Deep Thought

I do a lot of my creative thinking and planning in the bath.  A nice, deep, hot bath with scented bubbles, colour changing candles, a cup of tea (or a small pot if I'm planning a long session, or fresh coffee if it's first thing in the morning), warm towels and my design notebook and pencil(s), diary, pen, timer if I'm on a schedule, etc. As I relax, I let my mind freewheel.  Watching the rainbow spectra on the bubbles mesmerises me as they shift and twinkle under the bathroom light.  I make notes of anything I remember that I need (or want) to do, and then just do some of my physio exercises, sit or lie there, letting the ideas swirl and thoughts collide.

I recently found myself thinking about what I was thinking about, and before it got too recursive I reflected that the process is effectively that of the Word Association game, except that there is only me, and the words stay as unspoken thoughts. I'm mining my own subconscious for creative ideas and connections, and predictably my favourite things are regular features. (Strangely, I forgot about hot, scented baths as one of my favourite things, but they are.)

Out of interest in my own thought process, and wondering how many of those thoughts got lost before they made it onto paper, I thought I would take notes of the thoughts and mind's eye pictures which came up during a session, and here's the result:

Seeing someone ploughing on my way into Carmarthen the other day.
Ridges and furrows of ploughed earth.
Stripes of light and dark brown and drab yellow-green winter grass.
Hedgebanks full of snowdrops, daffodils and primroses starting too.
Must try to make some progress with the garden.
Need my knees to stop hurting.
Buddleia.
Purples?
Remembering accidental and unexpectedly good colour combinations when sorting through the multicolour DK stash.
I don't like purples and pinks, so why do I find myself drawn to them at the moment?
The fuzzy memory of a picture of a friend's fingerless mittens with bands of garter? stitch.
Another memory of a short sleeved cardigan in garter stitch, in a clothing catalogue.
Wondering: why am I so averse to garter stitch?
Or is it really reverse stocking stitch which I don't like, because it looks like the thing is inside out?
But I do like the 'springy rings' look.
The potential for mittens or a moebius cowl to have each garter/reverse stocking stitch band in a different colour on a single colour background.
What about having dark to light toned garter bands on a light to dark toned background?
When I'm blending one colour into the next in the Longshore blanket, is it random, predictable ...?
How come I don't have any Royal Blue in my stash?
For a longer blend, for example on a cowl, what if you blend two colours using an inverse number of rows? 6+1, 5+2, 4+3 ...
111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
Where would I start the blend with a third colour?
Would a repeat of that pattern look too predictable?
111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
What about a different sequence?
Fibonacci.
111111111111111111111111111111111
What if you combine the two?
111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
Or reverse the second?
111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
And/or reverse the first?
111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
Game on, you could play with this forever!
Bands of stocking stitch and reverse stocking stitch plus different colours plus inverse number or Fibonacci series plus mittens, cowls, hats, socks ...?
Rainbow coloured springy rings!
Someone else has probably already done this.
Must have a little look online and in Ravelry.
The there comes that dreadful moment when the water's running cold, In the Bath! In the Bath!
... It's started running hot, let's have another hour or more, In the Bath! In the Bath!*
Perhaps not.
Cast off! Knit two together!**

So, duly washed, dried, dressed and looking approximately human again, I had a quick look and found a couple of blogs re Fibonacci and knitting:  Lismi Knits and Knitting Dragonflies. I love the idea of Fibonacci ribbing and textures. Thanks, both!

*Flanders and Swann, of course. Here's the link for it on YouTube.  It starts at about 3:40. **The pun at the start of Sea Fever always amuses me.

All this was a couple of days ago.  I'm trying to remember why I wanted black DK. Time for another bath.

January Brings the Snow ...

Makes your feet and fingers glow - according to Flanders and Swann, that is. It arrived last Friday, 18 January and is still here, albeit much melted and looking filthy.  I reckon we had at least 12"/30cm over 6 days. Not that much, really, but enough to cause disruption and damage.

