8th-14th december

Hey everyone,

I hope you are all well… we’ve well and truly entered cough and cold season in London and I have been a bit under the weather to be honest. But we made it through and term is officially over! Hooray!!!!! Time to sleep.

But before that, here’s my week:

When I wrote my musical wrapped last week I forgot to mention one hugely important aspect - live music! I’ve only been to a couple of gigs this year but they were absolutely amazing. First of all, Leeds, where I saw Chappell Roan and Hozier live:

Singing (screaming?) Chappell’s songs with a crowd of thousands was so much better than listening to an album alone ever was. It really does hit different to hear them live, and also to appreciate the skill involved in being able to belt at the top of her lungs while also dancing around the entire stage. Hozier, meanwhile - I only really started to listen to his songs this year when I knew I’d be seeing him at Leeds, but likewise among a crowd swaying along and taking them in, they became so much more powerful. I teared up several times especially as he sang Eat Your Young, an anti-war song, illustrated by a backdrop depicting the amount of money spent on waging war both in the UK and across the world.

Then this week began with a trip out to see The Last Dinner Party, who released their excellent album From The Pyre back in October. Like I mentioned last week it took me a while to get into the album, but it truly came into its own live at the Brixton Academy (which by the way is the most fabulous, over-the-top building!). Abigail, the lead singer, said it didn’t really feel complete until they performed it, and I concur. They’re such a theatrical band which lends itself so well to live performances that I was stood there wondering why they aren’t doing arenas yet. I’ll be shocked if their next tour doesn’t include dates at the O2! Best of all, the night was filmed in its entirety by a professional crew, so you can all enjoy that when it comes out rather than relying on my terrible filming skills. Roll photos!

Bring on seeing Florence & The Machine (and Paris Paloma!) live in February. I can’t wait!

My lovely friend Kathy (hi Kathy!) invited me ages ago to come and visit her in St Albans, and the stars finally aligned for me to go on Thursday! I was there under the pretense of participating in her research, but we managed to fit in all sorts. First on the itinerary was a trip to the city museum - who knew that an unassuming little city in Hertfordshire had history dating back to the Iron Age? Apparently the locals welcomed the Romans and away they went. Also, at this museum there was a cafe in an old courtroom (a bit of an assault course with the narrow aisles), and a slightly creepy and very tiny crypt underneath where they used to keep the prisoners.

Then we wandered around the city centre, admiring the seasonal lights and adorable knitted and crocheted postbox toppers, a project headed up by a lovely lady called Candy who holds a Guinness World Record for her work on them! After that we headed for lunch at a cute Italian bakery called Baruccio, where we had some delicious focaccia sandwiches. The guy working there was so lovely!

And thennnnn (yes there’s more!) we went around St Albans Cathedral, which is named after St Alban, the first English Christian martyr killed for his faith during the Roman era. The cathedral is absolutely vast and officially the longest nave (main hall) in England. It’s also a hodgepodge of parts built in different eras which was really interesting to look around - some of it is medieval, some is gothic, much of it is some kind of combination. I bet carol services absolutely slap in here, speaking of live music. It also felt so light and airy compared to the cathedral in Chester, my home city, which is quite dark on account of being built from sandstone. To be honest I also just haven’t seen many cathedrals for a while after being away in Japan! They’re completely different to the vibe at shrines and temples.

And finally we headed to Kathy’s house, a little cottage owned by the cathedral, for the main event - an interview talking about my experiences of arts and culture growing up in the UK, and my interactions with cultural institutions like museums, art galleries, concert halls, and so on. It was really cool to be on the participant side of research for once and talk about something you don’t normally get to talk about! It definitely made me want to get more into playing music again (rather than just listening) after it was such a big part of my life growing up. A new year’s resolution perhaps??

So Friday came along, I was exhausted & full of cold (I think my cold came back around for round 2?) but I managed to finish my classes! I put some Christmas music on while we had a nice chill end of term reflection on what had come before, which is conveniently the theme of the essay questions they need to answer in January. And by 1pm I was free as a bird, so… I went to see the second installment Wicked in the cinema!

I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect (the relentless advertising has annoyed me… even my phone asked if I wanted a Wicked theme to which the answer is obviously nooooo what the heck are you doing trying to get me to change my personal computer to free advertising?!?!?!) but I was pleasantly surprised. I came to it without knowing how it would end, and thinking about the political situation in the US and the world, and I found the questions it posed about whether to flee, to stay and fight, to fight from the inside or outside of ‘the system’ etc were quite thought-provoking. I’m actually still not sure what the answer is. Maybe the point is that everyone has their own role to play according to their means and skills.

After a nice long sleep Saturday rolled around and I went Christmas shopping in Stoke Newington again. A lovely chilled afternoon was had enjoying the (weak) sunshine and looking around maker’s markets and ceramics studios. And I took photos this time!

And then the plot twist I didn’t have on my bingo card for the year! I got home and discovered that the allegedly qualified installers of our new gas hob had somehow left a gas leak!!

Yes you read that right. After some rumblings about strange smells on the house group chat I walked through the door and was walloped in the face by the smell of GAS. Bearing in mind our kitchen is down a hallway and a set of stairs from our front door and usually smells don’t travel that far. That’s bad news!

After a good 15 minutes of taking nice big lungfuls to check that it was indeed gas I was smelling (in hindsight, don’t do this, trust your instincts) it was time to fling open the doors and windows and call the emergency gas line. Yayyyyyy. Thankfully I knew exactly what to do because this was actually not my first rodeo. I lived in an unlicensed HMO a few years ago where the handyman took it upon himself to do some gas work for funsies, and lo and behold he caused a gas leak. But somehow it happened again, despite the company this time being gas safe registered, and this time it was a much bigger leak. When the emergency gas man came (in half an hour flat) he confirmed that we did the right thing to call it in, that it was a big ol’ gas leak, and actually, if we’d left it overnight it could’ve been bad. Needless to say he turned everything off! Thanks Darren the emergency gas man, you were much calmer than me.

It turned out that the cowboy installers had a) not even bothered to turn the gas off before unplugging the old cooker, b) didn’t do any of the checks they were supposed to do to make sure they hadn’t created a leak, c) didn’t say a word to my housemates at all to explain what they were doing, and d) left some really dodgy pipework that was “pouring out gas”. Madness. I’m trying not to think about what could’ve been but they literally put our lives in danger - just because they couldn’t be bothered? Anyway needless to say my bureaucratic spidey senses are tingling and there will be some excellent paperwork filed over this, mark my words.

Thankfully all was made well and today we managed to find a proper gas engineer to come out today and fix the damn thing (and also give us back our heating and hot water). His service was excellent, in stark contrast to the previous lot, and he clearly explained in detail what the problem was, everything he did to fix it, and what to look out for in future gas engineers. He even set the clock properly on the new oven and got our ancient boiler back online. Thanks Dave from N4 Gas, you legend.

So some gas safety tips, to recap:

Thankfully, all’s well that ends well, and we’re all good now. Today we were planning on cooking a flat Christmas dinner but, uh, that wasn’t exactly possible, so there was only one thing for it… TO THE PUB!

What a week! It didn’t go how I thought it would at all but we made it. In one piece. And for that I am grateful.

Have a lovely week,

Stella x