Idiot cat is... an idiot?

Over the past year, IdiotCat has become accustomed to having us all at home. I'm not sure that he approves, but he has at least adjusted to our presence. If "adjusted" means that he spends any time when he's not asleep shouting at us. It is at mealtimes, however, that he has developed his most fixed habits. He is a big fan of mealtimes.

This is IdiotCat's schedule for a family meal:

• Follow person carrying plate of food from kitchen to dining room. Ideally position yourself just in front of person carrying plate, in the hope you will either trip them up or guide them to your own food bowl.

• Continue past the dining table to your own food bowl, and stare at the floor. When the plate fails to arrive, look around to identify where the person has taken the food.

Where did you take the plate?

•  Walk round the table, assessing where the best smells are coming from.

• Sit hopefully for a while before observing that the clinky-clanky noise is occurring when the people are banging the plates with metal sticks. Clinky-clanky noises mean it isn't time for IdiotCat to be fed. Unless the smell of fish or cheese is so overwhelming that IdiotCat cannot resist putting his paws up on the edge of a chair, hoping that his unbearable cuteness will cause a person to relent. The fact that no person has ever relented and fed IdiotCat is not relevant.

Unbearable cuteness

• When people fail to feed IdiotCat, it's time to guard the table, in case other cats spot that it's meal time. There are no other cats, but you can't be too careful. Spread yourself out as large as possible in the doorway, with your back to the dining table, watching the world and making sure nobody attempts to steal fish or cheese.

You shall not pass

• After a suitable length of time guarding the people and the food, it may be time to come and sit on a chair at the head of the table to assess the chances of stealing or begging food.

For me?

• When the clinky-clanky noise stops, it is time to beg at the big human's chair. The big human sometimes provides leftover gravy. It's worth begging for gravy even if the big human has been eating a cheese sandwich. You just never know.

You've finished?

With all this, you may be beginning to think that IdiotCat is not an idiot, and that he's got everything well under control. Well, think again. This week we had some unusually clement weather, and LittleBear and I chose to eat in the summerhouse. I treated myself to smoked salmon. IdiotCat is a big fan of smoked salmon, so was very keen to make sure he let me know this as I prepared lunch.

As we were taking the food out, I carried a tray loaded up with most things, and LittleBear carried a plate. A plate with only the smoked salmon on. Naturally, IdiotCat pre-followed LittleBear, straight to his food bowl. And he then failed to notice that LittleBear and the smoked salmon continued through the house, across the garden and into the summerhouse. Thus it was that LittleBear and I were able to eat our lunch in splendid peace while watching IdiotCat go through each stage of his mealtime ritual in turn. 

He walked round the table.

He guarded the doorway.

He begged at BigBear's chair.

There was no food. There were no people. He is an idiot.

Eventually he gave up, and mooched through the house. Then he spotted a butterfly to chase in the garden, and upon scampering after it, his nose twitched and he homed in on the smell of smoked salmon.

I know it's here somewhere

My poor cat is definitely not the brightest kitten in the barrel, but he does try. So yes, he did get a scrap of smoked salmon at the end of lunch. Because i'm just as much of a softie as BigBear.

March reading list

March turned, at first inadvertently, and then deliberately, into a month of only allowing myself to re-read books. It also provoked me into having a mild purge of the bookcases, evicting books that I wasn't prepared to re-read. If I have no desire to read it, and more than a decade has passed, I think it's fair to send it to a better home. Currently "better home" translates to "sitting in a pile and getting in the way in the hall", but I aspire to improve upon that. Perhaps when charity shops are open again. Meanwhile, here is the selection of books that featured last month...

Hide and Seek - Ian Rankin

The second Inspector Rebus novel. Again only vague recollections of it. Again not the Rebus I remember from the later novels. I'm rather enjoying re-reading them as new though, and currently prefer the character of Rebus that I am (re)discovering more than I remember doing either first time round, or in the books that I have a stronger recollection of. Either the odd decade has changed my outlook on grumpy middle-aged characters, or my memory is flawed. Or both.