I took a friend to a consultant's appointment in Haverfordwest on Wednesday.  It was snowing here when I left, although none was forecast, but at least the fresh fall made it easier to get up the icy drive from the barn.  The road had been gritted and was pretty good; wet, not icy and the snow wasn't settling (or 'sticking', as they say around here).  Haverfordwest was clear and we were going to stay for lunch when J's mobile went mad with calls and messages from friends and family, saying how heavily it was snowing, and to get home NOW!  The A40 was fine to the outskirts of Narberth, then we turned north onto the A478 and into the snow line.  Driving became increasingly interesting and was getting a bit hairy by the time I dropped J at Glandy Cross.  She had about 8 miles to go on the main road to get home, and I had about 4 miles on back roads.  Really, the driving wasn't too bad on the fresh snow (I have a dinky little 4x4) but I was glad when I got home, and already the depth of snow made it difficult to turn into the barn. After I left her, J had 2 near misses when she was just sitting in her car, as drivers took the turn into the side road badly and slid towards where she had parked (nice and safely, a good distance from the junction!). She was on the phone to her brother in law at the time and he came out with the truck from his garage, to make sure she got home safely.

Meanwhile, it continued snowing heavily, and there was no way I was going to be able to get back out again, or guarantee I would be able to get home safely that night.  So I had to postpone the belly dance taster workshop I was supposed to be giving that night in Tenby, which hardly had any snow.  There were 18 signed up for it!  We're going to try to do it next week, instead.

I heard a whooshing and cracking sound during the evening and found that it was an avalanche of snow off next door's roof, which brought down a section of guttering.  The guttering on my cottage was bulging with the weight of snow, too.

Snowy houseyard.

Thursday brought bright sunshine, but no real warmth except that generated by shovelling a path from the barn (used, amongst other things, to park vehicles out of the weather) and the houseyard gateway. When I went out in the evening to shut the hens away, I watched a droplet form on an icicle ... which started to freeze instead of dropping.  This morning, the yard outside my front door was a sheet of ice and I waded through the mounds of snow around the sides of the yard to get safely around to the hens. They are extremely fed up with the dark, wet weather, poor things.
The cats are also hating it.

Greebo and Xena curled like quotation marks and hogging the sofa

Yesterday evening's fun (?) was an abortive attempt to go to see another friend.  It was raining all afternoon, and getting steadily heavier until it was coming down in sheets.  The water was pouring out of field gateways, washing stones, muck and lumps of slushy snow out onto the roads, fountaining up from drain covers and creating floods which were becoming increasingly difficult to drive through (let alone see, in the dark). It took me 45 minutes to go 12 miles. I decided to call it a night and try to take a different route home, because I reckon I was one of the last little cars through a flood further back up the road. The local back roads were better than the main roads, but it was so foggy (or perhaps I was in the clouds?) that it was like driving in pea soup in places. Once home again and with a cup of tea in hand, I saw the flashing lights from two emergency vehicles as they sped past, and reports started to appear on the news about rivers bursting their banks and flooding in nearby towns. When I went to bed, the rain had stopped, to be replaced by a strong, gusty wind banging around and howling through the cat flap.

Snow, sunshine, ice, rain, fog and wind.  Pity the poor wildlife! I see flocks of starlings and thrushes flying over and wonder how they are coping.  Perhaps they are relying on the fields where stock are being fed and trample the snowy ground. One of the local Song Thrushes Turdus philomelos is using my back door step as an anvil, having found snails hiding in crevices under the ivy on the barn walls.

Pied Wagtail Motacilla alba

It's the RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch this weekend and for once, the weather isn't too bad here.  Will I see anyone at my feeder, given the competition from next door's mega bird table?

'June just rains and never stops ...'

'... 30 days and spoils the crops.'  Flanders and Swann's A Song of the Weather has been popping into my head regularly, and the reason is obvious. It often turns rather drizzly and wet here after midsummer, but we seem to have had a run of one or two good days, then several rainy days.  We've had some extreme weather, with heavy rain and gales and there's another severe weather warning for today.  It's dark, soaking wet, windy ... no wonder there are hardly any butterflies about.  I saw my first Red Admiral the day before yesterday, when it was sunny and I could hang some washing out to dry.

