supermouse (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
supermouse) wrote2021-06-08 09:34 am
supermouse) wrote2021-06-08 09:34 am
Birds, plants, writing and Actually Going Outside
So, for the past several years, I have been Outside barely at all, and by barely I mean literally once or twice a year, and by Outside, I mean past the confines of the garden. My main loss with lockdown was other people going Outside and posting about it. Nott'm police posting pictures of empty places was my jam last summer.
Anyway, that's just to set the expectations. I went Outside! I walked around six hundred steps, which is... not much, at all, on Normal scales, but I'm really glad of it.
My feet not so much. I've ordered shoes that should be good for walking and not setting off plantar fasciitis.
One of my oldest, dearest friends has been cheerleading me on and it does make an enormouse difference. Then I got a text reminding me I post about birds, so...update.
The sparrows went away when we cut down the buddleia, but that's shot back up and now gives adequate shelter again. They are not interested, at all, in egg-friendly calcium-enriched pink suet, it gets eaten only when other suet runs out, and they are overall eating a lot less. They went through a phase of eating some pink stuff, and now it's all mealworms all the time, so I assume that was eggs->chicks.
Regarding mealworms, Demanding Great-Tit has also gone with the loss of shelter. By July it will be very bird-friendly again and not destroying the house... There is a lot, a *lot* of shelter all around this area, that's why we have wood pigeons and owls.
The blackbird and magpies are absolutely fine, although the mad singing has settled down and birds aren't strutting their stuff really at all. I assume they're busy being parents, since they are around.
The garden is, in the original sense of the word, retarded, as in all the growth has been very slow and many common plants are actually etoliated, that is, stretched out long and thin to try to reach light. This is how it was in Aquilegia Year up in Leigh, when I managed to grow those flowers, rhubarb and unusually large rampant slugs. Here, now, dry warm weather has arrived and with it a mass of flowers, but a lot of plants are very, very behind, the fuchsia so much so that I had to check it wasn't actually dead. It's really gone green this last week.
Some plants, noteably the shade-tolerant ones, are doing fine, and I will be displaying my enormous peonies later in the year. When I look at my enormous peonies, everything seems okay.
Paperwork wise, my sibling and accountant are handling absolutely everything because I Cannot. I am trying to get at least some income, and to avoid running into trouble later for ignoring things and putting my head in the sand. I did, however, Do The Things (with help) and even, get this, cancelled my Sky subscription! I had an amazingly clear-headed morning, which happens around once a month or so and got all the paperwork done that I could.
Thanks, largely, to daily (and mutual) cheerleading, I'm even somewhat presentable. Definitely less awful than I was.
I am loving the warm weather very, very much.
I still write every day, it's still absolute rubbish, it's still absorbing and engaging and rather like eating lots of biscuits. Writing about people doing normal things, like playing The Sims games, is something of a prompt to do normal things. Of course I always add magic because wish-fulfillment... I haven't written fanfic in a while though. It's as if posting two stories scratched the itch, or I've just thoroughly plumbed every idea I could possibly have and moved on. I'm a Pantser, so the first draft is, usually, several hundred thousand words of a main character or characters stumbling around a new-to-me world doing the most mundane, boring activities until, more by accident than design, they stumble into a badly-sprawling Plot which will cover closer to ninety thousand words than the half-a-million or so it takes for me to deal with not wanting to actually give my characters serious setbacks because it makes me feel bad.
Editing is done by my going through and cutting out every part that makes my eyes glaze over, which is... a lot. I also have lots of sentences which made sense at the time, and sometimes there's actual word salad from migraines where I have to read before and after and entirely rewrite, but I was having fun, so...
Second drafts are slow. Very. Those are actual work. I don't have a full novel in second draft yet. The writing is always moving forward though. I have two complete novels in terrible first-draft set in the near future as I conceived it before the Pandemic was even a series of odd rumours on Twitter about events in Wuhan. I was revising them when lockdown happened and the world changed so much that it was clear I'd have to do a huge rewrite to take all these new events into account.
