It was there that I discovered the magic that is Pumpkin Soup.

I knew that pumpkins were edible before that, of course, but I'd never had any idea what to do with one, should I have attempted a purchase, never mind whether or not I'd actually like it.

It was with a touch of trepidation (and the escargot incident firmly in mind) that I stood in that kitchen, surrounded by boisterous family party preparations and helped to make the hostess make her famed pumpkin soup, knowing full well that I'd have to try it, and if I didn't like it, pretend that I did so as not to seem uncouth, ungrateful or uncultured.

As it turns out, I loved it. One taste was all it took, and I was hooked.

It tasted like autumn. Like family gathered around a fire, chatting and reading books. Like coming in from the cold.

It tasted like home-made soup should, and I had many servings (a HUGE batch had been made for the party). I made an attempt to get the makings of it to bring back to the UK to make more, but for various reasons was foiled, that year and others. In my head, however, autumn had come to be defined by Pumpkin Soup, and and when life changed course, I missed it.

The trouble was, that it was so inextricably linked to that time and that place, that even thinking about it led to the remembrance of things long past, and it, like so many things, became something probably best left where it was.

I still missed it though.

As I write this, the scent of home made pumpkin soup wafts through the doors between here and the kitchen, filling the house with autumn, and it feels good. Like handknit socks and a warm jumper on a cold day.

It won't be exactly like the soup of yore for various reasons, and the fact that I won't actually be eating any of it is besides the point.

I've reclaimed my autumn today, and that's enough.

I own multiple computers and have three methods of connecting to the internet.

I wake up by reading emails and feeds.

I like to keep up with what's happening. Feeds, emails, twitter, flickr, ravelry. It's a reflex.

Every so often I need to remind myself that there's an analogue world as well as a digital, and that it can be just as satisfying.

No really, it can.

I'm going on holiday today. Getting away from it all, figuratively, and, for the most part, literally.

I'll be achieving an ambition held for at least ten years, and staying in a castle, owned by the Landmark Trust. There's no televsion there, and no phone. The mobile phone signal is apparently crappy. This is a good thing.

I'm not taking any kind of computer, other than my Blackberry, which will be switched off for the duration of our stay.

For four days, I will be unplugged. Disconnected. Out of touch.

Y'know what?

I really can't wait.

9.12am A: I love you. I'm glad the world didn't end.

9.14am K: Why's that? Because of the thing in Switzerland?

9.15am A: Yes. It'd have been poo to die being sucked into a black hole by myself.

9.19am K: Like a black hole would stop me getting back to you.

It would, of course, but it's the thought that counts.

When I stood in the V&A gift shop and knew for certain that I just had to buy the linocut kit, I had no real idea why.

It was only a couple of weeks later, as I was looking through the bookcase for something, or sorting out some papers and stuff, that I came across the catalogue for last year's Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and a memory pinged to the front of my brain from its place in the dusty archives.

We went to the RA exhibition last summer with K's parents (shamefully, I was neither fully aware of the RA's existence, nor had I visited it or the summer exhibition previously), and we had a wonderful day soaking up art, culture and inspiration (or at least, I did).

What I'd forgotten about that day was that, in the print room, I had fallen in love with a print. I can't remember it exactly, but I know that it was one of the cheapest items in the room, and also one of the most beautiful, and I wanted one (pretty much all the items on show are for sale, and in the print room, there's information about the size of the edition, so several people can buy a print, etc.). I wanted this thing with a kind of visceral longing that I rarely have for other people's art, and amazingly, it was within the kind of budget that we could have afforded.

I remember it being a green, oriental inspired, peaceful work, depicting a rain storm. I stood there for ages just staring at it. So simple and understated in a room full of works that competed with each other to be the most attention grabbing in the room. I absolutely loved it.