Sweet Danger - Margery Allingham

Due to a catastrophic failure in the internal library system, what I was expecting to be the second of the Albert Campion books turned out not to be, but I was committed and didn't want to abort a few chapters in once it dawned on me that there was a chunk of chronology missing. I more-or-less remembered the plot of this, as it can only be five to ten years since I started reading Allingham. Rather silly, and fun, but horribly, horribly sexist and racist, so occasionally difficult to fully enjoy the silliness.

Faceless Killers - Henning Mankel

Ah, Scandinavian crime novels, a great way of depressing oneself. BigBear introduced me to the Wallander books sometime round about 2005/6 ish. And I think I've only read them all once, so this was another foray into realising how little of the plot of a murder mystery I remembered. The characters were at least familiar, unlike with Ian Rankin, so it would seem that I have some ability to hold onto the essence of who I'm reading about, if not what I'm reading about.

Ash, A Secret History - Mary Gentle

A proper, epic historical-fantasy set in a not-quite real Burgundy of the 15th century, with many battles and much bloodshed. I last read this when BrotherBear spent a year on sabbatical in Japan and deposited his books with me while he rented out his house. This gave me the chance to read large quantities of books that I didn't own without even having to go to the library. This one stuck with me as a rollicking adventure, so I have recently bought myself a second-hand copy, and now seemed a good time to tackle it again. At 1,100 pages, "tackle" feels like an apt term. Curiously, though I did remember quite sizeable chunks of the plot, it was all chopped up and swapped around in my head, so events that I thought occurred a good half way through were actually in the first couple of chapters.

At 550 pages in I was wondering how it was going to fill another 550 pages. Most of what I recalled had happened, bar (obviously) the exciting denouement, so I genuinely couldn't fathom how it could be stretched out even further. But it could. And not all of it was descriptions of armour. Though there were a lot of those. I suppose if you've gone to all the effort of researching 15th century mercenary armour in Western Europe, you want to make sure you shoehorn all that research into your masterwork.

Armour aside, it was still as entertaining a read as it was fifteen years ago, though I had forgotten how irritating I found one of the literary techniques used. The entire book is presented as though it is a translation of a newly discovered text, and thus is interrupted every few chapters by the email correspondence between the supposed translator and editor. Both of whom I wished to throw out of the nearest window.

Tooth and Nail  - Ian Rankin

I am absolutely convinced I've never read this book before. But since all the Rankin's are mine, not BigBear's, this seems unlikely. Curiously, though only the third book in the series, it opted for the old chestnut of taking the protagonist to a new location for a bit of variety. Which the series didn't really need yet. But it worked, and I enjoyed reading it for the first(!) time. I'm beginning to wonder if the Inspector Rebus of my memory actually exists, as he's not the one who's appeared in the first three novels.

44 Scotland Street - Alexander McCall Smith

I have loved these books, though not returned to them recently. The cast are primarily the residents of a single building in Edinburgh that is divided into flats, and the series of books simply explores their lives, loves, foibles and minor domestic adventures. The books was originally written as a newspaper serial, with a new chapter appearing every day. The compilation of very brief episodes that manage to hold together as a single narrative is unusual nowadays, but captivating. There is very little in the way of actual plot, it's all character-driven, which interestingly meant it all seemed a lot more familiar than any other books I've re-read after a similar length of time away - the nature of the characters has stayed with me far more than anything mundane like who killed whom. The downside of this is that it repaid a return visit somewhat less than the rest of this month's offerings.

Actually finished a thing

Having decided to have a go at making a skirt, I found I had presented myself with a task that was perhaps a teensy bit more daunting than I had anticipated. There were more than a couple of skills required that I had never attempted before. Skills that I'm sure, having watching Great British Sewing Bee, are considered bread-and-butter to people who sew anything on an even vaguely regular basis. For instance, I have never fitted a zip to anything, let alone an invisible zip. I have never made an item of clothing with a lining to it. I have never inserted hidden in-seam pockets. I have never understitched a seam. I have never overlocked an edge. To be able to make this skirt, I needed to acquire four new sewing machine feet, as well as then learn to use them.