So, anyway, I'm feeling comfortable now about incorporating the whole thing, since there's much more of a shape to what 'the whole thing' is. Revising isn't happening yet, but the violent distaste for the whole idea has gone and it keeps coming to mind, which is usually the first stage before a real editing binge, it's just this time it's not fanfiction.
Mentally then, I'm in... a much better place. It's light all day, I'm not SAD, although I am sad. Pol and I weren't in one another's lives that much, but it was nearly every single day and I would think he'll like this, he'll like that and occasionally we'd get to chat. I did work out, too late, that a big problem between us was that he liked to fix things and there's no fixing migraines. I feel very, very sad that he was stuck being miserable and waiting until he could come home, it's just a crying shame. He did have a whole different life up in the North Wet, one he was definitely engaged in more than he was with me, but he was always very, very firm about being married and staying married within our very severe limits of mutual tolerance - I literally can't handle being around people for more than a couple of hours at most, and that occasionally. Even Pol. Even talking to one of my closest and dearest friends on the phone... it's good for a little while then it isn't and I just want to go and lay down in the dark and quiet.
Other than feeling very sad sometimes, though, I'm mostly fine, since other people are handling the things that were turning me into a poorly mess. I try to concentrate on one thing at a time, and, moment to moment, I really am fine and okay. So.
Birds! Yay! Tell me about birds where you are!
Plants! Yay! Tell me about plants you have noticed! Even the annoying ones!
Outside! Have you been?
Vaccines, how are those going? I am past my two weeks on the second and much less fearful, still masking around people, mainly delivery people.
Gosh this got long. Hugs to all, you're all lovely, and I truly do hope you have the best possible day.
Anyway, that's just to set the expectations. I went Outside! I walked around six hundred steps, which is... not much, at all, on Normal scales, but I'm really glad of it.
My feet not so much. I've ordered shoes that should be good for walking and not setting off plantar fasciitis.
One of my oldest, dearest friends has been cheerleading me on and it does make an enormouse difference. Then I got a text reminding me I post about birds, so...update.
The sparrows went away when we cut down the buddleia, but that's shot back up and now gives adequate shelter again. They are not interested, at all, in egg-friendly calcium-enriched pink suet, it gets eaten only when other suet runs out, and they are overall eating a lot less. They went through a phase of eating some pink stuff, and now it's all mealworms all the time, so I assume that was eggs->chicks.
Regarding mealworms, Demanding Great-Tit has also gone with the loss of shelter. By July it will be very bird-friendly again and not destroying the house... There is a lot, a *lot* of shelter all around this area, that's why we have wood pigeons and owls.
The blackbird and magpies are absolutely fine, although the mad singing has settled down and birds aren't strutting their stuff really at all. I assume they're busy being parents, since they are around.
The garden is, in the original sense of the word, retarded, as in all the growth has been very slow and many common plants are actually etoliated, that is, stretched out long and thin to try to reach light. This is how it was in Aquilegia Year up in Leigh, when I managed to grow those flowers, rhubarb and unusually large rampant slugs. Here, now, dry warm weather has arrived and with it a mass of flowers, but a lot of plants are very, very behind, the fuchsia so much so that I had to check it wasn't actually dead. It's really gone green this last week.
Some plants, noteably the shade-tolerant ones, are doing fine, and I will be displaying my enormous peonies later in the year. When I look at my enormous peonies, everything seems okay.
Paperwork wise, my sibling and accountant are handling absolutely everything because I Cannot. I am trying to get at least some income, and to avoid running into trouble later for ignoring things and putting my head in the sand. I did, however, Do The Things (with help) and even, get this, cancelled my Sky subscription! I had an amazingly clear-headed morning, which happens around once a month or so and got all the paperwork done that I could.
Thanks, largely, to daily (and mutual) cheerleading, I'm even somewhat presentable. Definitely less awful than I was.
I am loving the warm weather very, very much.
