Finally writing about Abingdon!

It occurred to me yesterday that, although I called this blog after my home town, I've not written about Abingdon yet.  So I'm going to address that this month.  I want to write a serious of posts about Abingdon to give you a taste of what it's like to live here and what 's going on.

Abingdon is a small market town in South Oxfordshire and at one time was the county town of Berkshire.  Now it's part of Oxfordshire albeit a rather southern outpost of the county.

I thought I'd start with my own little part of Abingdon, namely my house and garden!

We live in the north of Abingdon on the site of the old Warren Hospital - sometimes I bump into folk who were born in the hospital or had their children there which is spooky!  Our house is a 4 bed detached, simple and compact, just about big enough for the 3 of us (I'd like it to be bigger but it isn't so that's that!)

  This is a view of the rear of the house - see what I mean?  A normal, standard house, no frills here folks!

This is the view down the garden towards the shed - lovely!  As you can see I'm no gardener!  Every year I vow to clear and sort the garden and every year I fail.  Things burst into life and flower, some are even plants rather than weeds, so I leave well alone and vow to be better next year!  I also tell myself that the cats like the wild, jungle look.  Well. I can't upset the cats, can I?

  This little, out of focus fellow is chomping his way through some unidentified plants in the garden.  He's brought lots of friends with him and I hope that this means there'll be loads of butterflies later in the year.

I've also got plenty of snails munching on the rosemary.  I'm a fan of slugs and snails and have no problem with them making themselves at home in my garden.  I've never used a slug pellet since an A level Biology field trip when we counted and identified slugs on the Long Mynd.  They're fascinating creatures and I like to watch them and feel them slither over my hand - does that make me weird?

So that's my little corner of Abingdon.  Next mission is to visit and photograph some of my favourite bits of Abingdon and share them here.

World Book Day

World Book Day seems to be a good excuse to blog about book and reading.

I was a slow starter at reading, much of my time at Infants School was spent struggling through the first two colours of the reading scheme.  I had trouble moving on - I recognised the letters and could read the words but it was all painfully slow.  By the time I got to Junior School I was way behind my peers and where I should have been.  For a while I even had remedial reading lessons but there was no discernible improvement.  One teacher even suggested to my parents that I was 'slow' - this incensed my father who insisted on seeing another teacher to get to the root of the problem!  Luckily they managed to scrape him off the ceiling and all was well.

Then a light seemed to go off in my head and I began to read all the time.  It's hard to pinpoint exactly when it happened but I know why.  I was read a fantastic book at school.  Our classroom teacher, Mr Ellis, read The Hobbit to us as a  class and I was hooked.  I loved the story and wanted the reading to go on and on; there was never long enough and that awful moment when he closed the book came far too soon.

The first book I remember reading independently was The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and it fired my love of losing myself in a book which is still with me to this day.  There is nothing better than disappearing into another world for a few hours - or even days.  I tend to read fiction rather than non-fiction - I think I lack the patience to stick with them, it's easier to vanish into a fictional world than read about real things.

Some books stay with you for life.  We all have our favourites and I could read some books over and over, and I have!  This always baffles my husband who isn't a great fiction reader.  If I've read it once and know what's in it and what happens, how can I read it again and lose myself in the story again?   I don't know why or how but I can and do!  Among my favourites are Wuthering Heights which I must have read 6 times at least; The Night Circus, just the most fascinating fantasy novel which I fully intend to read again soon; To Kill A Mockingbird, powerful, thought provoking and touching; 1984, a terrifying vision of hiow the world might have been; Being Dead, moving, shocking and heart warming with an usual narrative.  I'm currently enjoying Wolf Hall which is taking me back to the court of Henry VIII and dragging me into the world of Thomas Cromwell - such a treat to read about a period in history I'm familiar with in a fresh way and from a different perspective.  It's also well written which makes it a joy to read.

Here's hoping that we all enjoy a good read on World Book Day. 

Here come the excuses!

Well it's nearly St David's Day and my poor blog has been neglected since New Year's Day.  So much for a new start!

I'm not doing too well with the 'resolutions' either - I have managed to try a new food each month (January, fennel; February, quinoa) but the others have fallen by the wayside.  This is why I'm so rubbish at resolutions.

Anyway, instead of making a whole bunch of excuses I thought I'd simply explain what the problem has been.

I started a new job at the start of the year and, like most teaching jobs, it takes far more of my time than those I'm actually timetabled/paid for.  Everything was going well, I enjoyed the job and was getting my head round what was going on.  Things seemed to be going well.  That should  have put me on my guard; things rarely go smoothly in my life!

Then it happened.  Another incident of workplace bullying and I'm back where I was several years ago - stressed out, off work and on pills.  I'm feeling very sorry for myself, as you can imagine, but I'm also cross with myself for falling apart again.  I know, I know it's not me , it's them but that doesn't stop me feeling like a total failure.  Am I destined never to work outside of the house again, just in case I run into another workplace bully?  What is it about me that reacts so badly to these people?  More to the point, do I attract them? It certainly feels that way!

So now I'm waiting for a call about some therapy/counselling and trying to remain relatively positive about where my life will go now.  I can't see anything beyond the next few days but hope that there will be a light at the end of the latest tunnel that's not an oncoming train!

Happy New Year!

Well, it's the first of January & a new year is once again upon us.

Usually I'd have made a raft of resolutions that I'm destined to break/fail at by the end of the first week of January.  So this year I decided to do something different.

Several blogs I've read in the past year have included a challenge to accomplish certain things before the writer's next birthday - 30 before 30 as an example.  As the next birthday is a large number & I only have 6 months til it arrives I decided this was impractical.  So I've come up with a list of things I want to do in the next year.  in no particular order they are:

1. Try a new food each month.  This can be an ingredient or a complete dish.
2. Read 1 non fiction book a month.  I read exclusively fiction & think I should broaden my horizons.
3. Make 1 new garment to wear each month.  This can be a sewing or knitting project but as I start lots of things but fail to finish them this will be a good exercise in discipline for me.
4. Write something each week.  This may be a blog post, in fact it really should be, or a piece of poetry.
5. Visit the Ashmolean every month.  There is so much to see there and I don't do it enough.
6. Revamp the blog.  It needs some love & attention so I need to think about how I want it to look.

Seems a bit pants to only have 6 but that's all I could come up with.  I'm open to suggestions though!