On top of all this, I have never made a fitted item of clothing before. I have, I think, scratching around in my memory, made things with elasticated waists. I have made quite a few rough-and-ready costumes for LittleBear, which have tended to have been made of very forgiving fabrics and velcro. 

The significant downside of never having made anything to fit was my lack of confidence about getting the sizing right. For a start the pattern was, shall we say, confusing. There were measurements for hips and waist, whose relationship bore no resemblance to my own dimensions. I do not have an hourglass figure - it is distinctly more columnar. I like to think that I have particularly slim hips, though others may contend that it's my waistline that's too large. Whichever way you look at it though, the instruction to make the skirt size that corresponds to the circumference of my hips was going to result in something that was several inches away from doing up around my waist. 

So I consulted the pattern instructions for adjusting the waist:hip ratio, feeling temporarily quite pleased that the pattern had such helpful instructions for modifying the fit. The happy sensation quickly passed. Sadly, the pattern assumed that if one were an irregular dimension, it would be that one's backside was overly generous, not one's waist. There was no consideration given to the possibility that it's not my arse, it's my stomach that's the problem. Hey ho. I decided the only way the skirt was going to fit was if I picked the size that would do up round my waist, and hoped for the best. A niggling fear that I was still getting it wrong led me to be overly-cautious in my seam allowances, just in case my tummy was even bigger than I feared or the tape measure had been conspiring against me. And thus I ended up making a beautifully finished skirt that was at least an inch too big round my waist. 

At that point the temptation to give up was quite strong, but I laboriously unstitched the overstitching, unpicked the waistband, removed it, shortened it, re-gathered the waist and re-attached the waistband, overstitching and all. I also took the opportunity to give up on the hook and eye fastening at the top of the zip and put in a nice chunky button and buttonhole.

And now I have a retro Spring skirt, made to fit by my own fair hands. And it makes me happy as it swishes.

Ta-da!

Pockets! Lovely BIG pockets!

Invisible zip being mostly invisible

And I am honestly, genuinely happy to have tackled a new challenge, and to have overcome it. The sense of achievement, not just in making something, but in learning some new skills, was something I haven't felt for a while. So I might make some more things, and I might try learning some new things too. It's really rather a lovely feeling.

February Reading List

Look at me go! I'm managing the second month of maintaining my reading list!

Guardian of the Horizon - Elizabeth Peters

As with January's list, a comforting foray into a somewhat parodic Edwardian murder mystery. The second of my new Christmas Amelia Peabody books, and one that threw me slightly, as I'm acquiring them in publication order, but the author went back and filled in some of the story's chronology as she progressed, so this one jumps back in time 9 years prior to the one I read in January. My feeble mental state was not ready for his and I felt quite put out. Particularly as it returned to a point in the story filled with unresolved sexual tension that I'd been happy to see the back of.

Godsgrave - Jay Kristoff

Second part in a trilogy and a thoroughly entertaining fantasy romp with magic, gladiators and assassins. Extremely violent and no holds barred in killing off favoured characters to advance the plot, or sometimes just to kill them. Slightly irked by the obvious male gaze exhibited - the main protagonist is a girl, but the male author spends a fair tranche of time on her sexual desires and exploits, including an utterly gratuitous threesome. Admittedly the man involved did end up swiftly and unsympathetically murdered, but it felt very much like male-fantasy fulfillment, as did the heroine's discovery of lesbianism. Isn't the idea to "write what you know"? I was unconvinced by this being what the author knows particularly well, but very much convinced it was written by a man for other men.

The Wrong Side of the Sky - Gavin Lyall

Returning to another book I haven't read in decades. A proper rollicking adventure thriller from the 1960s with full complement of beautiful women and hard-drinking, wise-cracking, damaged men. Didn't remember any of it and couldn't put it down.

