730 things — Day 132 of 365

The inimitable Jon Jandai talking about laying down the burdens we don't need to carry.

Amen to that. So wise, so sane.

For all the reasons he mentions, I no longer have dogs (I used to). We do still have one cat. We got him with his brother, and they were rescued cats — that makes a difference, I think, because here they are in the world; someone needs to look after them. They were both neutered, because I think urban scenarios are over-populated with cats already, and unwanted litters of kittens are a problem. Ours is a working cat — he kills the rats attracted by our next door neighbour's chickens, and we feed their bodies to the crow family. But he is getting old now, and we have made the decision that when his life ends we will not have another cat.  

What we do have instead are our seagull pair and our crow family. Every day they come for their breakfast and supper, and we have got to know them and they trust us. We love them, they are a source of joy to us. I would not keep a bird in a cage, but to make friends with a wild bird feels very privileged, very special. 

And what Jon Jandai says about "my" relationships, and the imposition of our perspectives on others, I have found to be true in my life too. As my children have grown into confident women following their own path, they regard me with affection but they no longer need my guidance, my opinions. And Tony, now we each (separately) cook and clean and run our lives, makes choices quite different from mine. We love one another, and most days we spend ages chatting about our encounters and thoughts and experiences, but we refrain from too much involvement, too much influence. We like it better that way.

Leaving my house today, a small collection of things — a screwdriver, some cable ties, and a collar to go round something (what?).

The brush in the picture did not go after all. I retrieved it, because it's good for scrubbing our vegetables and the silicon mat we use for draining dishes (we have no draining board), which has little projections to assist in draining off water but also in accumulating fungus.

730 things — Day 131 of 365

Another wonderful video from Green Renaissance — this one about finding meaning. So uplifting.

In your day-to-day life, where do you find meaning? Where is your sense of purpose rooted? (Honestly)

Today's things leaving the house are so small and insignificant — just some sandpaper and an ancient tin of Vaseline. 

Both those things have to be really useful, right? Then, how come I've had them for about thirty years and still not used them up?

Somewhere, without discussion or permission, they stopped being treasure and became clutter. And now at last it's time for them to go.

730 things — Day 130 of 365

 Thinking about my mother and grandmother and great-grandmother yesterday sent me hunting for old family photos. 

There's a particular one of my grandmother I wanted to show you that I couldn't find, but I managed to turn up these.

Here's my grandmother as a little girl, with her brother. His personality comes across very clearly in this picture — he was such a gentle person. 

In her old age, my great-grandmother lived in a bungalow built just behind my great-uncle's house, and he kept an eye on her. She called the bungalow Cot-in-Lea, a reminder of Cottingley where she grew up and where her children were born. Her family (Thorntons) owned the mill there.

Here's my grandmother about the same age as the previous picture, this time in a school photo scowling ferociously because she didn't want to sit with the boys.

She was at school with the girl who took photos of the fairies at Cottingley, of whom my grandmother said (scathingly), "She was no scholar, either!"

But though that was a hoax, my mother really did see a fairy when she was a little girl, and some of my children have seen fairies, too. And in the last couple of years of her life, my mother spent a lot of her time going on astral walkabouts, telling me what she was seeing as she sat in her beautiful living room but wandered in spirit along mountain paths and across the North York Moors, accompanied by a spirit dog called Lou, who kept her safe (she said).

Village fêtes with pram races and fancy dress parades were a big things when my mother and grandmother were children. Here's my grandmother dressed up for one such occasion, as a teenager.

And here she is aged 22. There's a lot of mental illness in my family. All the women on my mother's side suffered from anxiety and depression, nervous breakdowns of one kind or another, some more severely than others. My great-grandmother was robust and vigorous, energetic and cheerful, and so was her husband, but they also loved poetry and spirituality, they were thinkers and dreamers, one foot in the unseen world. That strand in them must have been what came out more clearly in their children, who were both gentle and retiring people — as were my mother and her sisters and brother. Capable, but quiet and and highly sensitive, with courageous but easily bruised souls. My mother was under treatment for psychiatric illness all her adult life. 

In the 1920s and 30s, bad teeth were (rightly) understood to be often a source of systemic infection. Unfortunately this lead to inappropriate dentistry as an attempt to solve unrelated problems. This photo was taken the day before all my grandmother's teeth were removed in an effort to address her agoraphobia and highly sensitive tendencies.

But she battled on. Here she is with my mother as a baby.

And my mother as a child, probably in 1930, in the poultry yard of their farm.

This photo of my mother with her sister must have been taken about 1940 or 1941, I think.

