graduation

July 20th 2012. Graduation Day. Truly one of those "once in a blue moon" sort of days.

A day we thought would never come.

It was a day of euphoria for me and my family. Rightly so. We had come so far together, overcome so many difficulties.

I can remember on the day being washed along in a tide of immense and deep founded joy: the relief at having finally finished, the pride of achieving First Class Honours, the fun of swishing about town in my billowing gown, the support of my parents who helped me to get there, the encouragement of my big brother and sister who had blazed the trail long before me.

Now when I think back to that day, the thing that makes me happiest is to look at the picture above, to see myself, almost indistinguishable in the crowd. Sat beside my peers, not in a room all on my own.

For once looking normal, just like everyone else.

en attendant le bain

J'ignore completement combien de temps j'attends le bain. Un mois? Un an? Plutôt seize...

Mais je sais ça fait longtemps. 

Malgré l'espoir que pourrait evoquer le terme français pour les soins-thermaux pour une anglaise - une cure - je sais qu'il ne s'agira pas d'une guérison spectaculaire. 

Mais n'empeche que ça va me faire du bien. D'être soigné. D'être écouté. Comprise. Accepté.

La semaine prochaine, ce sera le jour-J. 

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I don't exactly know how long I've been waiting for something. Anything. A month? A year? More like sixteen...

Despite the French name - "la cure" - I know a month in thermal water won't cure me. But it might make me feel a little better. To finally be taken care of. To be listened to. Understood. Accepted.

Next week will be D-Day.

Tarbes / Jardin Massey

Etre assis assis sur un banc public avec mon amoureux. Un pique-nique à l'improviste pour fêter le début de nos vacances d'été. Entourés de cedres de Liban, le cri des paons et le soleil qui est revenu. Si on fermait les yeux une minute, on se croirait dans un pays etranger...

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Sat on a park bench with my sweetheart. Enjoying a picnic thrown together at the last moment. Celebrating the start of our summer holiday. Surrounded by Cedar trees, the sound of peacocks and the sun which has decided to come back. You'd think we were in a far off land, if you close your eyes for just a moment...

de retour

L'hibernation a du bon mais l'appel de l'été...

Et hop, on reviens des vacances. Dix jours en tandem avec mon cheri...et à plus de douze en même temps. C'était à la fois fatigant et revigorant, rassurant et "deboussolant"...mais surtout très lumineux.

Il y a eu beaucoup de route et donc beaucoup de découvertes. 

Il y a eu du soleil et des averses, des couchers de soleil merveileux et la serenité de la  pleine lune.

Il y a eu un très joli mariage, des envies de toujours et des bonheurs en construction.

Et au retour à la maison, il y a eu l'envie plus que jamais de prendre les choses en main et essayer de façonner la vie que l'on voudrais vivre.

La (douce) parenthèse est finie ... et je me réjouis aussi de revenir par ici. 

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Hibernating is all very well, but who can resist the lure of the summer...?

So here we are, back from our holiday. Ten days spent side by side with my dearest...and with more than twelve other souls at the same time! The trip was both exhausting and invigorating, reassuring and disorientation...but very, very wonderful. 

There was plenty of travelling and so plenty of new things to discover.

There was sunshine and sudden downpours, glorious sunsets and the gentle peace of the full moon.  

There was a most lovely wedding, with wishes of happily ever afters and promises of future happiness to be built together. 

And when we got back home, there was a strong desire to take the bull by the horns and really try to start slowly crafting the life we, I, want to live. 

The brief pause is over...and I'm very glad to be scribbling back here.

hibernation

I feel a bit like I've spent the last lingering weeks of spring and the reluctant start of summer in hibernation.

The past few weeks have been quite intense, yet also very revealing. Since getting back to France my general state of well-being seemed to take a bit of a dip...which then turned into a nose-dive through June. 

Fatigue but also a whole heap of other symptoms means that it was important for me to prioritise rest and really look after myself. I've ended up deliberately going into hibernation by taking to my bed and rarely going out for the past few weeks.

