Monthly Meander Feb '25: Spinning my wheels, tending my fires
Looking back over a squiggly month. Plus my juicy roundup of good things to read, watch & listen to in March
Thanks so much for joining me on this meandering tour through my life and work in the month just gone, as I document a time of personal & professional reimagining. You'll also find my favourite cultural picks, on and off Substack. If you enjoy my writing, do feel free to leave a comment. And of course I'd love it if you'd consider subscribing to get all my posts delivered straight to your inbox or the Substack app 😊
Hello friends,
Well that month went by quickly! It seems like barely a moment ago I was shyly waving hello to February and yet now it’s been and gone and we’re already barrelling along into the second sixth of 20251.
How was February for you? For me, it was decidedly up and down. Work-wise, whilst there were a few positives in the mix (see my Work Wins below) there was also a big dollop of frustration slap bang in the middle, which threw me off kilter a little if I'm being completely honest.
It was also half term, which always brings its own special fluctuating emotional flavours (I adore my kids but I couldn't eat a whole one etc 😄). Certainly this time around, it added up to hardly any productive working time for me at all – hence that feeling of just spinning my wheels, with little discernible progress to show for it.
But set against that in the win column, was some lovely quality time with my nearest and dearest, with many of the things that make life good as far as I'm concerned - time in nature, creativity and culture and sharing food, chat, silly jokes and general unstructured time together. Live, laugh, loaf if you will.
In summary, it was a little bit 'aargh!' and a little bit 'ahhhhhh!' (that wasn’t the prompt I put in the AI generator for this image, though maybe it should have been!)
Best Laid Plans...
The tent pole of my month was a trip up to Lincolnshire a couple of weeks ago, which I’d thought was going to be be a real kickstarter for my still-in-the-starting-blocks life stories business.
I spent an enjoyable couple of hours talking to a genial octogenarian about his remarkable life as part of a very distinct British community. But it eventually became apparent that wires had been crossed somewhere along the way.
The meeting had been shepherded through a mutual connection and in retrospect I think that paying someone to create a record of his life story for posterity and his family just wasn't something this gentleman was particularly interested in doing.
Although we'd spoken on the phone beforehand, I realised sitting there drinking tea in his front room, that we'd both had quite different ideas about the purpose of our meeting. It was a valuable lesson to me for the future that I need to be a lot clearer with what I'm offering and with what the realistic cost of that is, in terms of both my time and my expertise.
But I'm not gonna lie, it was really disappointing.
I'd gone up there thinking this was the start of a project that would be the ideal opportunity to trial the service and learn on-the-go how the process of working with a client in this way would play out.
Because of course, whilst the actual interviewing and editing would be very much like what I'm used to from making documentaries, the dynamic between interviewer and interviewee couldn't help but be different when it's the interviewee themselves deciding what topics to include and what the overall shape and purpose of the finished edited piece will be – rather than me as the director deciding those things in the editorial service of a film.
But it wasn't to be.
And then there was another little disappointment right before I returned home. All you bunker fans out there (that's everyone, right?😄) will, I'm sure, remember Karen, proud owner of her very own nuclear bunker - as mentioned in these parts a couple of months back (Weekly Meander 30: Bunkers, birthdays & future archaeology).
As soon I knew I'd be up in that neck of the woods, I got on to Karen and we arranged to meet at the bunker so I could see it for myself. I know, exciting!
But sad to say, an unexpected feline medical emergency scuppered our plans here too (though I'm very happy to report that after seeing the vet, said pussy cat is very much on the mend). I'm sure I shall be back up in the land of the yellowbellies2 again before too long though, so there will definitely be another chance. I might even have a go at recording a Substack live video from the scene!
Travels in time & space
Thankfully, there were upsides to the trip too. My immediate family are now all based up in Lincolnshire and whilst I was there, I stayed a couple of nights with my Dad and another couple with my brother and his kids. And I also met up with my mum for a (bracingly cold) day trip to the Belton Estate, just outside Grantham, along with my niece and nephew.
The main part of the house was still closed up for the winter but we did get to take a tour through several hundred years of upstairs-downstairs cooking in the basement kitchens, led by one of those intrepid National Trust old ladies with a fount of knowledge and a stout sense of humour. And what a fascinatingly bleak insight into it was into just how harsh a life the servants in these big houses led.
One particularly awful tale concerned an underground track system installed in a damp, unlit, underground tunnel to ferry food from the kitchens to the grand dining room on the other side of the courtyard.