Well, that was very patient of you, indulging my family reminiscences. At least I spared you photos of my grandchildren! It was thinking about vintage clothing styles on YouTube that jogged my memory.

So, leaving my house today — some Allen keys and that curly thing which I suppose must be a keyring, perhaps (?)

These hardware bits and bobs will all go into my DIY box for Freegle. 

730 things — Day 128 & 129 of 365

Do you know Christine the Glambassador's channel on Youtube?

I really love it.

Focusing on the 1930s and 1940s (with an emphasis on American fashions) she looks at different aspects of vintage style.

Here's one of her videos.

I so enjoy what she does.

I especially love the clothes of the 1910s and 1930s — the long straight shapes and dropped waists of the 1920s, and the shorter skirts of the 1940s appeal to me less. I like the elegance and grace of the 1910s and 1930s, the modest, flowing but comfortable, movement-adapted fit of clothing.

I also enjoy Crows Eye Productions' historical clothing videos on YouTube, and I loved this video of getting dressed in WWI, and this one of a nurse of the same period getting dressed.

And I found this gallery of photos from the 1930s absolutely delightful.

I was born in 1957, my mother was born in 1927, my grandmother in 1897, and my great-grandmother in 1877.

I vividly remember how my mother, grandmother and great-grandmother dressed. One of the reasons I love my green crêpe dress is that it reminds me strongly of my great-grandmother's clothes, and I feel connected up to the flow of the women in my family who came before me. 

Here's my great-grandmother and great-grandfather with my grandmother and my great-uncle, probably around 1907-1910.

You can see that my great-grandmother still favours the more Victorian styles reminiscent of how she and her sisters dressed a few years before. My great-grandmother is the one at the front.

And here's my great-great-grandmother, Mary Gott, whom I never knew as she died before I was born. That's my great-grandmother sitting next to her on the step.

And this is my mother, on her wedding day in 1951.

I can remember them all so clearly, those women. They were very strongly linked — highly individual but very similar at the same time. Vivid personalities, people of great determination and practical intelligence, resourceful and purposeful; and arguing with them was pointless.

When I look at those videos of vintage clothing on YouTube, they are before my mind's eye again — my mother, my grandmother, my great-grandmother, each with her own style and clothing choices.

Memories . . .

Well, I have two days' worth of things to send out: a grippy thing and a chain; then two more spanners.

730 things — Day 127 of 365

I just found a new video by Jon Jandai. 

I think this man is so wise. I loved his TED talk, Life is easy. 

Please permit me to ask something of you. If you watch the video above, and a script starts up in your head, along the lines of: 

"That's all very well, but in our country you can't just go and build a house, you have to have money to buy the land and then you need planning permission which you have to pay for, and they won't let you live in any old shelter, you need proper building materials to create something compliant with building regulations, and besides that in our country it gets cold and rains a lot so a shelter made of branches wouldn't cut it, you'd need central heating, and building codes mean you have to be hooked up to mains sewage and pay water charges, and some of us live in high rise flats and aren't lucky enough to have a garden. It's all very well for him — " 

— would you indulge me? Could I be so bold as to ask you to put that script on pause?

Nothing proceeds fuelled by objections. Arguments just keep people trapped where they are. "It's all right for you lot . . ." was never a recipe for achievement.

If you watch the video, I respectfully request of you that you listen to him and learn from him. Don't argue with him, allow him to reframe your outlook. At the very least, be open to considering what he's saying. Better still, apply it in at least one small area of your life, your day, your approach. 

What he's proposing is a kind of magic. I recommend it. By all means pronounce it useless, but only after you've tried it for a decade or two.

Leaving my house today (I know this is not very impressive, but still), two packets of everything you need to attach the bookcase you are making to a wall so it won't fall over. If that's what you want to do. Clearly we didn't. My guess is we contented ourselves with our usual solution of wedging little wads of cardboard under the two front corners, and then discouraging our children from attempting to scale bookcases as if they were the north face of the Eiger.

730 things — Day 126 of 365

 I like tiny houses and caravans. I would dearly love to live in one; but I have come to accept that that will not now ever be so. In our time the cost of accommodation has risen so very steeply, while the level of wages has not, that it has absorbed such money as I had in the service of helping my admittedly large family house itself.

In my heart of hearts I am not in favour of second homes, and am quite certain my marriage partner would be appalled to actually live in a caravan or a tiny home. Though I love them, I love him more, so I have reconciled myself to the reality that this preference of mine will remain a dream only.

