Why I love Christmas, by an atheist

 This isn't really a sad poem, or at least it isn't meant to be.  It's a poem that comes the nearest to explaining why I, as an atheist, still love Christmas and even the religious bits.

Christmas Eve

Travelling, I made sure to arrive by the start
of nine lessons and carols on Radio 4,
Dad poised to prepare sprouts, painstakingly
as a military man would,
Mum doing something not requiring machinery
and in earlier years, Aunt Jane
talking over all the quiet, meaningful moments
for all she was worth.

This Christian service for a Christian festival
still holds meaning for an atheist of forty years,
linking me to generations of family believers
and to others, non-believers, alike.

Now I build my own collection
of seasonal traditions: trifle for one;
roast turkey with trimmings
for one, or more if anyone cares to join me;
holly and ivy and red ribbons and candles;
cards posted expensively to friends;
extra phone calls, gifts, tree, fairy lights;
Jacqui Lawson advent calendar;
Terry’s milk chocolate orange in memory of Dad,
who had one every year and
I slip into the past again
all of us singing along to the carols we knew,
Mum’s clear soprano, my alto
and Dad managing the descant still
here I am, listening, and weeping
for them, and for lovers and friends

human connections
which, like the number 42, hold
the answer to life, the universe and everything
tears heralding grief
and hope
and the start of it all.

Unstable

Unstable

UN-stabul as Mum used to say it
in her own invented
language and pronunciation
like raddy-otta-meez.
And why not.
 
“English also spoken here”
Dad said there should be a sign
on the front door
when they were first married
but he became bilingual.
 
So today I know I am living
through a time when things are
un-stabul for me,  unstabul
without my mum and my dad
and my Mike
 
who saw “breaded plaice” as
bearded plaice, which it fast
became with parents, carers
and now still me. 
They never met
 
but on the phone discussed how
a single grain of rice was a rouce:
Mum thought not but
Mike was adamant
about his invention.
 
My new house-to-be is full of labradors
and other tradesmen.
The architrave fades into less significance
compared to the builder, Jason, and
all his argonauts
 
and I am tossed around in an unstable
world, missing all three of them
feeling out of touch with my
linguistic roots and routes
through the maze of decisions
 
being uprooted myself just enough
so I am now unstable
ready to be blown down in the wind
or washed away in a rainstorm
or undermined by something small.

Leslie Wynne Prescot

28/05/1927 - 16/10/2020

Anthea Warwick Prescot

07/07/1928 - 28/11/2020

Mike Hitchens

07/12/1943 - 11/07/2023

Seeing the Real You at Last

 
Seeing The Real You At Last
 
today I have a glimpse of the real you at last
“we know a song about that”
(sorry Bob) in my grief
 
today you are present in that way
that dead people have
when they have got into your soul
and I comprehend the hugeness of it all
 
I hear myself reeling off
“my partner died, then Covid struck,
then I broke my shoulder, then …”
as if bereavement was a small thing
(but it is vast)
 
and at last I allow myself to consider
what my therapist would have asked,
(she, the wise woman who questioned ‘accidents’)
 
and I see, really see in that
bone-deep, mind-expanding way
 
that my lack of attention before I tripped,
“doing marvellously” when I had Covid
(the first and second time)
and generally carrying on
stoically
 
yes, stoic(ally), that thing
I never am and wouldn’t do me any good
(and hasn’t)
 
I carried on stoically,
believing I was still doing really well considering
but putting off the day
 
pointlessly, painfully, but somehow
always knowing the day would come
 
when I see the real you at last
(again) and have to grieve

 

 

 

New work

 I have updated my website at last.  clothandclay.co.uk

The composite picture which is on the homepage is not new work, of course, but nevertheless it is a new picture and I hope conveys the several directions in which my work is going.
I have simplified the website greatly to reflect the simpler life I now have; the previous site was written ten years ago and updates were mostly additions rather then reductions.

I do have a mailing list, which these days is by email only.  If you are not on the mailing list and would like to be, please email me and I will add you.  I don't send out mails very often; they are more occasional newsletters, but I do send out to notify you of events such as exhibitions and open studios.  I have been quiet with my work lately, as most of us have with the pandemic, but hope to be a little noisier in future!

