Winter in London is not always my favourite thing, except when it is: survivable through ritual. We've been having a run of bright, raw, cold days, that aren't crisp and frosty yet because the air is sodden bitter, but beautiful in their way. I walk to the Tube in the mornings and around Lincoln's Inn Fields in the afternoon, and the leaves are sludge and the trees are bare outlines and everyone's breath rises. I love this city very much.
As it gets colder: Diwali in late October. Thanksgiving last week hosted by American friends. (A lot of food and laughter.![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
happydork made five pumpkin pies.) Last night soupytwist and I went to see Oysterband at Union Chapel, one of my favourite venues and perfect for them, with the candlelight and icy hymnal acoustics. And it's something about folk music, and the time of year - indigenous music, roots music; whatever you like to call it - the music of a place and time, anyway. A ( line from the little book )
I liked that Oysterband prefaced Here Comes The Flood with the note that "socialism" may have become a dirty word in some quarters but this is Union Chapel, this is Islington. (They got a cheer. I keep meaning to go back to Union Chapel's Daylight Music sessions. You pay £5 for the chapel's upkeep and community projects, and you get tea and acoustics.) I went withcosmic_llin to see Julie Fowlis play in early November - again, candlelit and quiet. Between two songs of her set, she said in Gaelic for those with Gaelic: tha mi 'n dochas gun chòrd e ruibh, I'm glad you're here and that you liked it. Just for a minute, music for a handful in a crowd. I was so touched by it.
Anyway, the point of it: live music, the change of season, and self-built ritual, and not so little self-awareness, to not know my reluctant theism is close to the surface. Brioche and ginger biscuits this morning, to celebrate Due South and Slings & Arrows being put on YouTube by the Canada Media Fund. It's still impossibly bright. Five of my friends piled onto my sofa to see Geoffrey Tennant shout, "I have fixed the toilet!"
Work is coming to an end, and a beginning. (I move post in January.) I have a story out at the end of this week, and another at New Year. Christmas in London; and then A. and I are in Jaipur in the first week of January, for a wedding. By then I hope to have a first draft of the little book, and the short story projects finished for the time being. This is the first winter of my adult life in which I have been adequately medicated. And it's as much an ongoing project as ever, and this week less good than most, but in comparison to the other thing, a blessed postdrome - a space where something used to be.
As it gets colder: Diwali in late October. Thanksgiving last week hosted by American friends. (A lot of food and laughter.
happydork made five pumpkin pies.) Last night soupytwist and I went to see Oysterband at Union Chapel, one of my favourite venues and perfect for them, with the candlelight and icy hymnal acoustics. And it's something about folk music, and the time of year - indigenous music, roots music; whatever you like to call it - the music of a place and time, anyway. A ( line from the little book )I liked that Oysterband prefaced Here Comes The Flood with the note that "socialism" may have become a dirty word in some quarters but this is Union Chapel, this is Islington. (They got a cheer. I keep meaning to go back to Union Chapel's Daylight Music sessions. You pay £5 for the chapel's upkeep and community projects, and you get tea and acoustics.) I went with
cosmic_llin to see Julie Fowlis play in early November - again, candlelit and quiet. Between two songs of her set, she said in Gaelic for those with Gaelic: tha mi 'n dochas gun chòrd e ruibh, I'm glad you're here and that you liked it. Just for a minute, music for a handful in a crowd. I was so touched by it.Anyway, the point of it: live music, the change of season, and self-built ritual, and not so little self-awareness, to not know my reluctant theism is close to the surface. Brioche and ginger biscuits this morning, to celebrate Due South and Slings & Arrows being put on YouTube by the Canada Media Fund. It's still impossibly bright. Five of my friends piled onto my sofa to see Geoffrey Tennant shout, "I have fixed the toilet!"
Work is coming to an end, and a beginning. (I move post in January.) I have a story out at the end of this week, and another at New Year. Christmas in London; and then A. and I are in Jaipur in the first week of January, for a wedding. By then I hope to have a first draft of the little book, and the short story projects finished for the time being. This is the first winter of my adult life in which I have been adequately medicated. And it's as much an ongoing project as ever, and this week less good than most, but in comparison to the other thing, a blessed postdrome - a space where something used to be.