To be fair, I have, twice, lived in a caravan. Once when I was eighteen and had just left school, living with monks in North Devon. I lived in a caravan in a cabbage patch behind the Post Office (the monks ran it) and adjacent to their little whitewashed chapel (in what was intended, I suppose, to be the garage). North Devon is hilly. The lane passed the front of the Post Office and the hedge fringing the cabbage patch, then cut round in a hairpin bend, going back on itself onto a much higher level. So at the back of the caravan was a bank stabilised by plants, and above it the road.

That caravan was definitely vintage, and had that prized item — a solid fuel stove. Most modern caravans are deficient in that (unlike tiny houses) they overlook this crucial necessity of life. Without a fire to sit by, what's the point?

Later, at university in York (I met my children's father in the first year of my degree course and married him at the end of the second) I lived with my husband in a twelve-foot touring caravan — oddly, in another field of cabbages — at Acaster Selby, a village on the outskirts of York. We had one of those ex-GPO vans, a Morris Minor overpainted a dull green, to get in to lectures and seminars. It was old and rusty, we could see the surface of the road passing by beneath our feet, and on frosty mornings one of us had to turn the engine with a crank shaft to get it going. The ignition key was so very worn with age it could be pulled out as we were going along, which it amused us to do. That van wouldn't go over fifty-five miles an hour, as we discovered on the one occasion we had a long journey down a motorway to the Midlands. My husband, a musician, was booked to play the organ for a friend's wedding, and courtesy of the slowness of our van, we arrived only just in time to stop outside the church, my husband scrambling into his wedding clothes on the lane alongside the van, then legging it up the church path and flinging himself onto the organ bench. No time to verify with the clergyman exactly how things would go. So he hadn't realised what an eternity they'd be signing the register , and ended up having to play the whole of Widor's very difficult toccata for the recessional, instead of just the first page as planned. With no one to turn the pages.

After York, we lived in a barn on my parents' land for while. We sold everything we had to buy a gypsy vardo, affordable by virtue of being in parlous condition and painted all over with pale yellow emulsion (why?) but we were too fainthearted and inexperienced to do any more than begin the painstaking work of stripping it all back. Plus we had a baby on the way and threatening to miscarry, and all our cooking to do over an open fire and needed to earn money somehow, so we never did get to live in the vardo.

Since then I've lived in all sorts of places, all of them shared — even the one-bedroomed apartment — but never a tiny house or a caravan.

In the house we live in now, my husband (not the one I first thought of, he took off long ago and the second one died) made me a dear little tiny house at the bottom of the garden, and I was meant to be living in that but found to my surprise that outside the comforting aura of the people I live with, I was terribly lonely. I hadn't expected that.

So I live in my little room which is 9ft by just under 7ft.

When I was a student at York in the 1970s, I had a small single room in college. I was reclusive even then, and for the first three days I didn't emerge from my room at all except to go to the lavatory (handily next door). I ate muesli and stayed where I was. 

My mother visited me there on one occasion, and glancing round she started to laugh. She said most people just have their room as a bedroom, but I seemed to have got an entire house in my narrow accommodation, cooking stuff and everything. This was true. I always had this yen to live quiet and tiny and retired.

And so here inside this shared Victorian villa up the hill from the sea, I experiment with tiny house possibilities in my little room.

Here's its present state of incarnation.

My store cupboard is under the bed.

I have a dining room of sorts — or sometimes it is a study; my little table can be a desk as well as somewhere to eat.

Tony made the little table for me. It can be a seat as well, when visitors come to my little room, more than will fit on the bed — which Tony made for me too, at sofa height at my request.

Next to the bed is my kitchen and bathroom which run seamlessly into one another (and my chapel above). 

Under the unit there is my washbowl and small box of bokashi bran. In the main body of it is where I keep my china when not in use, and my thermal bottles for chilled water and surplus heated water from making my cup of tea (handy to wash in on summer days when I've had no hot water bottle the night before). If you have eagle eyes and a long memory, you may observe one of the water bottles (the green one you can just see behind the orange one) is a thing I posted as being sent away. I changed my mind and swapped something else out for it and kept it. This is why you should always practise a pause, unless you are a hoarder, in which case don't, just hire a skip.

The Berkey filter is good for either rain or water from the spring down the hill. The little stove takes those biofuel blocks made from vegetable waste that burn without making toxic chemicals.

Next to my loo, under the wardrobe (that Tony also built for me) is my laundry system — two buckets and a large bowl.

I wash my clothes every two or three days, and only use the machine when I do my bedding — which I confess is not often.

Inside my wardrobe I have my filing archive, my clothes, my toiletries and my supplements.

I was keeping my clothes in packing cubes, but released them because they said they felt squashed and couldn't breathe.

I did buy some dresses this summer (yes, I swapped out other belongings in exchange), which I am very pleased with and hang on the door next to my wardrobe so they don't get creased.