Thankfully after months of feeling very bemused by the apparant lack of recognition, understanding and support for my illness (M.E./CFS) since moving to France, we've tried a new GP with an enquiring, problem solving mind. After much questioning, prodding and poking, she's pinpointed another condition - Fibromylagia - as the root of my current dip in well-being.

For the time being, I need to rest up and take some time to really be kind to myself, continue eating wholesome, organic, gluten and dairy free food, as much oily fish as possible and get out in the sun whenever I can. In the meantime, she's organising a five week course of specialised treatment just up the valley at our local thermal station.

Apparently it might take quite a while for me to start getting properly back on my feet again. But I must admit that it's an enormous relief to finally know what has been going on, and that finally perhaps the French don't collectively think I am a malade imaginaire  after all...

So for the time being, I shall be taking a brief hiatus from writing here. We are off tomorrow for a gentle adventure across the south of France to go to my dear friend's wedding next weekend. And I'm sure I'll need some time to recover quietly and slowly once we are back in our green mountains...

A très bientôt!

living without

Casting my eyes over the plate I see a colourful landscape - the steamed courgettes, the quinoa and split peas, the nuts and the seeds, the buckwheat and chestnut flour bread. Not an ounce of meat. Not a grain of wheat. Not a drop of milk.

Not so long ago, I wouldn't have thought it possible to make something so delicious with so many missing ingredients. Whilst we've eaten pretty much vegetarian for over four and a half years and our diet has never been heavily reliant on processed items, we had a handful of ingredients that always made the top spot on the weekly menu.

And so we've been exploring different ways of living and eating, starting by abandoning those French staples of bread and cheese.

Three months ago, we decided to finally take the plunge and see whether living without gluten and dairy would make living with M.E./CFS and Fibromyalgia any easier. We decided to overhaul our diet not so much in the hope of a cure but rather as a conscious decision to choose a path of food as nourishment, possibly even medicine.

The initial fallout, both physical and mental, was not pleasant as our bodies readjusted. Without the shop bought cakes or biscuits when the afternoon energy dip came, I had to reach once more for a piece of fruit or a handful of nuts.

Breakfast time was initially the hardest and I cursed as food preparation became laborious. I felt especially burdened by the lack of ingredients, choices and alternatives available to us here, halfway up a mountain. Gluten and dairy free products are not as developed or easily available here as in the UK elsewhere and so for a few weeks we were having to make everything from scratch. In order to keep the fire of change burning, we expanded our modest library of wholefoods literature. And most importantly, we kept talking.

It certainly has been a time of much reflection and discussion.

To be continued...

se mouiller les pieds [vallon de la Glère]

On est tout juste au début de juillet et pourtant, on se croirait du nouveau en mars - la semaine n'a été que pluie, vent et giboulées. Et puis voilà. Depuis ce matin, le soleil est revenu avec intensité, une force qui réchauffe la vallée et le coeur. On avait qu'un seul envie, préparer un pique nique et manger au bord d'un torrent...et bien sur, se mouiller les pieds dans l'eau glaciale après! 

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We're already at the start of July and yet you'd think it was actually March - we've had nothing but rain, wind and sudden downpours all week. And then voilà! This morning the sun returned, shining brightly, warming up the valley and raising the spirits considerably. There was only one thing for it: prepare a picnic and go and eat beside a raging mountain stream...if only to have a quick paddle in the icy waters after lunch!

overdoing it

It had become a familiar pattern. At least once a week I'd miss one of my morning or afternoon resting slots, choosing to begin a new project or lingering on a task instead. Often this missed rest slot would pass unnoticed and I'd feel a secret inner feeling of glee as I was able to carry on regardless. "See, no need for resting after all. What a waste of time..."

Often it started with one missed rest. But then the following day, I'd skip all rests. And perhaps do an hour or two too much of teaching. Or "forget" to go to bed early. Other times, I'd "forget" I needed to turn the computer off after dinner and slowly wind my body and mind down ready for bed. This would then of course throw my whole rhyme out of kilter, muck up my sleep pattern and make me become exhausted and anxious.