Darkdawn - Jay Kristoff

Concluding part in the trilogy, and the author redeemed himself by mocking his own writing style in a curious plot device that involved the characters finding a copy of the books that they themselves appear in. Which worked a lot better than it sounds. Really enjoyed the series, despite my caveats about the sex scenes.

Knots and Crosses - Ian Rankin

I've been acquiring the Rebus novels since about 2001, but realise (as with many of my collections of detective novels) I don't often re-read them. And it turns out I'm not sure I have ever re-read this one, the first of the series. Aside from the fact that I'd forgotten the plot, I'd also forgotten the character that Rebus started as in this book. I'm much more familiar with late-era Rebus, and had forgotten both his origins and how much he changed. I may have to gradually work my way through them all again to see how his character develops. 

So there we are, another mix of returning to books that haven't been read in years, and new books. My major revelation is that after sufficient years buying and reading books I have now reached the stage where it's very definitely worth re-reading some of them, even if they're not works of high art that will reveal new facets of themselves upon repeat visits. My memory is now faded enough and I've filled it with so many books, that I can go back and discover old books almost as if they're new. Which should save me a fortune.

What I've learnt in Week 4,792 of lockdown

Encroaching insanity, and provoked by a friend asking, "But what are you doing for you?" I have decided it's time to do more than sit on the sofa drinking wine and rotting my brain with television every evening. To which end, I have dug out some books on sewing that I acquired some time ago, and have decided to make myself a skirt. Being the kind of sucker for punishment that I am, rather than buying a regular paper pattern, all nicely marked up, I am attempting to follow instructions from a book. This is not to say that the book doesn't have a pattern in it, rather that it has too many patterns on not enough pieces of paper. In fact, it has the patterns for 24 different skirts, in something like ten sizes each, spread across a paltry 3 sheets of paper. 

Perhaps some of you will be familiar with the technique that Jane Austen and Charles Darwin both used of rotating the page when they reached the end and writing again at 90 degrees to their original screed. The result was, unsurprisingly, somewhat confusing to the casual reader. Well, I think it would be fair to say that 240 patterns on three sheets of paper is... erm... challenging.

What are all these lines for?

After several evenings I did finally manage to render this mysterious collection of coloured lines into a set of paper pattern pieces. Having conquered the mighty challenge of cutting the paper pattern, I moved onto the slightly easier territory of cutting the fabric, and was momentarily lulled into thinking I knew what I was doing. And then I began to doubt whether, despite my careful and repeated measurements, the finished object was going to comfortably encircle my comfortable girth. So during the cutting phase I actually made the lining pieces one size larger and test fitted them. And then reduced them back to the original measured size, as I was just being paranoid. 

Filled with a warm glow of satisfaction at having a neat pile of fabric all cut and ready to go, I returned to the first set of instructions that actually pertained to sewing anything. And I discovered that I don't know what understitching a seam means. And I don't own an invisible zipper foot. I don't even own a visible zipper foot, let alone an invisible one. I was beginning to regret that in a book of patterns that starts with easiest and works towards hardest I had not opted to start at the beginning but had leapt in half way through. 

Apparently neither of these are zipper feet

. 

I managed the darts in the lining. I managed to join the three sections of lining together. I even managed to join two of the pieces of outer fabric together. And then I reached the dizzying heights of Step 4, sewing the side seams. One sentence in, and I have to take a diversion to page 158, to discover how to insert pocket bags. Half-way through the instructions on inserting pocket bags, I must divert to page 139 to learn what it means to understitch a seam. At which point I have to give in and scour the entire book to try and work out what is meant by the "facing fabric" in a seam. Having pored over these instructions, and indeed made notes to myself, I retreat to the kitchen to press open the scant handful of seams that I have sewn so far. But it is late, and I am tired, and I fail to notice the setting on the iron when I start to press open the darts on the lining. It turns out that polyester lining fabric does not react well to a hot iron.