The job of pushing the trays of hot food – of a lavish style and quantity the servants could only dream of – up and down these underground rails was given to the youngest male servant in the household, likely a boy of not much more than 12 years old. And he was required to continuously whistle to ensure he wasn't pinching anything off the trays. So mean!
Belton is also one of the locations for Bridgerton, though having never watched it myself, this aspect was somewhat lost on me. The orangerie where many scenes were apparently filmed was certainly very lovely – though the photos on my camera roll suggest I was most taken with the generously proportioned agave plant on display 😄
Back in Brighton, my daughter and I whiled away more hours than I can count vicariously travelling to the other side of the world with a gang of teenage mermaids getting up to various hijinks on the Gold Coast of Australia in her new favourite TV show. And I spent a delightful afternoon with both kids at an art workshop in a converted church making collage maps of real and imagined journeys. Their unselfconscious creativity truly lifted my spirits.
WORK WINS
1. Video post
I had my first go at recording a video post in which I ventured out from behind the camera and actually showed my face on screen. Yes, we can do scary things! If you missed it, here in all its glory is my video book report about a wonderfully poetic and suggestive memoir of atomic childhood in 1980s Tennessee.
2. ‘Art in the Nuclear Age’ book group
In the latest meeting of this excellent book group (which you can read more about here), we discussed Svetlana Alexievich's Chernobyl Prayer3, an extraordinary 'documentary novel' about the experience of living through the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, published around 10 years afterwards, which also formed the basis for many of the scenes in the 2019 HBO drama series. The book left a deep impression on me and I'm planning to record another video book report to delve into it in more detail, so keep an eye out for that.
3. Reader Survey
Lastly, I ran a survey into what you, my dear readers, are enjoying about my writing on Substack. A huge thanks to everyone who filled it out – and I've not forgotten that I owe some of you a badge! (I will be in touch very soon to arrange).
I did however get some feedback that filling out the survey was quite tricky for people who don't already have a Substack account. If this was you but you are willing to answer a few questions for me (but without going through the whole process of signing up to Substack), please let me know in the comments or hit reply and I can set up a quick mirror version of the survey in a Google doc instead.
The more direct feedback I get from my readers, the more I can refine what I'm doing here to make sure I'm hitting the sweet spot for you. So if you can spare a few minutes I’d be VERY grateful 🙏
STUFF TO READ, WATCH & LISTEN TO THIS MONTH
The eager eyed will have spotted that this is now a monthly meander, rather than a weekly one. I've decided to try this rhythm for a bit to see how it feels both for me to write and for you to read – I'm very conscious of not overloading your inboxes and I also have a finite amount of time to spend writing alongside the other demands of life and work projects.
So in order to include newer strands like the A to Z of feature docs, my atomic interviews and various other behind the scenes pieces I'd like to find time for (like 'war stories' from my years as a noughties TV researcher and honest reflections on independent documentary making, including the financials, access & inclusion, changing fashions and more), I need to scale back the frequency of these diary pieces.
I've also missed sharing recommendations, something I was doing originally in the weekly meanders and which I always enjoyed doing on my old newsletter. So I'm bringing them back in a new monthly round up format.
This will make for a longer overall post, but hopefully one that's easy enough to skim through so you can quickly alight on the bits that most interest you.
That being said, I'm also open to splitting it into two separate posts – one for the monthly diary and one for the monthly content round-up - if that's easier. If you've got a preference, do let me know here:
If there's a resounding majority for two shorter posts, I'll switch to doing it that way next month. But till then, here's what I've been consuming in the month just past and what's on my radar for the month to come.
WHAT I WAS ENJOYING IN FEB
Reading
Kicking off on Substack, here are some of my favourite recent pieces, starting with this love letter to the power of watching movies on the big screen from Alex Rollins Berg at
.I really enjoyed this piece from
on noticing and celebrating the small pleasures & victories of life and this one from on vintage storage solutions (at last, someone else who understands the simple joy of finding pretty old cups, trays and boxes at the flea market!)This was a great read on autism and onions from the always excellent food newsletter
, which particularly resonated as my son has started to show more interest in helping me in the kitchen. And I appreciated this piece about money and vibes from one of my favourite financial writers , money being much on my mind as I continue to try to figure out new income streams, now that the screening income from my film is drying up.Last of all, I just loved this piece with its accompanying short film from the artist
, newly arrived on Substack, about typewriter art ( not least because I had my own typewriter in a similar shade of turquoise back when I was a young teenager – I wish I knew what had happened to it so I could have a go myself!)
On the book front, as well as Chernobyl Prayer, I finished Days at the Morisaki Bookshop and Malorie Blackman's Noughts & Crosses4 and am part way through Raynor Winn's follow up to the bestselling The Salt Path, The Wild Silence.