The new doctor is of course right. 

Somehow, I must break this cycle.

Somehow, I must slow down.
Somehow, I must learn to listen to my body again.

It's just that for some strange reason, in my mind listening to my body equals acceptance of the situation, which somehow suggests giving in to this bothersome illness.

{Yummy organic veggies from the weekly farmer's market}

a diagnosis

Early July.

Am sat in the doctor's consulting room, a swarm of butterflies fluttering around my stomach. On my lap, a pile of tangled threads, my knitting lies forgotten. In my hand, I grip the piece of paper in my hand tightly. In the years I've been sick, I've never particularly liked going to the doctor. It's even harder doing it in French. 

I'm beckoned into the consulting room and the doctor takes the blood test results from my hands, scanning them quickly with a knowing eye. I'm invited to hop up onto the bed, where she proceeds to take my blood pressure, before poking and prodding me in a variety of places on my body. Some illicit a dull ache, whilst others are particularly tender under the pressure from her fingers. She signals for me to return to my chair opposite her. She taps away at the computer for a few moments before asking me questions about my sleep patterns, energy levels and general feelings of well-being.

If you are British and you've never had the pleasure of going to the Doctor in French before, remind yourself what it felt like taking your French GCSE oral exam. Except that the symptoms you are describing are real (and in the case of M.E./CFS, the brain fog can make your thinking less than clear), not icons on a printed examination card, and the person you are talking to is both your local GP, not your French teacher.

Because after struggling to find any support, medical or otherwise, for the past two years, I finally dragged myself out of the house to try a new doctor earlier this afternoon. I went into the surgery a nonchalant English girl with a self-diagnosed M.E./CFS relapse, convinced all she needed was some bed rest and a lemsip.

Forty-five minutes later, I emerged from le cabinet medical looking just that little bit more gallic thanks to a confirmation of Syndrome de Fatigue Chronique, a diagnosis of Fibromylagie...and crucially, a list of prescriptions as long as my arm...including "une cure".

{Photos from a barefoot walk up at the plateau de Saugé, early July 2013}

plateau de Cayan

The storm is still some way off when we arrive at the crag. Storm clouds race across the sky between the summits and the heat is oppressive down here amongst the pine trees. Our friends rope up and I settle myself down and unpack my mobile workshop: carders, fleece, spindle. All around me, the forest is inviting: the pine trees, the black woodpeckers and the wild orchids. Just like that. 

I extend my arm, take a few locks of fleece and carefully tease them apart, picking out the debris as I work and letting it fall to the forest floors. Then I carefully brush them with my carders before making a stumpy rolag of fleece. 

Then the skies open and thick rain drops start to fall. I pack up everything and escape the impending storm, arriving at the nearby refuge quicker than the climbers. 

I don't think I'll ever tire of these summer days spent outside in the forests and the meadows.

homeshore (hand-spun)

Have been feeling a tad homesick of late, longing for the sea and missing the pull of the tide on both sides of the channel. 

I wanted to create a yarn to remind me of the swell of the sea, the salty spray, flotsam and jetsom washed up by the tide...

So I took some pre-dyed carded wool batt that I had rescued a long time ago from the local woollen blanket producer  La Carde here in the valley. The fibres are far too short and jumbled to spin with, but they seemed perfect as "neps" to create a flecked yarn. I pulled apart tufts of the carded blue fibres and blended these neps into my main fibre supply during the carding process. 

The finished rolags were then spun using the woolen-spun method, as this helped to lock the short flecks into the yarn. Plying together normally in the S direction until balanced also helped to further lock the tufts into the yarn. 

I ended up with 29g of 2 ply yarn, which when knitted up into a tension square gave a wonderfully textured, heathered effect.

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"Homeshore"

Ingredients: 25g of prepared natural wool and a small amount of pre-dyed, carded wool, prepared into tufts. 