Tragically, it's beauty and relatively low price had conspired to deny me the consummation of that love and lust, because it was completely sold out. The hung original and all copies that made up the edition were accounted for by an amazingly long series of red dots (and if you don't think I stood there and counted, several times over just to make sure, then you don't know me very well at all).

So what?

Well, it was a lino-cut print.

In that time and place, a tiny seed was sown in my head, the unexpected consequence of which kicked in almost a year later.

I love it when that sort of thing happens.

More practical, I suspect, is the unexpected consequence of being temporarily frustrated with css bugs which results in spontaneous housework happening, but I think I prefer the art.

I thought that I'd have all this spare time on my hands, because I'd be super motivated and organised and everything would be perfect. I'd blog more often, redesign this blog, have my new company site up and running and do lots of knitting and other creative stuff (as well as working, of course).

Yeah.

Right.

It's not been a total wash though. Despite the coldy/fluey thing from hell that hung around like a bad smell for three weeks, I've been elbow deep in HTML and CSS and remembering why I love it and hate it in equal measure.

When I resigned, I talked a lot about "want[ing] to get my hands dirty again", and I've certainly been doing that. It's probably a good thing I work from home now, because there's been some distinctly Not Safe For Work language, as well as the odd spot of lunatic code dancing when things go right (after several hours of the aforementioned language).

I also talked a lot about wanting to do more creative stuff, in whatever form, as it was something that I really felt was missing from my life, to the detriment of both my own mental health and those around me (the more I wanted to create but can't, the crankier and more restless I get, often without realising that's what's going on), so although I've been busy with work (which is a very good thing), I've been making a conscious effort to allow my inner creative out of the dark corner she usually gets pushed into.

I started by playing with new designs in Fireworks, for both this blog and my new company blog, but although I've had lots of ideas (usually making an appearance just at that point where I'm about to drop off to sleep), the process of getting them out of my head and recorded in pixels has been frustrating. So rather than push the issue and get more frustrated, I took a step back and decided to let things simmer in my subconscious for a while, and I think it's working. New, better ideas are bubbling up, and I'm finding that when I do sit down to do some work, things are flowing more, rather than feeling forced or stuck.

I've also been finding inspiration in a lot of non-web stuff. Book design has always been an inspiration to me, and that was certainly given a big boost when I found the 700 Penguins book in the book box at RNIB. Although everyone knows that web design isn't print design, and they're totally different things, I do think that there are lessons that can be learned from print which has let to me being a bit more attuned to print design over the last couple of weeks.

I'm also a big fan of oriental design, and so when I read about the China Design Now exhibition, I was determined that I wasn't going to miss this like I missed the Japanese exhibition at the British Museum a couple of months ago, so I got myself organised, booked tickets and went along on Saturday afternoon. Since we got there a couple of hours early, it gave me time to also check out the Blood on Paper - the Art of the Book exhibition too. Not all of it was to my taste, but the various interpretations of what it means to create a book left me feeling very fired up and inspired, and as I ambled through the gift shop later, that inspiration was still fizzing through me, and so when I saw the lino and woodcut printing kit on sale something just pinged in my brain and I had to have it.

I've never done printmaking before (potatoes and poster paints in primary school doesn't count), and I totally can't draw, so I'm not entirely sure what made me think that linocut printing would be a good thing to try, but since I'd been making such an effort to open myself up to creativity, I decided to go with the urge, and so home it came.

At which point I promptly got the fear.

It's amazing though, what you find you can do when you're supposed to be doing something else, which is probably how I found myself with the tools spread out over my desk and a blank piece of lino in my hand, making my first tentative marks on its surface.

A wobbly line followed by another wobbly line and a little bit of inspiration and before I knew it, I had a design, I had ink, I had a print or three, and (somewhat predictably) I had dirty hands.

I think I could get to like this printmaking lark.

Not to mention the whole "freelancer gets ill on first week of freelancing" issue.

