Winter 2022, Halton, near Lancaster
As the other letters come in, it reminds me how much I enjoy reading them – so here is mine (not an annual event but I hope it will help pass the time)
2022 started with a ‘writing retreat’ in the wild south west lake district village of Haverigg. I’ve been doing some memoir writing courses this year, and I was enjoying spending an unusually quiet time in the first half of the year researching my own life for this piece of writing, It included getting my diaries back from the British Museum-led Great Diary Project (!) and employing the services of a shorthand reading consultant for what turned out to be a very embarrassing piece of consultancy for both her and me. (I studied shorthand in 1972, I wrote the diaries we’re talking about in 1994, but by 2022 my shorthand reading skills had deteriorated somewhat....).
There is of course a longer story behind all this, which I’ll be happy to tell you in person if/when we get to meet face to face if I haven’t told you already ....
So right through to June 2022 I was spending ten or twelve hours a week writing, and had already booked two writing retreats for the summer, one in a village in central France and one in a cultural centre in Greece (very highly recommended by the way, each apartment with its own piano!)
But then something happened to derail the writing plans...
We started to hear some very disturbing news from our musician friends Sian and Paul in Lancaster, about Sian’s brother Dom Phillips, an environmental journalist who’d been up to visit us at Lancaster Cohousing last year, and his colleague and travelling companion and guide, Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira, who were missing in Brazilian Amazonia where Dom was researching a book about sustainable solutions to the problems of the rainforest.
And after some weeks, it became clear that the worst possible outcome had happened; their bodies were found, and funerals were held in Brazil for both men. I watched Sian speak out at her brother’s funeral – I must have watched it 20 times. During the pandemic I had become a Zoom expert. And I’ve always organised complicated events programmes – like a series of online concerts in 2021 to raise money for local musicians (including Sian) who’d lost all their work in the pandemic, and for local refugee projects. So this time I decided that I would try and organise an exhibition and some activities in Lancaster – and online – to support Sian and her family to achieve their mission of telling her brother’s urgent story now he was no longer around to tell it.
With Sian’s backing, my colleague Alison Cahn at Halton Mill (a local event and coworking space that i used to help run) masterminded a fantastic exhibition about Dom and Bruno and the Amazon – which goes on show at the NUJ offices in central London in January, after a month’s run at Halton Mill during November. We had national press coverage for our activities and our launch was a sellout.
The city council, the university, and lots of other Lancaster venues joined in our month of activities. We cohosted an international conference. There was a photography exhibition, an art exhibition, a quiz, films, a dance event, online talks .... and we’re planning a masterclass for young film makers and investigative journalists. See it all at www.haltonmill.org.uk/DomBruno . I’ve learned a lot and am changing a lot of the way I think and act because of all this. And it all meant that my writing retreat in France went by the wayside, and my retreat in Greece turned into a week of fulltime organisation....
It isn’t very seasonal, is it. But it IS an account of my year.
In other, family news....
We have a new family member – Gracie Roisín was born in March, my niece Gilly is the most wonderful joyful attentive mum, she moved into my sister’s house and Lynn is a very patient and loving grandma, happily doing all the washing and cooking.... Anna was particularly looking forward to the first Christmas with a new baby in the house - the photo is Christmas at Lynn's, with Anna, my nieces and great niece, my sister and me (Christmas exactly coinciding with Chanukah this year, for the first time for ages).
Anna’s having a ball this year... she’s been working for Soho House in London for a few years now, got promoted from reception and travel assistant to event producer, and has been managing glittering events all over Europe this year, and really enjoying it. In September she moved in with her gorgeous boyfriend Elliot, who’s an engineer in renewable energy .... and they MIGHT be going to the US next year with their respective jobs... we’re waiting to see what happens.
And in late news, we have just said goodbye to our lovely cat Harriet, family companion to Anna and me since 2002 – she died at home this week, after three days on the sofa watching telly and being stroked by the people who loved her. Sad days.
2022, a quiet retirement? I don’t think so. But definitely rewarding. I still play music in local pub sessions from time to time, went to a very lovely Bath City Morris reunion weekend in May when I danced as well as played – though my sciatica has come back recently; i have travelled all over the country calling Klezmer dances.... from Blackpool to Salford to Dorchester anyway – and went on two trips with a great project called ‘Sessions and Sail’, a tall ship full of musicians sailing round beautiful places in Scotland and Ireland – the first trip was Orkney to Barra in the outer Hebrides, the second was Donegal to Oban. Truly spectacular and wonderful. Here's a little video from @sessionandsail's twitter account. And Barra was the first place I’d ever been where I heard Scottish Gallic spoken ‘in the wild’ as it were. Fascinating to connect with the Indigenous people of Britain in that way.
No idea what’ll be happening in 2023: thinking about South and North America, possibly by containership, in 2024. But who knows! Please consider yourself invited to come and visit my beautiful riverside eco-cohousing project, and/or please invite me to your neighbourhood, or to meet up with you somewhere beautiful.....