A disappointing outcome to an evening's work

So my first evening of actual sewing ended in unpicking a seam, cutting a new piece of lining, and pinning and tacking it in place. I decided at this point that I could not be trusted to do anything involving machinery. So I returned to the sofa with a glass of wine and some mind-rotting television. It's a good thing I'm making a summer skirt, as it might take another 6 months to finish.

January reading list

In an attempt to find something to focus on that is neither pandemic nor politics related, I'm going to try keeping a monthly record* of not only what I've read, but vague thoughts on what I've read.

So here goes for January

The Amber Spyglass - Philip Pullman

Part 3 in the His Dark Materials trilogy.  I'd decided to re-read the trilogy in December, and the final part fell in January. I had loved these when they first came out, and every now and then have thought about re-reading them but for some reason they still seemed quite recent. It turns out they're over twenty years old, and it came as something of a surprise to discover just how much I didn't remember of the details. In fact, I barely remembered anything beyond the odd vague story arc, and who the main characters were. And I didn't even remember all of them to start with. Which just goes to show there is a benefit to getting older and forgetting stuff. It becomes possible to re-read books and enjoy them almost as much as first time round. 

The Golden One - Elizabeth Peters

Amelia Peabody mysteries are a comfort blanket, a hot water bottle and a cup of cocoa; they're a soothing balm against the cold and grey. Possible to read without taxing the faculties too much, but entertaining, silly and enjoyable. For those who haven't read them, they're murder mysteries set in the late 1800s to early 1900s in Egypt with a redoubtable archaeologist heroine and her family. Firmly tongue-in-cheek. I hadn't read this one before, so it was a particularly enjoyable treat.

The Game of Kings - Dorothy Dunnett

First in a set of six books, the other five of which will not be troubling my bookshelves. This book slowed me down enormously as, despite having a reasonably entertaining plot, it was bogged down with too many characters, too much double-triple-quadruple crossing, a tedious habit of quoting Latin and French and, finally, unnecessarily florid prose that would have required frequent dictionary-consultation if only I could be bothered. Oh, and a transparently derivative hero - the Scarlet Pimpernel was implausible enough, without being copied and embroidered upon to a point of utter absurdity.

I blame the third of these for the fact that I only read three books in January, which is below average. Apathy and exhaustion may have played a role as well. But two hits and a miss is an acceptable ratio.

* Given my current mental and emotional fortitude, I can imagine this attempt lasting at least a month.

Still here

Hello there! Remember me? I used to blog here. Sometimes I wrote several times a week. I'm not sure I remember that to be honest. I'm not sure I remember the feeling of having the energy to write that often, or of having enough to say. I barely have enough to say to maintain a conversation with BigBear, let alone write something that might even raise a wry smile with the rest of you. We all know how it goes now, you talk to a friend on Zoom and try as you might, you just end up bleating about boredom, stress, homeschooling, whose spouse does the most/least around the house, government ineptitude, vaccinations or whichever other permutation of lockdown happens to be at the forefront of your mind. It's not as though we've all got lots of interesting films, concerts, holidays or adventures to tell each other about, is it?

So, to save time, here's a Generic Blog Post that you can pop in and read whenever you're wondering what the Bear Family is up to.

BigBear is coding, with the exact location of where he is currently to be found in the house being determined from a complex algorithm based upon the temperature of his feet, the angle of the sun through the windows, the noise from the homeschooling department, and how persistently IdiotCat is pestering him.

LittleBear is squirming in his chair, running the nails of his left hand back and forth across the fabric of the seat to make a rythmic rasping noise as he listens to a message from his class teacher. A rasp that begins to file through the fabric of your mind after approximately five and a quarter seconds. It's History first thing, to get the pain out of the way early in the day, and the entire lesson is punctuated by complaints of "I can't do this, it's too hard." Particularly as it involves drawing a picture. Why? Why must they have to draw so many pictures? LittleBear is not a child who wishes to express himself through the medium of narrative collage. After forty-seven hours on the history picture, it turns out there's another task. By this point, even I'm not sure I can face more History. It involves expressing an opinion. Asking LittleBear his opinion on anything other than football or Minecraft is akin to asking a cactus whether it wants porridge for breakfast. I think the cactus would answer quicker. LittleBear certainly doesn't have, or wish to be asked to express, opinions on the religious beliefs of Vikings and the impact these had on their life choices.