This is my favourite.

I also hang my (USB rechargeable) lantern on the bamboo pole that suspends the curtain in front of my wardrobe. I lift it down and have it on the floor by my bed at night.

Then the only other thing is a bookcase. Fi, who lives in the attic when she's here, was using it, but got rid of some stuff so it became surplus to her requirements. So I have it in my room now, to house the Cauldron Makers Guild, and my books.

When evening falls, the Cauldron Makers gather in the shadows to plan the revolution. 

So that's as near as I can get to a tiny house. I think it works okay. The only other thing I'd have is a fridge. I do have one, but it's down in the main house kitchen, which is more convenient for the way I live — but I could fit it in my room if I wanted to. It is silent and small.

Meanwhile, leaving my life today are . . . er . . . Oh, yes — two — what are these? Wrenches?

Adjustable spanners? I don't know. They will be in the DIY tool kit I'm making for Freegle.

730 things — Days 124 & 125 of 365

Yesterday's things to go are these two craft knives.

At one point in my life I would have used them for cutting card or vinyl flooring — they're useful for all sorts, as you know. But my life isn't really like that now. They'll go in the DIY box I'm making to freegle.

 

Today's thing's to go are examples of the things we hoard that are almost nothing, but aggregate to fill up the boxes we call our homes. A length of string and the stopper from a long ago defunct hot water bottle — you know, "just in case".

I find it is actually worth keeping such things for a little while, because every now and then they do come in handy, and if you operate a minimalist system then it's almost certain over time you will end up purchasing again some things you move on — not least because we travel through life in spirals, not in a straight line. But periodically it's important to do a cull or, before you know it, there you are in your own personal mini landfill site.

730 things — Day 123 of 365

 I'm thinking aloud here, conscious that this isn't as considered or carefully thought through as it should be — but at the present time I'm finding that I'm changing, rapidly and surprisingly, so my thoughts are evolving, are in a state of flux. But a comment about socialism and capitalism on a post from a few days ago has set me thinking, asking myself what do I really think and believe about political organisation.

I'm not really a broad-brush thinker; I live small and I work with detail. The bigger picture is not always apparent to me. My preoccupation is usually with the individual.

All my life my vote has been socialist — and I intend it remain so, for the sake of lifting up and protecting those who have fallen on hard times, or are inherently fragile, who will always need our help. I like tribes that travel together, and to achieve that you have to go at the pace of the slowest and carry in your arms the ones who get tired.

I do not admire hard-drinking idiots, or shiftless sneering shirkers, or sly opportunists who work the system to take advantage of others, or freeloaders of any kind. Of course I don't. It irritates me no end to see the people who go straight from the benefits office to the pub. I hate to see beggars whining for handouts from passersby to finance their drug habits. And I have had first-hand, up close and personal interaction with enough of such people to be very aware of what they are.

But still I vote for the kind of society that will pick them up and carry them, because otherwise what will they do? I cannot say hand on heart that I love them, but I firmly believe God does — so I vote in service of his love and his mercy that never fails.

This obligation, to vote for whichever system aligns most closely with the mercy and grace and kindness of God, is a non-negotiable and foundational principle of my life.

Now comes the "but". Yes.

But I am also aware that the one-size-fits all tendency of socialism is inadequate. 

I was married a long time to a teacher who was the son of teachers, and all of them worked in the state education sector, in which I also was educated. All my children went to state schools, except for the brief year when I was chaplain in a Methodist school — a private school, therefore. Now that brought me some interesting and unexpected insights.

When we moved to a different Methodist Circuit, and had to find new schools for the children, I realised something I'd never noticed before. In the Methodist school, the private school, the front-and-centre priority was the interest of the child. The teachers, the school, the whole thing, was for the children. 

This was not true in the state sector. There — this was spelled out for me very clearly — the priority was the interest of the school. This was also true in higher education. The children were for the school, not the school for the children. In the state sector I encountered a lot of intimidating and semi-threatening communications about the responsibility of the child to the school — attendance, homework, uniforms, all that sort of thing — and never (not once) any expression of the responsibility of the school to the child. Diametric opposite of my private sector experience.

So though, politically, free education for all is a socialist aim, nonetheless the expression of quickly becomes distorted in the social machinery as it plays out. 

The same with health care. Because of the National Health Service, which offers free health care for all, I have had access to doctors all my life, and maternity services and free screening, all that sort of thing. But some of the advice I received was very poor, some simply inaccurate, and I have received more help from the alternative therapies I paid for than from the mainstream options that came free. I am tempted to digress into examples here, but that will take us a long circuitous route so maybe not. Suffice it to say it was not always clear to me if the doctors were there for the patients or the patients for the doctors.