I'm taking part in a group exhibition in Lower Slaughter 20th - 26th April so am now busy making some new work.  The updated website was part one of that.  I'll be showing textiles, silver, other jewellery and greetings cards and am now working on new pieces within those categories.  More details will follow, on my website.

In other news, completion on my new house was quicker than expected but the work will take much longer, partly because builders are booked up until next year.  However, the house is still an exciting new project for me.  Planning with the architects, showing friends and relatives round the existing house and getting started on clearing unwanted trees from a boundary wall are the current stages.

I feel energised by needing to make new work to a deadline.  

New

 

My concept of a new year is not "out with the old, in with the new", it's more "build on the valuable old to create anew".  Nothing is wasted, one hopes.  This photograph of new blooms on my white cyclamen is a case in point.  Year after year I've failed to take photos of white flowers which look anything like what one sees.  I have much experience of what doesn't work!  What I had never tried before was allowing the flash to operate if it liked and he presto! that was the answer.

Our bad experiences happened and I don't believe in denying them.  That way they retain their proper place - bad experiences we have to learn to live with.  Burying things really doesn't help us learn anything.  Some experiences take a lot longer than others to learn to live with.

There is much for me to look forward to in 2022 and a great deal of it involves the new.  I have a sense of not just moving forward, but running forward (if only I were capable of running 😉). I hope to move house and as the autumn went on it dawned on me that I am really downsizing quite a bit.  Initially this was rather daunting but having decided to make a start by aiming to fill my grey bin completely every fortnight it has turned into something of a relief and even a pleasure.  By getting rid of stuff I somehow condense what is left so that it generates so many new ideas.

I am no longer a potter.  I don't think I anticipated this, but for the past two years it's been obvious that this is what I want.  I have fired everything, kept most of the last two firings of pots for myself and am selling everything else as usual.  The kit will also be sold, although I will be keeping tools and lustres and a few decorating colours so I can do some handbuilding work if I want.  I look back on my decades of being a potter with great pleasure, it's just that suddenly it was no longer what I wanted to do.  As an artist, I find myself moving into other things - silver jewellery, photography, mixed media work and of course still textiles.  It's a huge step but somehow so very positive.

The last year there have been many changes in my life because of losing both my parents, my entire family unit, within six weeks at the end of 2020.  What I'm experiencing, as well as the loss and change from what was, is those sudden shards of light which are sparks of ideas of new things on the horizon.  They are exciting.  Some of them have become clearer and are now actual plans, others are still waiting to be unpacked.

The new house (still in Stroud, of course) is a plan: we have exchanged contracts and completion is due mid-March.  Then there will be months of development, planning permission, and finally building and rebuilding and alterations.  As time goes on, the plan takes a clearer shape.

Life is good.  There are bad things in it for sure - somewhat ropey health, illness and problems for some of those close to me, the general situation with the pandemic, to mention a few.  But life is good.

Only one question remains - my alter ego has been known as the Purple Potter for decades.  Should I change it for something else?

It may be summer

It may be summer; my garden says so.  In this weirdest of times, though, I don't always feel that it is.  There was a short period at the end of April when it was lovely and much sitting out was done, by me and by visitors.  Since then, though, I'm not so sure.  May's weather was truly dire.  June has begun better and things are coming into flower ...

But what about me? 

I have post-viral fatigue and have had for the past two years.  It's not quite ME but it could turn into that.  Fatigue and brain fog are the main symptoms in my case.  On the face of it, flare-ups are unpredictable but when I consider that stress is a trigger and look for one, there always is one.  It's often something small, but related to the underlying stress, e.g. currently grief.  When it hits, if I don't notice and do too much, it can get significantly worse but it's very minor compared with ME and I want to keep things that way.  

Most people seem unaware that for two years after a major bereavement your immune system doesn't work as well as it should.  This includes it being much more likely that PVF will flare up.  I am now really taking that on board and trying to be positive and know that the difficulties I'm having at this particular time will fade.  I need patience (not a trait Aries people are known for!)  Gradually my friends and relatives are understanding where I'm at. 