I'm off to Ambleside for a few days at the beginning of January to see if I can start writing again, and have FINALLY got this done in time to go after lots of drafts .... Wishing you a good year
Lots of love,
Fiona
As the other letters come in, it reminds me how much I enjoy reading them – so here is mine (not an annual event but I hope it will help pass the time)
2022 started with a ‘writing retreat’ in the wild south west lake district village of Haverigg. I’ve been doing some memoir writing courses this year, and I was enjoying spending an unusually quiet time in the first half of the year researching my own life for this piece of writing, It included getting my diaries back from the British Museum-led Great Diary Project (!) and employing the services of a shorthand reading consultant for what turned out to be a very embarrassing piece of consultancy for both her and me. (I studied shorthand in 1972, I wrote the diaries we’re talking about in 1994, but by 2022 my shorthand reading skills had deteriorated somewhat....).
There is of course a longer story behind all this, which I’ll be happy to tell you in person if/when we get to meet face to face if I haven’t told you already ....
So right through to June 2022 I was spending ten or twelve hours a week writing, and had already booked two writing retreats for the summer, one in a village in central France and one in a cultural centre in Greece (very highly recommended by the way, each apartment with its own piano!)
But then something happened to derail the writing plans...
We started to hear some very disturbing news from our musician friends Sian and Paul in Lancaster, about Sian’s brother Dom Phillips, an environmental journalist who’d been up to visit us at Lancaster Cohousing last year, and his colleague and travelling companion and guide, Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira, who were missing in Brazilian Amazonia where Dom was researching a book about sustainable solutions to the problems of the rainforest.
And after some weeks, it became clear that the worst possible outcome had happened; their bodies were found, and funerals were held in Brazil for both men. I watched Sian speak out at her brother’s funeral – I must have watched it 20 times. During the pandemic I had become a Zoom expert. And I’ve always organised complicated events programmes – like a series of online concerts in 2021 to raise money for local musicians (including Sian) who’d lost all their work in the pandemic, and for local refugee projects. So this time I decided that I would try and organise an exhibition and some activities in Lancaster – and online – to support Sian and her family to achieve their mission of telling her brother’s urgent story now he was no longer around to tell it.
With Sian’s backing, my colleague Alison Cahn at Halton Mill (a local event and coworking space that i used to help run) masterminded a fantastic exhibition about Dom and Bruno and the Amazon – which goes on show at the NUJ offices in central London in January, after a month’s run at Halton Mill during November. We had national press coverage for our activities and our launch was a sellout.
The city council, the university, and lots of other Lancaster venues joined in our month of activities. We cohosted an international conference. There was a photography exhibition, an art exhibition, a quiz, films, a dance event, online talks .... and we’re planning a masterclass for young film makers and investigative journalists. See it all at www.haltonmill.org.uk/DomBruno . I’ve learned a lot and am changing a lot of the way I think and act because of all this. And it all meant that my writing retreat in France went by the wayside, and my retreat in Greece turned into a week of fulltime organisation....
It isn’t very seasonal, is it. But it IS an account of my year.
In other, family news....
We have a new family member – Gracie Roisín was born in March, my niece Gilly is the most wonderful joyful attentive mum, she moved into my sister’s house and Lynn is a very patient and loving grandma, happily doing all the washing and cooking.... Anna was particularly looking forward to the first Christmas with a new baby in the house - the photo is Christmas at Lynn's, with Anna, my nieces and great niece, my sister and me (Christmas exactly coinciding with Chanukah this year, for the first time for ages).
Anna’s having a ball this year... she’s been working for Soho House in London for a few years now, got promoted from reception and travel assistant to event producer, and has been managing glittering events all over Europe this year, and really enjoying it. In September she moved in with her gorgeous boyfriend Elliot, who’s an engineer in renewable energy .... and they MIGHT be going to the US next year with their respective jobs... we’re waiting to see what happens.
And in late news, we have just said goodbye to our lovely cat Harriet, family companion to Anna and me since 2002 – she died at home this week, after three days on the sofa watching telly and being stroked by the people who loved her. Sad days.
2022, a quiet retirement? I don’t think so. But definitely rewarding. I still play music in local pub sessions from time to time, went to a very lovely Bath City Morris reunion weekend in May when I danced as well as played – though my sciatica has come back recently; i have travelled all over the country calling Klezmer dances.... from Blackpool to Salford to Dorchester anyway – and went on two trips with a great project called ‘Sessions and Sail’, a tall ship full of musicians sailing round beautiful places in Scotland and Ireland – the first trip was Orkney to Barra in the outer Hebrides, the second was Donegal to Oban. Truly spectacular and wonderful. Here's a little video from @sessionandsail's twitter account. And Barra was the first place I’d ever been where I heard Scottish Gallic spoken ‘in the wild’ as it were. Fascinating to connect with the Indigenous people of Britain in that way.
No idea what’ll be happening in 2023: thinking about South and North America, possibly by containership, in 2024. But who knows! Please consider yourself invited to come and visit my beautiful riverside eco-cohousing project, and/or please invite me to your neighbourhood, or to meet up with you somewhere beautiful.....
I'm off to Ambleside for a few days at the beginning of January to see if I can start writing again, and have FINALLY got this done in time to go after lots of drafts .... Wishing you a good year
Lots of love,
Fiona
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