Quantity: 28g giving around 49m of finished yarn.

chestnut husks (natural dyed)

In the kitchen, the scent of freshly brewed coffee hung in the air. On the hob, the chestnuts are simmering happily. We rest our tired legs under the table and from the window we can see the billowing clouds hanging low in the valley.

The timer buzzes and drags me from my revery. The chestnuts are done, my coffee cup is empty. It's time to dye some yarn...

I prepare the dye bath as I would if I were to use walnut shells. I boil the shells for about an hour to obtain the dye bath, removing the husks and adding a good dose of white vinegar once the concoction had cooled a little. Then I plunge a skein of damp yarn into the saucepan.

After bringing it once more to the boil, I gently simmer the bath for over an hour. Once the water has sufficiently cooled, I rinse the skein in luke warm water (to avoid felting!) until the water runs clear. 

I'm left with a fabulously smelling skein of yarn in a warm brown tone. I'm rather pleased by the results of my first attempt at natural dyeing...and can't wait to get something onto the needles!  

that old chestnut

After many days of sunshine, we wake to a rather overcast Sunday. The chill in the air is accompanied by gentle rain showers. We pull on a jumper and decide to go with it, pretending it is Autumn rather than early Summer. 

We remember a kilo of foraged chestnuts, lying dormant in the freezer since late autumn. We turn on the radio, take out our pen knives and set to work, side by side.

 

No matter what method you use, preparing foraged chestnuts is always a labour of love. We tend to chill (or freeze) them first for at least an hour before starting. Using a strong, sharp knife, we cut them in half from top to bottom. Then we plunge them into boiling water for about ten minutes before draining and removing the nuts with a paring knife. It helps to keep the nuts warm as we work, as this helps the skins to come off. Once all the nuts are skinned, they then go back into a saucepan covered with water to simmer for about half an hour until tender. 

As we tend to eat mainly vegetarian (and at the moment without both gluten and dairy products too!) chestnuts are one of our favourite wild ingredients. Unlike other nuts, they are lower in oil and protein but higher in starch, which makes them a useful addition to cakes and savoury loaves, including our favourite wild chestnut and mushroom loaf from our French Vegetarian cookery bible: Ma cuisine végétarienne pour tous les jours by Garance Leureux (Editions La Plage). 

500g of wild chestnuts in their skins will yield about 350g once prepared. And what to do with all those left over husks...?

letting go

If my eyes follow the lines of my arm as it extends beyond my body, they arrive at my hands. Both closed tightly.

If I were to peek into one of the hands, inside I would see everyone and everything I hold dear; my family, my beloved, my friends. But also my personal successes, big and small, my precious memories. 

Now if I were to examine the other hand, I'd see the fingers are clenched so tightly over into the palm, the knuckles are almost white. In this hand sit my life-long and more recent dreams. My secret longings, my most bitter jealousies. My joys but also my sadnesses. My hopes for the future but also my present despair.

With my fingers of both hands wrapped so tightly around these, I can open neither my hands nor my heart to anything else. As if I'd somehow loose myself if I dared to offer them up.

All that I hold in both these hands are part of me. I guard them jealously, unwilling to let them go. And yet.

No one is asking me to let go of my loved ones. No one can take away all that I have achieved. But perhaps I am hanging on too tightly to the other stuff?

If only somehow I could have the courage to loosen my grip, to let go of one handful? Then one day I would wake to find an open palm resting by my side, free to be filled with other possibilities. 

midsummer light (hand-spun)

Last night I sat in our town square spinning, watching the daylight drain away. The evening was balmy, the mountains alive with the sound of music. Hoards of people gathered around me, mesmerised by the turning of the wheel like moths drawn to a flame. Some were locals, some were strangers. But on an evening like that, those distinctions were irrelevant. We all felt the midsummer light on our skin. We were all equally a part of that moment.

 

As I sat there spinning, the sky darkened and a faint star blinked beyond the blue. It was after ten o'clock when I stopped spinning, but I didn’t want to go back inside.