I did manage to work 4 days out of 5 last week. I gave in on Thursday and spent the day resting on the sofa watching Season 1 of Dawson's Creek (which I loved when it was on the telly, and was able to purchase in its entirety for a mere £35 (down from £150) from Amazon a couple of weeks ago) and thought I'd shifted it a bit, until it all went a bit downhill yesterday.

Le sigh.

That'll teach me to make plans.

I should stick to making pancakes.

I miss you, Dad.

After losing a lot of weight a few years ago and being in the best shape - and health - I'd been in for years, a combination of factors have meant that I've slipped back from that peak.

By quite a bit.

I've been wanting to do something about this for quite a while now, but spent so much of last year having one cold/flu/upper respiratory infection/bout of tonsilitis after another, and between that and working full time and commuting, there didn't seem to be any time or energy left at the end of the day or week to do anything serious about it.

The other factor was that, actually, I find going to the gym massively dull.

Not a good combination for losing weight and getting fit, really. Even the embarrassment of going to the doctor and on three separate occasions him telling me I was a bit overweight (no shit, sherlock) and kindly printing out some information on how to lose weight (as if the reason I'm overweight is that I just don't know how to lose weight) was sufficient motivation to get me to sign up for the gym. Mostly because there isn't a decent gym directly on the line of my commute, and I just knew that there'd be no way I'd go out of my way to do anything if I was in any way tired/late/it was a day ending in y.

Strangely though, as I began to think about going freelance, an image kept popping into my head.

I kept having this very clear vision of me, freelance, getting up in the morning when Karl gets up. Leaving the house when he does, and rather than going to the bus stop with him as we usually do, giving him a goodbye kiss and then walking in the other direction, towards the park. Walking past the duckponds, up the hill past the tennis courts then down the other side, and spending half an hour to 45 minutes in the gym. Then walking back across the park, coming into the house, having a shower, making breakfast, and, by 9.30, being sat at my desk, awake, energised and ready to start work.

It's a strange image for someone who a) is not a morning person by any standards, and b) hates the gym, but nevertheless, a few weeks ago I joined the gym, and even spent a couple of hours on weekend mornings there.

I've had moments where I've doubted myself, and my decision to do this freelance thing, but this morning, as I walked out of my house, said goodbye to Karl and walked across the park to the gym, my mp3 player, set to random, by wonderful coincidence started playing a FatBoy Slim track.

As the music played, I realised that, actually, this is absolutely what I want, need and am supposed to be doing.

Right here.

Right now.

A good day, today. It wasn't too cold. Only two buses passed before I could get on one. We got a seat, together, halfway back on the top deck.

At the back, two schoolkids are bookending the back seat. One is quietly checking her phone, the other has what sounds like Alvin and the Chipmunks blaring offensive sweary gang promoting music blaring from the pathetically tinny speaker of his mobile phone.

As usual, everyone tuts when they get within earshot, but nobody will say anything. The air is thick with impotent irritation.

Two stops on, a voice breaks through the racket. A mother, reading a story to her toddler. The innocence of the story contrasts sharply with the "music" and the effect is strangely entertaining. Bitches and Hos vs Bears and Bows.

The bus trundles on and more voices join the throng, three conversations, and none of them in English.

Just another day on a bus in Brixton.

Five more bus days to go.

I wonder if I'll miss it.

For me, it's almost a quarter of my life - and an eventful quarter, at that.

What started as a vent for all my frustrations with my health has changed and moved and yes, even stagnated, as life and stuff has overtaken me - for both good and for bad.

I've missed it, too. I've missed the joy of stringing words together and putting them out there, for people to read, respond (or not), of (on a good day) making people laugh, or think, or even think I'm an idiot.

Eight years is a long time.

Eight years ago, I sat at my desk, in Scotland, in the middle of the night, and hit the publish button on my first blogger post.

Seven years ago, I was still in Scotland, but doing what I'd wanted to do for a long time - working as a web designer.

Six years ago, I was in London, six months in, starting my career at RNIB and adjusting to the bright lights and the big city, and waiting for that terrible phone call that came just a few weeks later.