And then, in politically organised social provision, to get any kind of help you need to jump through all the hoops. You need to be able to tick the boxes. Especially if you are neurologically atypical, this can leave you out in the cold, excluded from provision you need but cannot access because your doctor thinks s/he knows all about wellness and disability but in fact does not.

Plus, there are those people who simply don't fit the available categories. There are the poets who will become ill if you make them work in a factory, the people who just need to dance to their own music, live their own way. I am acutely aware of this because I am one of them. Non-standard people can suffer terribly within a standardised system, and standardisation is what socialism is all about.

I am in favour of freedom, and of responsibility — and looking back in time, I think those values were what the much reviled Margaret Thatcher prized as well. When asked by John Humphrys in a radio interview what she, as a practising Christian, saw as the essence of her faith, she responded, "Choice." Apart from anything else, to come back with so ready an answer tells me she must have done some heart-searching on the topic.

So, my values are conflicted. On the one hand I want education freely available for every child, on the other hand I think you get a better result teaching your own at home. I want health care available for all, but I think iatrogenic illness is a serious problem; and in my my own case, for the most part I've preferred the unorthodox solutions I've discovered for myself, over the options offered me by doctors. I believe in paying my way and choosing freely and walking my own path and finding my own solutions; but my vote is cast for those who can't or won't, because God cares about them.

One more thing and then I'm done.

Margery (she died in 2004), who was my prayer partner and halfway between my mother's age and my grandmother's (she was born in 1914) lived very frugally and gave with lavish generosity. Back in the days of South African apartheid she wired as much money as she could to black pastors and their congregations. She gave to the church, she gave to charities — but she also advocated keeping an eye out for people whose need fits no categories. Perhaps a young couple moving into an apartment of their own, stretched to the max to make their mortgage payments, but eligible for no relief; perhaps a woman recently divorced, who had been a wife at home, unqualified and unused to the workplace; perhaps a loner who finds society difficult and chooses to live in the wilds in a van — people for whom the normal provisions simply don't fit. She had a budget for them, the ones who slot into no recognised category of need. She would pray for guidance, and remark that the Lord had told her to send them £250, or maybe a thousand — Margery served a very generous and understanding God.

And I can't help but notice that those are the very people that both socialism and capitalism let down. They fall through the gaps. But as the Tao Te Ching says (Chapter 73), "The net of heaven is very wide. Though its mesh is coarse, nothing slips through." The way of Christ works with our reality. It starts with the child, not the school, with the person not the system. It meets our human need.

And the arena in which all this plays out is, of course, the Earth. In the end our wellbeing arises from a delicate interweaving of God's love from heaven and the health of the living Earth.

Why I vote Green, these days.

Margery was a very refined and educated lady, an artist and the daughter of a senior London tax inspector. At first glance people would assume her to be a natural Conservative. Indeed, during the run-up to a general election one time, the Conservatives out canvassing came knocking at her door, asking, "And can we count upon your vote?"

(This conversation took place in the very best cut-glass Downton Abbey English accents.)

"No," said Margery, "you can't."

Somewhat taken aback, they asked her why not.

"Because," she said, "I think you have encouraged us all to be very selfish."

*       *       *       *

So leaving my life today — a reel of fishing twine and a carefully hoarded battery. I have nothing to say to or about them except "Goodbye."

730 things — Day 121 & 122 of 365

I'm so enjoying these little videos of Victorian recipes from Audley End. I love that the lady looks credibly like a Victorian person, and doesn't wear make up, and her hair looks natural and not sprayed. Makes me happy. And I like seeing all the bits and pieces of furniture and kitchen equipment and stationery and everything. It's lovely.

Audley End is on the outskirts of Saffron Walden, which is where my mother used to live before she moved to Battle to be closer to us after my father died. 

Late in life, after almost fifty years of marriage, my father separated from my mother (though they remained good friends and he stayed in close touch and they did not divorce) and after that I used to travel to Saffron Walden once a month or so, to spend a couple of days with her. The road wound round the edge of the Audley End estate, which was bounded (impressively) by a very long wall following the contours of the boundary. The way went over a pretty stone bridge and passed the decorative iron gates of the estate, and there was a good view of the house which is indeed lovely. So I have never actually been there, but passed it and looked at it many times in all seasons of the year. It's interesting with these videos to glimpse inside. Yet another imaginative and constructive response to the pandemic restrictions upon visiting such places.

I didn't post yesterday, so I have two day's worth of two items to go.

For yesterday, these two pairs of pliers — rather rusty, I'm sorry to say — that I'll add in to the DIY box I'm collecting for Freegle.