Bless Flanders and Swann, they always cheer me up.  I had a reprise of The Gas Man Cometh last month, as we tried to find a gas leak, which ended in the need for a new cooker (it turned out that the old cooker was probably the source of the leak). Also bless my Mum for the birthday money she gave me; it enabled me to buy a new cooker, even though I'm sure she would have preferred I spend the money on something less domestic.

I've got several earworms all at the same time at the moment - the weather song, obviously.  I also have music which I'm feeling inspired to do some choreography for, one of which was suggested by a friend for an Isis wings fusion piece.  We were also at a hafla and having an after-performance boogie to the Rizzle Kicks' Mama Do The Hump, so now that has stuck as well.  With my head full of music, we were talking briefly about upcoming choreographies and earworms in class last night.  One of my dancer friends has some sort of amusia, in that she cannot recognise different pieces of music and doesn't easily pick up rhythm or beat.  This is something of a challenge for someone who wants to dance. She also never has earworms.

During the couple of fine days this week, and with the pain in my knee subsiding a little, I thought I should do a little bit of walking.  I had found a site about osteoarthritis management, and the suggestion was to measure distance walked in 6 minutes, with a view to increasing the distance each time.  I thought it was unlikely that this was a total if you were walking out from home, as the first walk might be 3 minutes out, 3 back, then subsequently if you increased the distance, you'd overshoot your home.  Of course, it's no problem if you're on a treadmill at the gym. So I decided to walk 6 minutes out, and I went further than I thought I would, just over a quarter of a mile, a rough pace of 2.7 miles per hour which is reasonable for my little legs uphill. The hedgerows were looking glorious, a riot of red, pink and white campion, golden buttercups, stitchwort, foxgloves with half open spires of flowers, the ferns have just about finished unfurling, wild strawberries, grasses and cow parsley starting to lean over into the road, vetches starting to come through - all lush and lovely.  Bees and insects all over the place.  So much pollen you could see it in the air (good job I only seem to succumb to hayfever when I am really terribly stressed).  I had left my camera at home, thinking I should concentrate on the walk and not get distracted for this first walk, promising myself that I would take photos the following day.

The following day, a tractor with a cutter came through and cut the lot right back.

So I still went for my walk, with my camera, and allowed myself to get distracted and do the 1.4 mile 'loop', but I cheated and stopped in to see my neighbour up the road.  She has started to keep bees and it could well have been hers I saw on my buddleia last year.  Now I know who to call if I see a swarm.  She had a swarm earlier in June, which settled on a rose bush in front of her cottage, so she transferred them to a spare hive, where they made themselves at home only very temporarily before moving on again. We chatted over a cuppa, grumbling about the council cutting the hedgebanks already and despairing at the weather.

It's midday and so dark, I need to put a light on. So much for flaming June!

100 Words

Looking for some part-time, freelance work recently, I applied for a job as a design researcher, which apparently involved surfing the interweb for examples of good interior design and compiling them in a list, for a couple of days a week. In a strange sort of phone interview one evening, (after I had sent my CV and cover letter 3 times!) the prospective employer expressed his doubts that I could do the job, considering that I have no qualifications in design or architecture. He wanted 100 words back to him that same evening on why I would be a perfect candidate.

Well, okay.  It's true, I'm not really a 'designer' although I can surf around the interweb and compile lists in my sleep.  As far as I can see, much of what passes for 'interior design' is really just fashion.  The same size and shape of sofa in the same place in the room, with the same size and shape of cushions, but this year we're wearing, as it might be, contrasting stripes of Telephone Black and White White*.  (Oh, you noticed those slashes of red across the wall? Yes, it does look like arterial spray, but actually our painter had a bit of a tantrum when we changed our mind from the original palette of Cornish Cream, Strawberry and Bitter Chocolate.  It's such a talking point, we decided to leave it.  No, unfortunately, I can't give you his number - he's disappeared.)