Watching
Starting with docs, memorable watches for me this month were a feature doc bringing together an Auschwitz survivor and the son of the chief commandant at the camp, The Commandant's Shadow (covering some of the same ground as Jonathan Glazer in his fictional exploration of the same commandant and his family, The Zone of Interest, which I've not seen but now really want to) and a couple of Oscar-shortlisted/ nominated short docs, The Swim Lesson and The Only Girl in the Orchestra.
On TV, I was watching A Man on the Inside (Netflix), Severance (Apple TV+), Unforgotten (ITV) and Sherwood (BBC).
And in movies more generally, I enjoyed a throwback to early silent cinema in The Artist, the final gripping film from iconic director Sidney Lumet, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, Wim Wenders sublime, Tokyo-set Perfect Days and some wild animations by the late American surrealist, feminist animator Suzan Pitt.
Listening
I go through life with an almost constant aural accompaniment of either music or podcasts so I couldn't possibly list out everything that's gone into my earholes this month but here are some of the things that stood out:
The Trapped – an ITV News podcast series about the scandal of appalling living conditions in British social housing.
Cosy Radio 4 comedies on BBC Sounds (the latest series of Bill Nighy's reliably good A Charles Paris Mystery and a couple of oldies-but-goodies from the archive – 2014's North by Northamptonshire and High Table, Lower Orders, a murder mystery set in a fictional Cambridge college, from 2005).
A lot of cricket commentary (
summed up England's woeful showing in the Champions Trophy in harsh-but-fair limerick form).and
on an eventful solo adventure round southern France following the Etoile de Besseges stage race in my favourite cycling pod, Never Strays Far.
COMING UP IN MARCH
Two recommendations for major political documentary series this month, both doing their bit to restore just a teensy bit of my faith in the possibility of serious documentary journalism still finding a home on broadcast television (both of these are UK only I think, with apologies to my international friends - though I feel sure Norma Percy's work must be accessible in other countries too).
Israel & the Palestinians: The Road to 7th October (BBC)
The latest landmark series by a towering legend in political documentary, Norma Percy, who’s made films about almost all the major international political events of the past half century, interviewing the power players on all sides of the story. Her previous BBC series on Israel-Palestine, The Fifty Years War from 1998 and Elusive Peace from 2005 are also currently available to watch on the iPlayer.
The Undercover Police Scandal: Love and Lies Exposed (ITV)
I'm so pleased that this shocking story is being told at last on one of the UK's mass market broadcasters – and I'm hoping it will have a similar political effect to the ITV drama about the post office scandal.
The story is particularly close to my heart as I was doing a lot of activism myself when these spycops were active – two people I know personally were closely caught up in it and I went on several protests outside Scotland Yard with some of the women directly involved after Mark Kennedy was first unveiled as an agent of the state back in 2010.
I'd also highly recommend the in-depth BBC Sounds series on this same topic, Undercover: The Spycops.
Finally, two new books on swimming in the outdoors to look out for this month, from a pair of lovely people who also write on Substack -
whom I've had the great pleasure to get to know IRL in Brighton and whom I very much hope I will get to say hello to face to face sometime soon.Both of these will be available from all the usual places, but do support your local bookshop if you can.
Well, I think this is the most humungous post I’ve ever sent out on Substack! If you’ve made it this far, well done - and maybe go and have a lie down to recover.
Thanks as always for being here and see you in April!
Vicki x
Watch my film on Netflix & Disney+ (UK/Europe only) or Vimeo-on-demand - or see trailer, reviews & bonus content HERE
We all measure the progress of the year in sixths, don’t we? 😄
My parents moved up to Lincolnshire from suburban London more than 30 years ago now but I only very recently discovered this rather delightful moniker for Lincolnshire folk – you can find some of the suggested origins for the name (and some lively discussion in the comments!) in this local BBC article if you're interested.
Published as Voices from Chernobyl in the US
For the last few years I've been doing year-long reading projects (War & Peace, Les Miserables, the complete novels & short stories of E.M. Forster and last year, the Earthsea cycle by Ursula K. Leguin). This year I'm reading my way through Blackman’s YA speculative fiction series set in an alternative 21st century Britain where black ‘Crosses’ rule over white ‘Noughts’.
I loved this. The monthly flow is really nice. The way you write and organize your thoughts really draws you in. Sorry to here about the unexpected feline emergency, they can always scupper a plan!
Thank you so much for the very kind mention Vicki 😘😘