And for the same destination, this Stanley knife and a tape measure.

I don't know when pliers were first made, but the ones I'm giving away look as if they'd be right at home in the videos of Victorian life!

730 things — Day 120 of 365

 It turns out that our water company — Southern Water — which supplies our tap water and manages the disposal of whatever flows out of our house via the drains and the sewage pipes, has been pumping massive amounts of raw sewage into the sea.

Our last Prime Minister but one, David Cameron, changed things so that water companies were their own regulatory body. I should judge that to be a cynical move because you surely couldn't get to be Prime Minister and be that stupidly naive. As anyone one might guess, in terms of realistic regulation it has not been effective, but in terms of corners cut and happy shareholders I should think it's just the ticket.

A lengthy legal case has unfolded over this, that has concluded with Southern Water being fined £90m pounds. The judge asked them how much it would cost to put it right. Southern Water's response? They said, oh, billions of pounds — it wouldn't be worth it — they just accept a big fine now and then as part of their company costs.

This is a perfect example of why the UK political left thinks privatisation is a bad idea.

I cannot begin to convey how upset I feel about this. Southern Water has made us pay to destroy delicate eco-systems in the ocean and make our coastlines unsafe for people to swim and surf and play. They have absolutely betrayed our trust — and they know it and they don't care. Shrug their shoulders — absorb the fine as a business cost — whatever.

I am not the kind of activist who organises. I don't often write letters and I never go on marches or protests any more, but I do conform my life and choices to my ethical principles, for the most part; not perfectly, being human, but I try quite hard.

I'm not entirely sure I can eliminate the services of Southern Water from my life altogether — my own, personal life; each individual in our household makes his or her own choices and responses about such things — but I am quite certain I can radically decrease the extent of the custom I give them.

They are no friend to life, God, truth, humanity, trustworthiness or creation — everything in fact that makes life worth living. What they do care about is money. I'm going to make very sure I give them a great deal less.

Meanwhile, on their way out of my life today — a screwdriver and a spirit level.

I rarely use a spirit level — and I think in reality 'rarely' has moved on to 'never' by now — but I often have cause to look for a screwdriver. Fortunately I have several others, both crosshead and flat.

730 things — Day 119 of 365

I want to see how far I get with thinning out surplus belongings — because I wasn't sure I'd even get this far and it surprises me to see how I keep generating stuff, especially bearing in mind that during this time I have also acquired things and swapped something out in exchange each time (or just not kept them if they didn't work out), so more things have left my life than I have recorded.   

Today I am saying goodbye to a couple of spanners.

I notice in myself a farewell to self-image going on. In years past I liked to make things out of scrap wood. I took down the garden fence and made a bed frame from it. Later I added tall legs to it so our puppies had somewhere for their bed underneath. There was still a bit of wood from the fence so I made a set of shelves from it. Someone gave me left over planks and I made them into a cradle for my children — I used a coat hanger as a template to make the rockers. Later, when they no longer needed it, I re-purposed it into a shallow set of shelves, which Grace still has to store spices in her kitchen. I remember her waking up from sleep and looking at me with her beady eyes from that cradle when she was tiny.

And I used to make clothes, and curtains and put hooks into the walls for pictures, and crocket blankets and knit hats and shawls. But now everything is folding down and I no longer make things. I can move on the accumulated useful hardware because I won't be needing it any more. It involves, I think, giving a part of myself away, but I don't feel sad about it. It's like watching the leaves on a tree turn rusty brown and begin to fall in the autumn.

730 things — Day 118 of 365

This is the feast day of the Holy Royal Martyrs of Russia — Tsar Nicholas II, his wife Tsarina Alexandra, Crown Prince Alexis, and the Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria and Anastasia — as well as those martyred with them. They were shot and bayoneted to death by Bolshevik revolutionaries, and taken to the Koptyaki Forest where their bodies were stripped and mutilated and buried in unmarked graves.

Tomorrow is the feast of Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, another of Russia's new martyrs.

Elizabeth was married to Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, whose policies were very conservative, even reactionary. Grand Duke Sergei was responsible for the expulsion of Moscow's 20,000 Jews; not a great start to his tenure to say the least.

He was assassinated by a terrorist bomb in 1905. His wife Elizabeth rushed to the scene of the explosion, and knelt in the snow to gather up the scattered remains of his body and his scattered medals, so he could be borne away with dignity.

Elizabeth then made some changes to her life. She became vegetarian, sold her jewellery and began to live as a religious. She opened (and became abbess of) a convent dedicated to the saints Martha and Mary, from where she dedicated herself to helping the sick and poor in Moscow.