Five years ago, I'd moved flat, got used to London, and was on the verge of changing job, still within RNIB, but moving into web accessibility, an unspoken goal for several years.

Four years ago, as an important relationship ended, with all the pain and angst that follows, I found reserves of strength I didn't know I had, and a new relationship that opened my heart and mind.

Three years ago, I'd moved on, changed jobs again (this time, promotion to being a Web Accessibility Consultant) and I thought that life was good.

Two years ago, I saw my (soon to be) niece for the first time, and my health fell apart for a bit, along with my relationship and my sanity.

Last year, I was in transit to Austin, Texas, to check off two ambitions at once - a visit to the US, and attendance at the SXSW Interactive conference. I left behind my new love, in our new (rented) flat, and returned inspired, and with a new sense of purpose.

This year, we've just signed the lease on the flat for another year, and we have a plan. A plan for the future. A plan which involves scary grown-up things, like buying a house, and much, much more. It's the scariest plan I've ever even contemplated, but the time for being scared is over. As someone far clever than I wrote, once - the avalanche has started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote.

Grand Plan, Step 1 - Resign from RNIB. Done.
Step 2 - who knows for sure, we all know what happens to plans...

...but won't you stick around and find out with me?

The Art of Making Possible, by Nancy Scheibner

My entrance into the world of so-called "social problems"
Must be with quiet laughter, or not at all.
The hollow men of anger and bitterness
The bountiful ladies of righteous degradation
All must be left to a bygone age.
And the purpose of history is to provide a receptacle
For all those myths and oddments
Which oddly we have acquired
And from which we would become unburdened
To create a newer world
To transform the future into the present.
We have no need of false revolutions
In a world where categories tend to tyrannize our minds
And hang our wills up on narrow pegs.
It is well at every given moment to seek the limits in our lives.
And once those limits are understood
To understand that limitations no longer exist.
Earth could be fair. And you and I must be free
Not to save the world in a glorious crusade
Not to kill ourselves with a nameless gnawing pain
But to practice with all the skill of our being
The art of making possible.

There was a boy, a bitter boy,
Whose golden heart I saw gleaming.
I thought I'd win the heart within,
But now I know that I was dreaming.

But I will rise, and I will sing,
Until I know I can't conceal it.
Because I hold the saddest song,
I wish to God I cannot feel it.

And then the boy, the bitter boy,
He came to me for rest and healing.
He reached in his chest, deep in his breast,
Held out the heart for me still gleaming.

But I will rise, and I will sing,
Until I know I can't conceal it.
Because I hold the saddest song,
I wish to God I cannot feel it.

And then the boy, me and the boy,
We walked for miles through stormy weather.
And hand in hand, we roamed the land,
And held the gleaming heart together.

But I will rise, and I will sing,
Until I know I can't conceal it.
Because I hold the saddest song,
I wish to God I cannot feel it.

Then the boy, the bitter boy,
He came to take the gleaming treasure.
He reached in my chest, deep in my breast,
And took the gleaming heart forever.

But I will rise, and I will sing,
Until the day I can't conceal it.
And then I'll sing the saddest song,
And wish to God you cannot hear it.

Oh, then I'll sing the saddest song,
I wish to God you cannot hear it.

Watch Kate Rusby sing Bitter Boy at the Cambridge Folk Festival on YouTube.

Then, as soon as the song (and the programme, for it was the last song shown), I got up, went to my computer and searched for the song - Bitter Boy - online.

Unfortunately, my usual music finding choice of Napster let me down on this occasion, but YouTube provided where Napster failed, and let me listen to the song a few more times, and make sense of the expressions on the faces of the performers.

I knew enough about Kate Rusby to know that she performed with her husband, John McCusker, but what I didn't know was that they'd since divorced and the truly bittersweet beauty of the song was amplified.

