Crowded House

I've been listening to a lot of Crowded House recently.  They've been one of my favourite bands for a long time, but I've been finding an awful lot of solace in their music as we've made our way through this strange time.  Neil Finn's vocals and songwriting just does what music is supposed to do to me, to take you somewhere totally separate, yet also to display emotions that are so familiar.  What a musician he is, I'm delighted that I bagged tickets to see the band in Birmingham next year!

Over the lock-down period Crowded House, in common with a number of other bands and musicians, put together a couple of "live from home" songs, for the Music From The Front Line benefit concert.  What I love about this recording is that it was put together over a few hours, with each musician recording their parts individually.  How cool is that?  As part of this, the band recorded melodic Fall at Your Feet and upbeat Something So Strong, but it's Don't Dream It's Over that I'm sharing below, because it's one of my favourite songs.  Enjoy!

Hestercombe Gardens

We popped across the county border over the weekend to visit the gardens of Hestercombe House, near Taunton.  The gardens had recently been featured on Gardeners' World, and looked so enticing that we immediately made a plan to visit.  Since the easing of lock-down restrictions, we've seen all around us how hard people have been working to get their attractions up-to-scratch for the summer season.  At Hestercombe, the gardens are usually maintained by a team of eight, with up to 30 volunteers, but since lock-down, that number has had to be reduced to two gardeners, taking care of some 50 acres.  I can only imagine how hard they've had to work (there's two of us to work on our back garden, and there are times when that doesn't feel enough!),  but for what it's worth, they've done an unbelievable job.  On a day when even the sun was drunk on summer, it was a pleasure to amble around the woods, meadows, and formal gardens of the estate.  And all sown up with a cream tea too (as I informed Lizzie, in Somerset it's neutral territory for the cream-jam debate, although obviously we stuck to the correct, Devonian way.)  Garden enthusiasts should get themselves here as soon as possible - just don't forget to book online.  Here's just a snippet of what we found...

Challenging times

I guess I fell off the blogging wagon again recently.  It’s not that I don’t enjoy keeping this page going, but I guess there’s a combination of factors that have just diverted my attention elsewhere, and like with every aspect of life, you really can only fit so much into your day.

These have been dark, stressful and frantic times for many of us, me included.  Work has hit a pace that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before, and now that working from home has become the new normal, it sometimes feels like there’s very little escape from the office.  As one colleague told me recently, “instead of working from home, they should just call it ‘living at work.’”  My trouble is that we seem to have hit a perfect storm this year.  The pandemic is a worry.  Work is a stress.  And having a seemingly endless building project going on at home is the proverbial final straw.  Aligned to that, my usual avenues of enjoyment and stress-relief have largely (if temporarily) been restricted – I’ve had to abandon the garden, because the scaffolding on the side and back of our house has made it so hard to get in there; live football has gone out the window, and I really miss my visits to Plainmoor; I’m less motivated to do exercise because the treadmill’s in temporary storage; and I’m not settled enough to concentrate on reading ,because things have been constantly buzzing around my head.  As for blogging?  Forget it.

I think adaptability is key right now, along with a philosophical approach to the fact that 2020 just hasn’t worked out as planned.  There were a lot of archaeological sites I wanted to visit this year.  We had a great holiday booked in Scandinavia.  I had planned to see more of my friends.  Hell, we even thought that July would see a new addition to our family.  Alas these things have not come to pass, and even dwelling on them is futile, but boy does it all just chip away at your ability to cope.

So here we are, and what I’ve learned from the last few months is how uncomfortable it feels to be overwhelmed.  I've unconsciously tripped into that hole a little bit, so now the fightback must begin – I’m going to learn how to be more resilient, how to say no, and how to make sure that we look after ourselves, whilst all the madness drifts past.  And I’m going to focus on the positives.  The scaffolding came down from our house this week, so I can begin to get going on the garden, including planning a new “tropical” corner (well, we are in the Westcountry!)  I’m going to try and have an hour dedicated to reading.  I’m going get back into doing some proper exercise.  And I’m also going to make sure that at home, we’re kind to ourselves and each other.  Because you know, in amongst this crap time, there’s still a lot to look forward to, and I’m sure that happier times are just around the corner.