So it may be summer.  The grief hit really hard in the middle of May, but now I think I'm coming out of the worst now.  But in the garden the summer-flowering plants are competing with spring things, like wallflowers, which shouldn't be around any more.  In my life PVF is flaring up badly from time to time, along with other, minor, ailments.  I'm hoping the warmth and light provided by summer - and people - will give me the patience to continue moving forwards.   

 

Owning the bad times

I've been having an increasingly difficult year and November is a difficult time for me.  A couple of people really understand how crap it's been because I've told them everything that's going on AND they understand me but I think most people don't really know. 

This is partly because I don't always say, for a variety of reasons that include:

• life isn't crap all the time
• things are ongoing and nothing new to say
• things are not just my business so I don't feel I should share

and chiefly

• other people are having a crap time too

but today I've had a bit of an insight.  I've always believed that suppressing things, avoiding talking about them, avoiding acknowledging them and making light of them lead to ill health.  For me, I'd say about 90% of what is wrong with me physically has an emotional root.  It's not lost on me that my plantar fasciitis started up around the time my parents began having problems which caused worry and stress.  Of course, having got a physical problem you're often stuck with it and it may need treating by conventional means.  Bodies and minds are complicated.  My parents' lives are settling down but I've got plantar fasciitis, which notoriously can take months to go.

I digress, slightly.  The insight is this:

Having a crap time will do you harm, whether or not other people are having a crap time.  Own it.  Acknowledge it.  Behave appropriately in response.

You can share this with someone else providing they're going to let you.  You don't need anyone looking on the bright side or saying 'at least ...' or similar.  The point is to feel what you need to feel.  Shout or cry if that's you. 

I'm very fortunate to have a few friends that totally get this.  Possibly they've been wondering when I'll wake up to it myself.

This really is not a call for sympathy though it may seem like it because I haven't been sharing it recently, for all the above reasons. 

I've been having a crap life recently.

If you have too, then own it.  Don't wallow, but don't pretend either.  You'll feel better for it in the end.

Seeing Bob

I could write a small book about my relationship with the work of Bob Dylan but I'm not going to do that now.

Here are two poems.  The second one was written in 1991 by my first husband, who introduced me to the world of Bob and with whom I attended 7 performances, including the one he wrote about anticipating here.  I had the opening lines of the poem in my head all day yesterday leading up to seeing Bob that evening.

The first poem is written by me about that.  For twenty-five years I've had a friend who I met through our interest in Dylan but although separately we've seen him many times, I with various different people, we have never managed to attend a concert together until now.

expecting my last time
watching dylan

before I let him go

I am caught unawares

by the thrill

of the performance

here he is before us

bob the same bob

just being in the now

like we should all

be, telling us

things have changed

here is what he wants

to show us

this is what he feels

in these songs today

and highway 61 is joyful

and so am I

me and my dylan buddy

twenty-five years

waiting to see bob together

and it’s everything

it could be

and worth the wait

tangled up in blue

I weep for the bob-centric years

of my first lost marriage

feeling reconnected

at last to the start of

things

bob the same bob

nobody else quite right

to go with till now

restored in my heart

joyous plaintive rollicking

genius poet muso

transformative

just as it should be

leaving me wanting

the next time

knowing of course

I want to do it all again

Jane Vernon, May 2017 

last year bob

you just like a woman'd

and man in the long black coat'd

to the ceiling

of the Hammersmith Odeon
on the night the

specialists in institutionalised poison

unleashed the attack on

my invasive leukaemic cells

I listen to the tape of your

weighty cries at the foothills of thunder

              at the chords of doubt

              at the crossroads of the spirit

              in the whine of love

              in the heart of loss

as you knew them on that day

which I spent blanketed in drugs and exhaustion

a year later I tick away the days

until I see you once more

I will be there this year

to allow you to stand amid

the waves of the hugest unknowns

while east and west play armageddon

while my blood cells orgy

while beauty holds my hand

and you with you lone harmonica

sing it all for us free

as you have done

since the primal

blowin of the wind

Mike Vernon, January 1991   

A splendiferous month.

At the beginning of September the month ahead looked a bit manic.  So many opportunities cropped up all in one month rather than spread out over several months but they were all things I was really looking forward to, so I put aside my worries about getting any work done and jumped in.