Having completed his History, and had an interstitial penalty shoot-out with Mummy, he moves on to Maths, as a relaxing treat. LittleBear is genuinely very good at Maths. And Maths is LittleBear's favourite subject. Except when his teacher asks him what his favourite work from last week is, and suddenly it's RE. The RE that he has been known to ask why they study. The RE that caused him to sob and wail about the injustices of life, not to mention the iniquities of being asked to draw a picture. (Again, why? Why always the pictures?) The Maths however, will be awesome, and LittleBear is amazing, and brilliant, and Mummy must come and see how brilliant he is. Until he makes a mistake, and then he's an idiot, and the stupidest child in the world, and he's never doing another Maths question ever again, and he's going back to bed. It's a real rollercoaster in Maths lessons round here.

Having recovered from the Maths, and forgotten that the History even happened, and had another penalty shoot-out with Mummy, it's lunch-time. A chance to wonder which permutation of bread and cheese we're having today. Or to quote one of my colleagues, "I'm bored of bread and cheese, I think I'll have pizza today..."

English after lunch. Though only after some more penalties. It's important LittleBear keeps proving his superiority over his mother. LittleBear starts the English lesson video, but the volume on this particular video is strangely loud, and Mummy can't really think straight when someone's yelling about fronted adverbials. And then LittleBear starts bleating because he's going to have to write an entire paragraph. The horror. Mummy goes to assist, but the desk is a bomb-site with pens and paper everywhere after the History-or-is-it-Art lesson. Vexed by noise, Mummy tries to clear up, but the colouring pens fall down the back of the desk. So Mummy yells at the pens. And at the computer, which is shouting back about prepositional clauses, and at LittleBear who is sitting looking bewildered. Then the books that were teetering in a heap, biggest book on top, slump sideways across the desk, knocking the pen pot over and Mummy picks up the biggest book and hurls it on the floor in a rage.

Then LittleBear is crying, and Mummy is crying and someone is still banging on about time connectives and powerful adjectives. Eventually English is paused, and Mummy and LittleBear are cuddling in a chair, and we're all sorry, and we eat chocolate together until we feel better. It's never too early to teach a child that eating chocolate is a useful emotional crutch is it?

Eventually, English is resumed at a lower volume, and LittleBear only requires "someone in your household" to discuss things with three times in an eleven minute video. And then another twenty-five minutes of help planning before he can tackle the forty minutes of writing it takes him to complete the twenty minute task. 

But in that forty minutes, only interrupted twice by complaints of, "my hand is too tired to write," and a few penalties to limber up again, Mummy has a chance to discover that she made a mistake in her own work right back at the start of the History lesson, and that all the subsequent work done today is based on one error and will therefore have to be thrown away. Because Mummy is also working from home, and it's going swimmingly. Just as Mummy begins to get into the zone of sorting out the design monstrosity she's unleashed, the English is finished, the school day is over and it's time to play with LittleBear.

Which I do. Because I love him to the moon and back, and I'm a shit teacher, but I can at least try not to also be a shit mother once school is over for the day. I don't always succeed, but at least I'm trying, which is all any of us can ever really say. 

And even though most of the above is mostly true, it's not always all of that all of the time. In fact, compared to many, LittleBear is an angel, and works hard, and tries his best. And the school have done an outstanding job of providing video lessons and it is infinitely easier to get LittleBear to do the work when he has to submit it to his teacher and there's the tantalising prospect of a star in return, compared to the soul-destroying trudge last year of working and working and the only people who saw the work were his parents. And BigBear takes charge of French and Art, and anything else we decide he'll enjoy, and he sorts out the day's Variation On Bread And Cheese. And he gets his share of penalty shoot-outs as well. So we're doing as well as anyone. But I don't have anything else to write about.