I still write every day, it's still absolute rubbish, it's still absorbing and engaging and rather like eating lots of biscuits. Writing about people doing normal things, like playing The Sims games, is something of a prompt to do normal things. Of course I always add magic because wish-fulfillment... I haven't written fanfic in a while though. It's as if posting two stories scratched the itch, or I've just thoroughly plumbed every idea I could possibly have and moved on. I'm a Pantser, so the first draft is, usually, several hundred thousand words of a main character or characters stumbling around a new-to-me world doing the most mundane, boring activities until, more by accident than design, they stumble into a badly-sprawling Plot which will cover closer to ninety thousand words than the half-a-million or so it takes for me to deal with not wanting to actually give my characters serious setbacks because it makes me feel bad.
Editing is done by my going through and cutting out every part that makes my eyes glaze over, which is... a lot. I also have lots of sentences which made sense at the time, and sometimes there's actual word salad from migraines where I have to read before and after and entirely rewrite, but I was having fun, so...
Second drafts are slow. Very. Those are actual work. I don't have a full novel in second draft yet. The writing is always moving forward though. I have two complete novels in terrible first-draft set in the near future as I conceived it before the Pandemic was even a series of odd rumours on Twitter about events in Wuhan. I was revising them when lockdown happened and the world changed so much that it was clear I'd have to do a huge rewrite to take all these new events into account.
So, anyway, I'm feeling comfortable now about incorporating the whole thing, since there's much more of a shape to what 'the whole thing' is. Revising isn't happening yet, but the violent distaste for the whole idea has gone and it keeps coming to mind, which is usually the first stage before a real editing binge, it's just this time it's not fanfiction.
Mentally then, I'm in... a much better place. It's light all day, I'm not SAD, although I am sad. Pol and I weren't in one another's lives that much, but it was nearly every single day and I would think he'll like this, he'll like that and occasionally we'd get to chat. I did work out, too late, that a big problem between us was that he liked to fix things and there's no fixing migraines. I feel very, very sad that he was stuck being miserable and waiting until he could come home, it's just a crying shame. He did have a whole different life up in the North Wet, one he was definitely engaged in more than he was with me, but he was always very, very firm about being married and staying married within our very severe limits of mutual tolerance - I literally can't handle being around people for more than a couple of hours at most, and that occasionally. Even Pol. Even talking to one of my closest and dearest friends on the phone... it's good for a little while then it isn't and I just want to go and lay down in the dark and quiet.
Other than feeling very sad sometimes, though, I'm mostly fine, since other people are handling the things that were turning me into a poorly mess. I try to concentrate on one thing at a time, and, moment to moment, I really am fine and okay. So.
Birds! Yay! Tell me about birds where you are!
Plants! Yay! Tell me about plants you have noticed! Even the annoying ones!
Outside! Have you been?
Vaccines, how are those going? I am past my two weeks on the second and much less fearful, still masking around people, mainly delivery people.
Gosh this got long. Hugs to all, you're all lovely, and I truly do hope you have the best possible day.
no subject
There are lots of birds near my house - we live in a densely-packed suburban close off a bunch of densely packed 100-year-old suburban streets, and there's a lot of small gardens and a bigger park about 200m away. I am no good at picking them out by song, but there's always birdsong at the moment whenever it's daylight.
I go outside pretty much every day: Monday-Friday I cycle the younger child to school and pick them up again in the afternoon, and it's just over 5 miles round trip each time. Since the ice rink opened, I've taken advantage of being fully vaccinated and I'm aiming to go there at least twice a week, and going there by bike is a great ride, lots of riverside (I keep thinking I should write a post about it, maybe I will later today), and also means by the time I get home again I am thoroughly worn out and full of endorphins.
Tony has had first dose of AZ and just rescheduled his second dose to next week, which is about 3 weeks earlier than originally planned. And I see that Pfizer is now approved for 12 years and up, so hopefully there will be a plan later this year to vaccinate secondary-age children. I have gone from a year of being worried over my parents (and steps and inlaw) getting covid, to fretting over the children instead. Now all my elders are vaccinated and my children aren't but have to keep going into school (and they really do seem to do better at in-person school).