Throughout the month I'd been calling my manic month I've been to a live performance of Tubular Bells, been to Paris for 3 nights, visited my parents for 3 nights and made five batches of jam and jelly, done what I hope is the first of many activity sessions with my granddaughter, had one week at home making pots, had a friend to stay here, been with her to meet up with other friends at two different friends' houses (neither of whom I've met before) and been to London to meet yet another friend I've known online for 15 years but not met before, then in the final afternoon of the month met with my SixtyAt60 friend and another old friend I haven't seen for 33 years to share another of those 60 tasks. 

Somewhere during that last day I became aware that something had changed.  September no longer felt like a manic month; the whole had suddenly become greater than the sum of the parts and become a wonderful experience.  Instead of being tired or dazed, I am thoroughly energised.  There's always a danger when I'm really buzzing of a crash of tiredness to follow and I know this could still happen but I hope the energy will carry me forward.  I've really thrived on having a life: spending so much time with so many and divers friends, being in so many different places one after the other and above all having conversations - oh, the conversations!

By contrast, the next five weeks at least must consist primarily of head-down, solid ceramics work.  There is an exhibition coming up, not to mention Christmas sales in shops and markets, and my stock levels are at an all-time low.  I don't feel daunted by this, though. The pottery is full of dry pots ready to be fired.  More need making, but as each three or four batches of pots are made and dried, a kiln firing can follow. 

The weather will change, there will be times of grief again and I will take off my rose-tinted specs in due course, but for the moment, at least, the joys of a splendiferous month are still with me.

Saying yes

One of the by-products of working as a full-time artist and being single-minded about it is that I have spent a lot of time saying no.  In order to try to maintain the stock levels I would like, I put my work first much of the time so if something was suggested that would interrupt my normal working routine I thought carefully about it but would often say no.  Some people apparently find the discipline of working for yourself from home difficult.  I seem to have found that part easy.  If you work in an office five days a week nobody expects you to be free in the day on weekdays and I have always treated my working week (albeit often longer than five days per week) much the same.

Now I am working part time, one of the main benefits is that I'm able to say yes much more often.  Happily, opportunities have also come along to give me the chance to exercise this freedom.

Last week I spent a couple of days teaching a friend to throw a pot.  I say a couple of days.  We actually had a session on the first afternoon, a short session on the second morning and a third that afternoon.  Vivien has set herself a challenge to complete 60 tasks during the year she is 60, to raise money for her two favourite charities.  Some of these tasks are relatively short, like spending two days learning enough to throw a pot, but some are longer, like learning to play the saxophone well enough to play a particular riff from a favourite song.  Some of the tasks are definitely challenges in themselves; throwing a pot in a short time when you have no previous experience of clay work is one such.

Vivien and I met more than 40 years ago at Eastbourne School of Domestic Economy, where we studied Needlework, Dressmaking, Cookery, Laundry and Housework, (with a side order of Household Accounts plus Typing if you thought you still weren't doing enough).  I know her to be someone well able (if a little out of practice) to use her hands to make things so I was happy to offer making a pot as one of her tasks.

I began to worry when Vivien told me she herself was a tad apprehensive.  But hey, it was unknown territory, who wouldn't be?  I brushed aside my own worried thoughts about whether teaching someone I knew so well over so many years might be as difficult as teaching your partner to drive.  We enjoyed a leisurely lunch together and then went out into the pottery.  It was then she reminded me she's a bit of a perfectionist, confessed she is not as co-ordinated as I thought and dropped the bombshell that she can't copy other people's actions.  Seriously?  How do you teach something practical to someone who can't copy your actions?

"Don't worry," I said, "Over many years of seeing other beginners on courses I attended, I have never seen any beginner as bad as I was." 

The first piece of clay produced a pot, though I had interevened on two or three occasions to 'rescue' it so it was not quite all her own work:

The next few, when Vivien was completely on her own, not so good.  But soon it was time for supper and a long, long time talking together, such that we haven't had the luxury of for many years. 

The following morning I started by making a pot myself while Vivien had hands on from time to time to find out what it should really feel like.  Some more time on her own ...  well, read her blog to find out how that went.  Suffice to say that by lunchtime I began to think that here was the beginner who would make a worse go of things than I had.