In 1918 Lenin ordered her arrest, and she was taken first to Perm then Yekaterinburg where she was housed in a school. She spent her days there planting vegetables in the garden and living out the observance of her faith.

But in the summer of that year she and her companions were taken out to a disused mine 20 metres deep, blindfolded and with their hands tied behind their backs. The journey, in horse-drawn carts, took two hours; Elizabeth and her companions sang hymns. When they reached the pit, first Elizabeth was throw in, then the others. There was water at the bottom, and the intention was that they would drown, but some — including Elizabeth — caught on the projections at the side of the pit. She could be heard talking to the person thrown in after her. The Bolsheviks then threw in hand grenades, but still not everyone died. After the explosions, they could still hear people singing. So they stuffed the pit with wood and set fire to it.

A few months later when the bodies were uncovered, they were still in relatively good condition, so it is thought they may have died of starvation.

Elizabeth's sister Alix and her family were murdered on the previous day.

Grand Duchess Elizabeth was canonised in 1981 by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, and in 1992 by the Moscow Patriarchate. Today is her holy feast.

Her last words are said to have been, "O Lord forgive them, for they know not what they do."

I grew up in a politically Conservative family. My father and mother and sister (and I think my sister's children too) have all been staunch Conservatives. But ever since I reached voting age, mine has been a  socialist vote. I have changed to a Green vote, but that is also socialist. Most of the people I know cast their votes to advance the political interests of themselves and others like them — the workers vote for those who will advance the cause of the workers, the landowners vote for those who will protect their rights, and so on. But I think when we vote it is meant to be not for 'me' but for 'us'. I am a resourceful person, and I hope I will always be able to figure out some kind of solution under any government. There is nothing to take from me, nothing to defend, because I live very simply and own little. So when I vote, I look for administrations I hope will lift up the poor and broken, who will help those members of society (and their families) who either cannot or will not help themselves. My vote is for the common good, an expression of my belief that we're all in this together.

In recent years, watching with horror the development of the political landscape in my country under the Conservative government — I am especially ashamed of its treatment of refugees, its corruption and its progressive decimation of the health service — I have been completely bewildered by Christians voting Conservative. 

Especially when Jeremy Corbyn, whose politics are almost a perfect match with the New Testament and the Old Testament prophets, was vilified by Christian people and undermined by his own party, I felt so grieved, heartbroken even.

I have lived since then with pain and bewilderment I didn't know how to process. I felt so bitterly disappointed in my Christian brothers and sisters voting for these people who want to turn their backs on the poor and let desperate people fleeing torture drown in the sea.

But the stories of Grand Duchess Elizabeth's death have given me some understanding and insight, and that has brought comfort. She was a gentle and most courageous woman of profound faith, devoted to prayer and helping the poor, and she was put to death in the most horrific manner — by socialists.

In my own life, it's also the case that the most vile man I ever met was married to one of my aunts; and he was a trades union rep, a staunch and active socialist. He was also opportunistic and cruel.

I have reached a temporary working conclusion that it doesn't matter one jot what your politics are — the country could be run equally successfully on socialist or Conservative lines. In fact, on balance and in general, I think I favour the Conservative approach.

But what brings a country down is greed and corruption, indifference to the wellbeing of creation, cruelty and callousness, merciless indifference to the poor and sick, the homeless and the refugee.

And almost any political system could be turned to political advantage if good people operated it — if those in hard times were lifted up, if nature was protected and regenerated, if kindness and restraint and honesty and simplicity and humility were the determinants of our way of life.

I am ashamed to the depths of my soul when I see Priti Patel working to have refugees left to drown at sea and turn the gypsies off their stopping places and deport people born overseas who work and live here in peace. But if the alternative is throwing bound people down a mine, then when that doesn't kill them chucking down hand grenades, then when that doesn't finish them off stuffing the outlet with wood and setting it on fire, then leaving the survivors to starve — well, I don't think much of that either.

I have come to believe that humanity is neither saved nor guided by politics — it has to be the other way round. We can learn from such leaders as the Dalai Lama, and Jigme Khesal Namygyel Wangchuck (the present Druk Gyalpo of Bhutan). 

If things do not change radically and quickly, we shall succeed in poisoning and suffocating the entire planet — our greed, our myopic consumerism, our selfishness; these all have to stop.

All I know to do is live quietly and simply, and let change begin with me.

Today's things to go from my accumulation of bits and pieces are a collection of hooks to hang things from the picture rails in Victorian houses. 

Our house is Victorian and has picture rails, but we prefer pictures hung lower and don't like looking at the string, so we tend to put a screw in the wall when we want to put up a picture.

730 things — Day 117 of 365

Goodness me, how I admire this couple!