I am enjoying the sunshine and the warmth; last week and this Cambridge was having highs of about 25 C and that's the upper end of my comfort zone and I'm enjoying it very much. I was eyeing up whether to book a session in the unheated outdoor swimming pool but I don't think I have time this week, because I am driving up to Yorkshire this weekend to see my mum and stepdad for the first time since last January, and I am very excited about it.
no subject
I am sorry that the last year has been difficult and scary, and can definitely empathise. On your children doing so much better in-person, it struck me that in the last eighteen months we've all learned a hell of a lot about almost every aspect of life. What we need, what we won't miss that we thought we might have, what's a relief to not have, new methods of coping, just how much we dislike smug corporate gits...
Cambridge sounds as though it's been a bit sunnier and warmer than here. Today is the first properly warm day, with a high of 21, but even 18 was a relief, we were stuck at 12-14 C as our highs for... well, a very long time.
I am excited for the Yorkshire trip on your behalf! I'm reading that people have no idea how to deal with crowds and being Outside any more, so I wonder what being at a service station is likely to be like. I hope you have the loveliest visit.
no subject
I think I'm acclimating to being around Other People: I won't go shopping in the city centre for fun any time soon, but I can and have made quick errands. I'm planning my driving time for hopefully off-peak (Friday morning, Saturday afternoon) so hopefully nowhere will be too busy. And I think I can cope with even a crowded place for long enough to use the loo!
no subject
Plants - are mostly swamped by nettles. A couple of weeks of fairly constant rain means the nettles have gone into overdrive. Gary spent ages last week mowing an area of the field so we could have a few viking friends over for fightclub on Sunday. He killed 2 lawn mowers in the process so it was an expensive training session but fun. I have some lovely roses poking through the nettles though and the lilac is gorgeous.
Outside - We have made it out a few times. The woofits now have their own YouTube channel and we filmed a "Ziggycam" expedition to Castle Rising over the bank holiday weekend. We also have some footage from Sheringham seafront that will go up soon.
Vaccines - Both me and Gary are fully upgraded. That's been a huge reduction in fear levels. I even got cuddles from littlest grandson which was just wonderful after a whole year of hardly even seeing them.
no subject
I haven't seen Woofit channel. I know there's puppet goodness, can you link so I can make sure I'm subscribed/notified?
Yay vaccines! Yay hugs!
That is all very lovely, and it is soo cool about all the wildlife. Do you still have the loud roar of insects in the summer?
Thanks for commenting!
no subject
I do cook with nettles but there are enough to feed an army. I'm planning to try spinning some of the nettle fibre too, I think that works even after the flowering
The insects aren't as noisy as the birds but they give it a damn good go.
Definitiely yay for vaccine. Every time I see a friend sharing that they have had their jab I feel a little bubble of hope that things are going to be ok.
no subject
no subject
One pair of Great Tits have made a nest in a box in our garden and are now bringing up five youngsters. We are watching them on a camera in the box. We expect them to fly away in a couple of weeks.
We have many plants, but for various reasons (both of us having surgery between lockdowns for a start) I haven't been able to work in the garden much for the last few years. It is very overgrown. This will change - but not until the Great Tits have all flown.
Outside. I have been going shopping every few days for essentials. I wear a mask and try to go to local shops at quiet times. Gemma has hardly been out of the house at all.
But now that both of us are fully vaccinated we feel we can go out a bit more, but not too often and still wearing masks.
no subject
Thanks for telling me all about them!
no subject
Anyhoo - the birds I am most happy about are the three hummingbirds coming to my feeders. When I am inside, although the feeders are in full view, I seldom see them, but outside their wings are very noisy. There is one with a vivid red neck, a little brown one, and one with a vivid green back.
I also scatter millet for the little brown ground feeding birds. They are not so present now that things are growing and they have nests.
Last year there was a family of quail - two parents and eight chicks. By fall there was only one parent and two chicks left, and since early spring I haven't seen any of them at all.
We did have a passing flock of small brown birds with white stripes on their heads. They were here for about three days, scarfing up the millet, and then they continued with their migration.
no subject
Your descriptions of birds are lovely.
no subject