We still had the first pot on the board together with a couple of other vaguely pot-shaped items.  So a pot had been thrown.  The task had been done.  Although ....  So finally to the afternoon session of day 2, and this time I didn't touch a piece of clay at all.  Instead, I watched and commented (and took photos) as Vivien worked.  And then ... drumroll please ... all of a sudden there was a pot.

After which, three more pots of a similar size appeared on the board.  So, I still hold the record for the worst ever beginner at throwing.  Not only that, Vivien has completed her task, our friendship is entirely undamaged and I had the best time.  I'm so glad I said yes.


If you would like to donate to a good cause, please do make a contribution to Alzheimer's Research by visiting Vivien's JustGiving page.  It doesn't have to be a large donation but would be really appreciated.  Just say 'yes'.  

Stonkingly good

Yesterday four friends came round for dinner and at the end of the evening one of them thanked me for a "stonkingly good dinner".  What a lovely word.  And yes, it was a pretty good dinner.

The friends were two couples who hadn't met before, but they are the only friends currently on my eating together list who will eat - and enjoy - any kind of food at all.  My other friends range between only needing to avoid one or two things they don't like to one who is a gluten-free vegetarian, with various levels of 'can't eat, won't eat' in between.  In the event, the dinner I cooked would probably have been eaten happily by at least one other friend, but when I was planning the meal I enjoyed having total freedom in what to cook.

We began with a bottle of cheapo French supermarket sparkling white.  I still have half a dozen bottles, although I will no longer be able to obtain them once they run out.  It currently costs about £1 a bottle, but is so drinkable.  I will miss it when I no longer have access to it.  My guests had finished theirs by the time I served the starter.

The starter was individual salmon and asparagus tarts served with a garnish of asparagus spears and buttery fried breadcrumbs.  I finished my white fizz while others had a little white wine (brought by one of the guests) and one started on the red.  I avoided soggy bottoms in my tarts by brushing the blind baked tart bases with a little beaten egg before pouring in the filling to bake.

The main course was duck breasts with a red wine jus, served with small roast potatoes, braised red cabbage and French beans.  I'd never cooked duck breasts correctly before, since when I have cooked them, there have usually been people there who would not like them left correctly pink.  Would I be able to pull it off this time, with no experience?  I think they're one of those things where you have to just trust the instructions and cook for the length of time stated, so I put the duck breasts skin side down in the pan and went back to the dining table, ignoring the increasingly loud sounds of spitting fat coming from the kitchen for 7 minutes.  Success.  Perfectly crispy skins.  Into the oven for 8 minutes, rest for 5 and slice ....  to reveal slightly pink.  The cabbage was delicious, in spite of my trepidation at using a whole tablespoon of fennel seeds and the jus was a triumph.  I adapted the recipe, having found some actual home-made duck stock in the freezer and using lots of juniper berries and redcurrant jelly as well.  Most of us drank red (again, brought by guests) while one prefers white with everything.

I love a good dessert wine.  A search in the less-used wine rack in the larder, right under the stairs, revealed a bottle of 2002 Sauternes.  I know very little about wine, not least how long a dessert wine is likely to remain good in the bottle.  It went in the fridge for a few days.  When I brought it out, my guests, at least two of whom know a bit about wine, were suitably impressed.  I noticed (from a secret code written on the label) that it was the most expensive wine I have ever bought, costing about ten euros about 7 years ago.  In the UK, of course, it would be a lot more expensive.  To go with the wine we had individual brown sugar pavlovas and little chocolate pots.

For once, my cheesboard did not hold any cheddar.  Instead I chose goats' cheese, blue Stilton and a cheese I had not heard of before.  To my surprise none of my guests had heard of it either; one friend I think of as knowing most of what there is to know about food and two of the others have a house in France.  Still, none of us had heard of Vallage, from the Champagne region of France.  It's a soft cheese which tastes like butter.  Doesn't sound appealling?  The taste is so much better than the description and I noticed that it was the one people kept picking at after they were full.

Three coffees, two teas, and the evening was over.  As I expected, everyone got on well and there was plenty of interesting conversation.  And a stonkingly good dinner.