It's a sad fact of life that relationships end, and when they do, they often don't end neatly. It's not like cutting a ribbon - and nor should it be.

I used to say that I didn't want to get married because that would only add to the pain and suffering when the relationship finally came to an end. "It's painful enough, why get lawyers involved" I'd say. I think I believed it too.

When I was a little girl, I was never one of these girls who imagined her perfect wedding, but I just presumed that at some point I'd meet someone I liked, loved and wanted to spend my life with, and that we'd get married and have children, and follow the conventional path to old age, grandchildren and so on.

Then things changed. My parents separated and got divorced, rocking the foundations of my assumptions about life, and pulling the rug of happy childhood memories out from under my feet. Then, at 22, I was diagnosed with a genetic condition with a 50% likelihood of passing it on to any children.

The combination of things resulted in a serious crack in my self esteem - how on earth could I, certified imperfect and broken, ever hope to have a lasting relationship, and what was the point of getting married anyway, when it was going to have to end - if not because of any fault of mine, but to give my partner the chance to have biological children of his own with someone who wasn't going to (potentially) cause them to be as broken as I was.

The cruel tricks of school bullies had also left me with a deep distrust of any professed attraction to me, and the majority of my early relationships (such as they were) were carried out more in a sense of curiosity about what the fuss was all about rather than genuine passion or attraction.

Then, against all the odds, I fell in love at first sight.

To my amazement, there seemed to be reciprocation, but things were, as they say, complicated.

I made my choice - him - and broke someone's heart in the process. His choice was made for him and rather than being his first choice, I was the one who was there - real - and, in my head, unable to compete with the fantasy that could never be brought to earth by the vagaries of domesticity and familiarity.

Things progressed, but no matter what happened, I was just waiting for the day when it would end - none of which prepared me for when it actually happened, or for what happened in the aftermath.

There was a boy, a bitter boy,
Whose golden hair I saw gleaming.
I thought I'd won the heart within,
But now I know that I was dreaming.

But I did rise, and I did sing,
Although it burned me to conceal it.
Because, I held the saddest song,
and wished to God, I could not feel it.

Some songs are just never meant to be sung.

Have you seen the old man
In the closed-down market
Kicking up the paper,
with his worn out shoes?
In his eyes you see no pride
And held loosely at his side
Yesterday's paper telling yesterday's news

So how can you tell me you're lonely,
And say for you that the sun don't shine?
Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London
I'll show you something to make you change your mind

Have you seen the old girl
Who walks the streets of London
Dirt in her hair and her clothes in rags?
She's no time for talking,
She just keeps right on walking
Carrying her home in two carrier bags.

In the all night cafe
At a quarter past eleven,
Same old man is sitting there on his own
Looking at the world
Over the rim of his tea-cup,
Each tea last an hour
Then he wanders home alone

And have you seen the old man
Outside the seaman's mission
Memory fading with
The medal ribbons that he wears.
In our winter city,
The rain cries a little pity
For one more forgotten hero
And a world that doesn't care

Listen to Sinead O'Connor's cover version on YouTube.

I don't remember listening to a lot of pop music, and I certainly didn't have many tapes or records. Most of the music in the house was classical, or my dad's big band stuff.

One of my earliest memories of playing music was a tape by Mary O'Hara, an Irish harpist and singer. I think it was the album "Tranquility", but it's difficult to tell because it's out of print now, and there's not much about it on the interwebs.

It was on that album that I first heard the song "Streets of London", and I'm fairly certain that's where the seeds of my fascination with London as a city started.

I think I played that tape to death, and I would sing along, my head filling with ideas of London as the Mean City, where the pavements were paved with gold, but the gutters were filled with the ashes of those who tried and failed.

The older I grew, the more convinced I was that London was this big scary place, but then I'd read about hidden places, disused tube stations. I saw, and read, Neverwhere, and my fascination only grew, and like a moth to a flame, I found myself actually here, walking those same streets of London.