Good design does have some rules, so inspired by Dieter Rams' 10 Principles for Good Design, and some thoughts of my own, I put together a paragraph relating elements of good design to my own characteristics.  I was so pleased with this piece of creative writing, I thought I would record it for posterity:

• I am useful, practical, easy to understand, unpretentious and honest; what you see is what you get.  I am beautiful in my own way, and at 50 years old, quite durable and long-lasting.  I am conscientious, accurate and thorough; details are important.  I can stand alone to make a statement or work alongside others, blending in harmoniously and unobtrusively.  I can be functional and innovative to provide good solutions.  Interested in wildlife conservation, I am environmentally friendly.  I dance, combining space, flow and rhythm.  I transcend changing tastes and fashions.  I am an example of good design.  Pure and simple.

I didn't get a reply.  After a week or so, I called back.  He was relieved that I wasn't one of his sponsors calling him, but when I reminded him I had applied for the job, he said he didn't remember me at all.  I left it at that.  Some things aren't meant to be; I think I might have had a lucky escape.

* Flanders and Swann: 'Design for Living', which you can listen to here (starts at about 6 minutes). And, like so many of their songs, as true now as it was then.

Earworms!

You know those tunes which get stuck in your head?  I get them all the time.  Thankfully, they are usually songs which I have heard recently and like, rather than advertising jingles or TV programme theme tunes.  I remember feeling quite irritated when I had ‘I should be so lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky …’ revolving in my head like a stuck record.  Clapping my hands over my ears and singing LA LA LA loudly and tunelessly didn’t seem to work, but I can’t remember now what I did to get rid of it, or whether it eventually went of its own accord.

I first heard the term ‘earworm’ a few years ago, following a discussion on the Radio Paradise website.  It seemed to fit, even if the image it brought up was a bit off-putting.  I remembered hearing something on the radio not so long ago about earworms, and thought no more about it until yesterday, when I had a head full of songs.

I was listening to Flanders and Swann’s At the Drop of a Hat at the weekend and The Gnu song stuck.  (If you haven’t heard of Flanders and Swann, then I’m sorry, we’ve just identified a hole in your education.  Please go and look them up.  Admittedly, some of their pieces were very much of their time, when HiFi and kitchen gadgets were new things, and those born in an age of CDs and microwaves might not get some of the historical and cultural references without programme notes.  But some of their work is timeless.  You can listen to The Gnu on YouTube here).

I love Flanders and Swann.  If ever there were songs made to stick in the mind, then surely some of theirs are the aural equivalent of superglue.  The combination of Flanders’ lyrics and Swann’s music and the wonderful way in which they delivered them stuck with me from childhood until I came across a boxed set of CDs and was able to listen to them properly again.  Even so, after a day of singing/thinking ‘I’m a g-nu …’ I was beginning to wonder what I would see if I looked in the mirror.  So, how to get rid of an earworm?  One way is to replace it.  So I listened to another album of Flanders and Swann’s, At the Drop of Another Hat.  That did it.  The Gnu was replaced by The Gas Man Cometh and its repeating refrain ‘it all makes work for the working man to do’.  I was talking to a builder friend at the time and he was talking about how one job leads to another.

All this led me to remember the radio comments about a project on earworms, so I looked it up.  Goldsmiths University is running the Earworm Project and you can help their research by filling in their questionnaire about your earworms.  So I did, noting with interest the psych profile questions investigating the links to obsessive-compulsive behaviour, and feeling impatient that they only asked about two earworms, a recurrent and a recent.  But I found I could list as many as I liked using the earworms short form in conjunction with Radio 6.  It occurred to me that perhaps earworms triggered by events, habits or discussions may in some way form a soundtrack for our daily lives.

The research project might eventually help those who find their earworms disturbing, making it difficult for them to concentrate or seeming like they’re hearing voices.  Fortunately, most of my earworms are songs or music I like and if they switch themselves on and hang around for a bit, it’s no big deal.  But I guess I’d better stop writing and go do something more productive.  I’ll just go put some music on first.