The greenhouse project - concrete but still not concrete

I know you have all been on tenterhooks waiting to see the finished concrete.  Well, one or two of you have commented that the photos were still not up.  So here they are.  Concrete more or less finished but the greenhouse itself still not concrete.  We're getting there, though.

Last Monday turned out to be the hottest day of the year which meant that the concrete was particularly difficult to get into place before it had set too much.  The worst weather for concreting, I am told.  There were one or two other hitches, such as one helper not turning up because his wife hadn't passed on a message (!)  and M suddenly feeling unwell just as the readimix had arrived.  He's fine now, though waiting for clarification from the doctor about what he should be doing now.  The answer is currently, nothing until we have clarified things!

But anyway, here is a lovely new stretch of concrete. 

The plants in the middle are something of a statement.  I am going to have a greenhouse.  I don't have one at the moment.  This is where I am going to have a greenhouse, with plants in.  Here are some plants, to prove it.

Actually, it seemed the safest place to put them, surrounded by copper piping, to protect them from the slugs.  Hope to get them out into the garden in the next few days.

In other news ....  well, really there is very little other news except that I am still either doing work for the Arts and Crafts centre, trying to catch up with household stuff or being too tired to do my own work anyway.  Bit of a grumpy stage, I have to confess.  We are delaying our trip to France but even so I don't see when I am going to catch up with my work. 

Off to acupuncture this evening, which will no doubt put me right in a couple of days and I hope to get blitzing then.  In the mean time, think yourselves lucky I've found a couple of minutes to write here!  (Or not; this is not the best-written piece I've posted here, I know.)  I'm sad at how little time I have in my life at the moment, particularly because it means I don't get a social life and don't get to see my friends.  I know I've seemed to neglect everyone, but it's not intentional, just an unwanted result of having too much to do. 

If only I could post a scent.  The honeysuckle has been spectacular this year.  You can even smell it from an open window on the opposite side of the house.

Getting a life - 2

Yesterday I still had four quinces left. What to make? H asked, couldn't you just eat them. You can't, not raw. Quinces are rather unpromising raw - pale and uninteresting skin, white flesh, hard and rather granular. The shape is pleasingly curvacious, granted, but that's about it.

I had found a recipe for quince tarte tatin but I didn't like the sound of it so I decided to use my usual recipe for apple tarte tatin but adapt to quinces. Quinces do take much longer to cook, so there was a degree of experimentation in all this. I worked out that I had to mess with the quince pieces. This is what you absolutely must not do with apples but it was going to be the only way to get them cooked through.

I started on a very large tarte tatin, in an effort to finish the quinces off. (I almost managed this, but have one half left that wouldn't fit.) Once the quinces were cooked and I turned up the heat to caramelise the butter and sugar, I could see the pudding was going to be a success. The quinces were working their magic in turning pink and for good measure were tinting the caramel a lovely dark red as well.

Now I had a successful pudding (well almost) I rather regretted making it for just the two of us. Pastry doesn't keep well for long and although I planned to freeze the leftovers, they would never be the same as the freshly cooked pudding.

Luckily, A & N came to the rescue. They are almost unique among our friends in being able to be flexible and completely spontaneous when it comes to food. They were delighted to be asked round for a meal at the last minute, even when I asked them to buy some bread to go with the lentil soup I would make to eat before the pudding. A good time - and most of the tarte tatin - was had by all.

We were talking about getting a life and A asked me what sort of Life it is that I want to get. I answered relatively briefly, for me, that it's a life that contains not just work.

It's so much more than that, though. At the risk of tempting fate in saying so, I still feel I have kept the life I got when we were in France. Getting a life is really about the sort of things I've been writing about here.

proper cooking
impromptu invitations
growing stuff
making stuff
reading
writing
swimming

but most of all enjoying.

I do need to work, obviously. I need to earn money and I also need to do the work I do to satisfy my creative impulse. The French Experiment was a success. I made so much stock before we left and shops sold enough in my absence that I still managed to make a living and didn't need to draw on any capital to survive. Now it's time for the English Experiment. This experiment is to get a better quality of life by not rejecting opportunities or desires to do things I love just because I think I haven't time.

