it was the 70s, remember?) and sewed some blue floral fabric on the bottom to lengthen them. She then presented me with this frightening item, saying: "Look! You'll be just like Joanne!"

I don't need to tell you I looked nothing like Joanne.

The reason I am dragging up this sorry story once again is that times are hard in the Coffee House at present, and making do and mending is back on the agenda. I've spent the morning turning the heating off, reading Misssy M's list of vests and browsing the net for January sales of thermal underwear.

If that weren't tragic in itself, I have also been making the poor Littlest Latte her first pair of Frankenstein pyjamas. The Eldest Latte, due to her disability, often crawls at home rather than looking around for her elusive crutches, so holey knees are an occupational hazard. Recently I trotted down to the market haberdashery to buy an iron-on patch for her jeans that said Girl Thing!. Oh, I thought I was so clever as I ironed it on! I was appalled to see it peeling itself obnoxiously off the first time I washed it.

Anyway, anything she passes down is similarly challenged in the knee area, which makes the Littlest Latte look like an urchin as she climbs the stairs to bed.

The thing is, I know that some of you sit around your house of an evening handsewing beautiful things. (Ali, I'm looking at you.) And I'm not going to post a picture of these pyjamas after their knee surgery with a worn-out pink top but let me tell you, even the four-year-old looked scared. I am out of my depth and this is one thing that I know I can't ask my mother about.

So please, if anyone knows how to mend my children's clothes without them looking even worse than I did in my orange trousers, let me know.

Happy Birthday

The Littlest Latte is four. She had a pink cake, which she decorated herself.



I had planned to take some pictures to show you her first trip out on her new birthday bicycle.

However, on finding the camera, I discovered that someone else had sneaked the chance to record the day for themselves.

Coffee Lady Calendar

As promised, my calendar of photos from blogs I have admired over the last year.

I'm no photographer. It has been a delight to look at everyone else's fantastic images.

The links to the original posts are below; the calendar reads from left to right.

January The Glass Doorknob

February Swallowfield

March Uncommon Grace

April Domesticali

May The Magpie Files

June Driftwood

July Dottycookie

August Beanphoto

September Speechless, Mostly

October Attic 24

November Eurolush

December Um, this is one of mine.

Thanks for everyone giving me permission to use these images, and a belated Happy New Year to all,

Still hanging on

We do the Twelve Days of Christmas in the Coffee House: a combination of Christianity and love of fairylights. I'm amazed that Christmas seems to have stopped for so many people. I'm amazed that all twelve of the stories in the Christmas Tales book, bought for the Lattes by my father, end along the lines of "and then they hung their stockings up and went to bed".

We're not finished yet! Look at these candles - why would we want to put them out? Look at the Littlest Latte, happily stickering in her Christmas book!

WOULD THE WORLD DENY A CHILD THE RIGHT TO DO HER CHRISTMAS STICKERING?

Christmas is a wonderful bubble. Mr Coffee has time off work, and we all bobble about the house aimlessly. There is time, lots of time, to do the things we don't get time to do during the school term: get out the Eldest Latte's paper-weaving set (at last, a use for those magazines), bake a more leisurely cake, watch a film.

And it is properly cold. So it makes much more sense to be making snowmen pictures now that the ducks on the canal are skating, and the garden is full of frost. Sitting down to do half an hour's activity in the middle of the day after Christmas is far more fun than spending Advent flinging tissue paper around at two cranky children in the thin sliver of time between school pick-up and the daily argument about whether or not they like their dinner.

Also, if it is still Christmas, we can still drink sherry without guilt. Everyone wins.

Calendar for January

This is the first image from my calendar of pictures from blogs I have admired over the past year.

It is used with permission from Shari, from the glass doorknob. (The link to the post where the picture appears is here).

I love this blog - it is like a mini meditation each day, and when I was ill last year it was a joy to see such beautiful images from the outside world while I was trapped in my bed. It felt almost like being there, and I thank Shari very much for that escape.

(I'll be able to post a full set of the pictures I've chosen for my calendar soon, I'm just waiting to get permission for them all. Putting it together was enormous fun, but far more complicated than I thought it was going to be. Will you lot stop posting show-stopping images in the same month as one another? Hardly any of the ones I've chosen came from the right month at all.)