Perhaps because my own journey into simplicity was too slow, too self-determined — I never found my tribe, and it is the tribe that carries you forward — I know I will never live like this; it will remain only a dream for me.

I also had too many other lives to patch and uphold besides my own; it took all my resources and ingenuity just to protect the ordinary, rather 1950s English type of simplicity which is the way we follow. I never mustered the audacity and confidence to strike out deeper into the forest. But I take my hat off to the ones who do.

In my small and stubborn way, then, I continue to trudge along my hedgerow track of small-scale persistent relinquishment. Today, leaving my life are a collection of safety pins and a collection of screws. 

Both of these are very useful. I'm sure they are.

730 things — Day 116 of 365

I was thinking about our government here in England, recent changes and others in the pipeline, the attitude to refugees and people from overseas who want to visit or settle here, and the impact of Brexit on our farmers. 

This song came to mind.

My Uncle Bill and Auntie Jean farmed on the fertile land of the York plain — my cousin still runs the farm. 

When I was a child, among other things they grew potatoes and strawberries. At this time of year, when the strawberries were ripe, the gypsies would come for casual work as pickers. 

At home we had a children's book called The Little One's Own, a Christmas annual of a children's magazine, that had come to us from either my grandmother or great-grandmother (they both lived in the same village). It was an old book, Victorian, and full of moral stories and dire warnings to children. One that gripped my imagination was about little Nell who was stolen by the gypsies on her way home through the wood. I found it very alarming, and didn't know enough about gypsies to realise they were strongly family people and had quite enough children of their own — they didn't want anyone else's. 

So when I went with my mother and Uncle Bill to pick some strawberries, and we had to walk past the caravans drawn up at the edge of the fields, with gypsies sitting in their doorways watching us go by, I was frightened of them because I didn't know any better.

This spring in the UK, new laws have been passed by the government increasing the powers of police to harass travellers — to arrest them and impound their vehicles.

Another new law currently proposed in the nationality and borders bill threatens those who rescue asylum seekers at sea with life imprisonment.

Meanwhile the combination of coronavirus travel restrictions and Brexit (from the end of June people from overseas without pre-settled status could no longer work here) have left our fruit farms short of pickers — short by hundreds of thousands, not by just a few.

It's a depressing scenario.

It brought back to mind those days long gone when the gypsies came to Uncle Bill's farm for the strawberry picking.  

I hope the tide turns. I hope people learn to live together in peace, and work for the common good and the wellbeing of creation. Despite overwhelming signs to the contrary, I do believe that change will come; and I hope it will be in time, while the Earth can still be healed.

God bless the gypsy, the refugee, the people who help others when they are in trouble, the vagrants and the migrant workers, the people who barely survive. God bless them and give them their time in the sun.

Today, leaving our house are a little saw and . . . er . . . I think it's some kind of wrench. I have no idea. I've had it for decades but never used it once.

730 things — Day 115 of 365

Today I was thinking about the intentions that radiate from us — like the light of a star or the perfume of a flower — and how they shape our daily reality.

Circumstances arise in our lives, threads of the fabric of events, and we must interweave with them as best we may. 

Sometimes the circumstances of our lives come as a direct result of our former patterns and choices — whether intended or unexpected and unforeseen — but sometimes they arrive in our lives through the actions and personalities of other people, or the governments of our countries, or war or disease or whatever.

But everything is ultimately connected and interdependent. Like pandemics arise from disturbing natural patterns and overriding natural boundaries, such things as mass-felling of forests or technological advance permitting global travel or keeping domestic animals caged in large groups. And we may not personally have engineered those things, but our choices may be contingent upon them, and the society of which we are part may have encouraged them — and so we travel along connected more intimately than we might have guessed.

This being the case, it is important in every detail of our lives to choose what seems to us to be gentle and constructive and kind and healing and peaceful. Even if we make some missteps, we shall still then be travelling in the right direction, and heading determinedly towards the creating of a better world.

It might seem advisable to be ambitious in our vision, and try for the most and the highest in our achievement; but in my own experience that usually leads to exhaustion and collapse. Like Icarus flying too close to the sun with his wings made of wax.

"Love your neighbour," Jesus said; a recommendation for starting small and dealing with what is close at hand.

If we do manage to heal ourselves and heal our world, it will surely be not by grand gestures and massive achievements, for the most part, but by an aggregate of love — small, persistent habits of kindness, a willingness to live simply, the humility to start again when we fail, and the stubborn faith that all in the end shall be well.

 

The things I want to send on their way today are some unused batteries and a sturdy stationery clip.

They'll go in with the other things into the DIY box I'm putting together.