It probably won't be easy. Let's face it, most of my goals aren't easy to achieve. I do always get there in the end, though.

Yesterday I swam half a mile. I finished the first textile "canvas". Clay was delivered. I used up the rest of the quinces. I cooked for friends.

Today I'm in the pottery glazing and decorating. I've just enough pots to fill a kiln and then it will be weeks of making again. This will be when the real challenge comes. Putting some flexibility into the rhythm of making tableware will need some dedication, but I am determined to get a life.

Home

In the late sixties or early seventies there was a fashion for little metal signs (about 5cms x 8cms), like mini versions of the signs found on the outside walls of shops and other businesses in earlier times. These days they'd be fridge magnets but then they were just metal. Perhaps they had holes in the corner for fixing them up, I'm not sure. In any case, there was one which had a picture of a Pears Soap sort of child looking angelic and the words, "What is home without a Mother?" I bought one for my mum and she has it stuck up (with blu-tack) in her kitchen even now and two or three kitchens later. Over the last fifteen years or so I've sometimes felt mildly uncomfortable about it because I'm now aware that many homes do not contain mothers. Now, though, I'm reminded again about why I bought it and the message it conveyed for me then is still valid.

I grew up in an 'army family', which meant that we moved house regularly. The longest we stayed anywhere during my childhood was four years but that was exceptional. The norm was two years and once it was only 11 months. From time to time we had prolonged stays with grandparents but by and large there was no place I called home. Home was the house where we lived but never the place where the house was. "What is home without a Mother?" conveyed this.

My first job after college was in Stroud, over thirty years ago and, against all expectations at the time (I spent my interview day either at the school or waiting at Stroud Bus Station, 'nuff said), I have never left because at last I have a home. I've lived in four different houses, one of them in a village three miles away, but during all this time Stroud has been my home.

I was never happy with moving about and it left me with a certain amount of personal baggage. I've always looked forward, for instance, to returning home even from the time of the beginning of a holiday I'm really enjoying. (I now have an additional perspective on this from what I've learned about the theories of Five-Element Acupuncture, but that is for another time.) Suffice to say, I have always felt uncomfortably uprooted if away from home for too long.

So here I find myself in France for five months! Two years ago, when I suggested this trip, I had built into it the possibility of returning home for a week at least once in the middle because I could not imagine that I would survive the homesickness (or the lack of regular acupuncture and other complementary treatments) otherwise. By the time we set out in April, I had reached the point of saying that a return trip was a remote possibility but not expected to happen.

The reason for the change is that over the last two or three years I have eventually come to view the house here (which has belonged to my partner for a long time before he met me) as home too. I don't consider the actual locality as home, however, even though I might refer to "our part of France." I still talk of our "going home" meaning back to Stroud. And now we are only three weeks from going home and amazingly I find myself thinking I don't particularly want to.

During May I was homesick. Much more than I expected. The weather and house and I were cold. Getting a new vegetable plot started was hard work and I kept thinking of my garden back home with deep beds full of years' of compost and muck and easy to work soil. I was aware how long it was going to be before I saw my friends and missed being able to just pop into Stroud and have a coffee at Mills or drop in on friends for a gossip. We've got a VOIP phone, so our calls to UK are free, but phone calls aren't the same as seeing people in person. Then in June the weather improved and I got everything planted out and I suddenly realised I felt settled in.

Eventually, visitors arrived from Stroud. We've been telling people to come and visit us here for the last few years but for whatever reason, perhaps that we were only here for a month at a time, they didn't come. This summer we've had three lots of Stroud visitors and all seem to have loved it here. And we've loved having them. I think seeing people from my 'home territory' here has contributed to my seeing this place as home too. And so the summer has progressed. I haven't done everything I thought I would, but enough. This is where we live and one can imagine the weeks continuing with us still here.

The reality is, of course, that the weather will turn again, has in fact started to do so, my workroom here will start to become uncomfortably cold and I shall be glad to get back to my fitted carpets and central heating. But it does all raise questions about home. Have I become bi-homed, somehow? Will it be difficult settling back to the sound of traffic and constant light from streetlamps? Will I be homesick for chez nous? Watch this space.