It's a heartbreaking song, and I've seen them all - and more - in my time here, but for all it's a hard and cruel place, it's also, at least, in my experience, a vibrant and exciting place to be.

One day I'll have had my fill of it I'm sure, but not now, not yet.

And so it is just like you said it would be
Life goes easy on me
most of the time
And so it is the shorter story
No love, no glory
No hero in her sky

I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes...

And so it is just like you said it should be
We'll both forget the breeze
Most of the time
And so it is the colder water
The Blower's Daughter
The pupil in denial

I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off of you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes off you
I can't take my eyes...

Did I say that I loathe you?
Did I say that I want to
Leave it all behind?

I can't take my mind off of you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind off of you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind off you
I can't take my mind...
my mind...my mind...
'Til I find somebody new

View the video for The Blower's Daughter at YouTube.

I'd heard good things about it, liked the cast, and thought it might be a pleasant way to pass some time.

I finally went to see it in Reading, I think.

I was in love. That truly, madly, deeply kind of love that utterly blinds you to the possibility that everything is not all wine and roses.

He was captivating. Utterly charming, with a devilish twinkle in his eye. He was trouble with a capital T.

He was, for a time, exactly what I needed, and wanted, and then, somehow, he changed.

I don't know exactly when it happened, but I know the moment I realised that our relationship was ultimately doomed.

It was in a cinema in Reading, I think. Watching Closer. Near the end of the film, as Damien Rice starts to sing The Blower's Daughter.

I don't know where it came from. I don't know exactly what in the film, or the music sparked it off, but a great sadness welled up inside of me, and I sobbed.

I sobbed my heart out in the cinema.

Silently.

My chest ached with the effort of not howling the place down.

He asked what was wrong.

I lied, and said the film was sad, which it is, but not that sad.

I knew we were doomed, but I kept hoping I was wrong.

I wasn't.

I should have walked away.

I didn't.

Couldn't.

In the end, a long while later, the decision made itself, but not before it took a good chunk out of me.

I still can't listen to this song without a lump forming in my throat.

I'm gonna sail right out on the Atlantic
I'm gonna catch me a fish that's bigger than gigantic
I'm gonna cook up a fine fish tea
It will be like some kind of Galilee
I'm gonna do it all some day

CHORUS
I'm gonna do it all some day
I'm gonna do it all some day
You may not believe a word I say
But I tell you I'm gonna do it all some day

I'm gonna climb way over that old mountain
I'm gonna shout in a place where no-one hears me shouting
I'm gonna swear so loud
I'll strip the silver lining from a cloud
I'm gonna do it all some day

I'm gonna fly in a silver winged space rocket
I'm gonna pick out the stars and put them in my pocket
I'm gonna bring those stars back down
So I can spread celestial light around
I'm gonna do it all some day

Listen to an excerpt of I'm Gonna Do It All

It's not your ordinary folk album, with songs about human trafficking and a haunting ballad which commemorates Scots missionary Jane Haining, who died in Auschwitz with many of the children from the Jewish orphanage she ran in Budapest in the 1930s.

It's not all misery either. Even the songs about difficult subjects are ultimately uplifting, and it's one of the albums I listened to most in 2007. In fact, according to my last.fm profile, she's the artist I listened to most, by quite a way.

Apparently I'm Gonna Do It All has become a bit of an anthem in Scotland, with Cockburnspath Primary School in Berwickshire making it their school anthem. They're not the only school either - Castlefield Primary School, in my home town has also made it their anthem, with the schoolkids amending it to suit their ambitions, and even going as far as to record it.

For me though, it's been my quiet anthem over the latter half of 2007, reminding me, when things got tough, that I do have ambitions, and that no matter how difficult things get, or how impossible they seem, anything is possible if you're prepared to work hard enough for it.

I've got plans, and I've got a new year stretching ahead of me in which to give it my best shot, and you know what?

I really am gonna do it all, some day.