 

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"Midsummer light"

Ingredients: 55g of washed and carded wool, naturally dyed "in the fleece" with curcuma. (The fibre used was white Barégeoise fleece from Gèdre.)

Spinning: Two singles spun from all rolags in the Z direction, using the woollen technique.  

Plying: two singles plied in the S direction until balanced. 

Finishing: Wound off into a skein, washed and dried weighted to set the ply.

Quantity: 55g giving 118m of finished yarn

snakes and ladders

 The occupational therapists called it "boom and bust". I prefer to think of it as "snakes and ladders". 

When I moved over into that other place, the land of the sick, I became a player in a never ending game of snakes and ladders. Some days I jog along fine, seemingly unaffected. From time to time an obstacle blocks my path but by dogged determination and perseverance, somehow I overcome. All the time, I'm moving forward. Perhaps a little behind my fellow players. But I'm advancing all the same. 

There are even days, sometimes months, when as if by magic the universe seems to roll me double sixes and I shoot up ladder after ladder without a backward glance. It seems like I'm on the cusp of winning and I can hardly believe my luck.

Then all of a sudden I glance down the path and there's a gurt big snake sunning itself in my way. Before I know it, I slide all the way back down its slimy back and find myself further back from where I started.


When these setbacks occur, as they inevitably do, it's hard to not regress back to childhood and behave like a toddler. You want to sulk and have a tantrum. You wish you were playing a different game. You're angry that everyone around you seems to be doing better than you in their game, having more fun. You shout and bang your fists, hoping to knock their counters off the board but this only serves to set you back even further. 

Of course, there is another way. Instead of being a bad looser and spoiling things further, you can keep your calm, pick up the dice and roll again...

after the flood

I'm starting to realise that to belong to a place means that you feel tender toward it, even if you were not born there. You are concerned for its welfare. When you return to this place after an absence short or great, you are surprised by the feelings it evokes in you. You were not aware that you missed it, but you did.

The little things you notice now, the steady transformation of the hillside from grey to green in the spring time, the wild lillies that wave in the summer breeze, those two motorists whose stopping in the middle of the road causes a traffic jam whilst they catch up with one another (and this doesn’t irritate you because sometimes you do it too), the antics of the neighbours cat in the street, the chiming of the church bell in the dead of night - all  of these familiars are made precious by repetition and knowledge.

And that view from the bridge of the water below, it still brings a gasp of delight. But to feel the pulse of those waters also drags up memories of last year, when the waters were a deluge rather than a trickle. 

Does the fact of having lived through that event - when the waters ripped our valley apart and we were cut off from the rest of the world for three days - does the fact that I too have a memory of that time mean that we now belong here?

Then as now -  a year after the flood - we were all there together on this earth. And we were all left hurting, earth and people combined. Some of us were locals, many of us outsiders. But for the time of the flood, those distinctions were irrelevant. We all felt the same fear and sadness. We were all soothed when the waters subsided and we felt the warm sun on our faces once again. We were all equally a part of this place, because we all lived through the flood.

busy hands

We're now back in our valley home, after a few weeks away. Lately, fatigue has been becoming more and more a heavy weight around my neck. Not the everyday tiredness that comes from leading a hectic life. Nor the Sunday morning sluggishness and lethargy be-known to students brought on by one too many sugary cups of coffee, frequent late nights or not enough fresh vegetables. Rather an exhaustion that greets you when you wake in the morning, that a good night sleep won't lift. A tiredness so consuming it seeps into your bones, that could drain away all happiness if you let it do so.

Just a few short months ago, I was a teacher and translator. Working for myself from home. Weaving together words and untangling muddled syntax. It feels like another life ago. I've been off work since March, too ill to work. And as this current rough seems to be showing no sign of abating, looks like I'll be taking the rest of the summer off too.

As we try to navigate our way back to that path of wellness, my days have been stripped back to the essential. Eating wholesome food. Fresh air. Long sleeps. Deep breaths.

Foraging in the woods helps. Picnics in the sunshine helps. Spending time with friends helps. And above all, keeping my hands busy helps.