Weekly Meander #22: School's out... and so is my brain
Migraine malaise, Super Saturday & Orford Ness
Hi! Thanks for joining me on this weekly meander through my week just gone as I navigate a time of personal and professional reimagining. If you’re new here, do check out this post for a bit more about me. TLDR: I'm a documentary filmmaker coming to the end of distributing my debut feature doc -about the history of nuclear power - and currently exploring/expanding into the next steps of my working adventures, whilst also navigating parenting & perimenopause. Some balls may be dropped!
You'll also find recommendations of great reads I've seen on Substack in the past week. If you enjoy it, do feel free to leave a comment. And of course I'd love it if you would consider subscribing to get all my posts delivered straight to your inbox.
Hello friends,
This is going to be the last weekly meander before I take a few weeks off from my regular updates - and truthfully it’s a well timed break for me as I'm still not firing on all cylinders after another challenging week.
I was so touched by the kindness in the comments and replies I got last week when I was feeling a bit sorry for myself after being laid low by perimenopause symptoms and a 24 hour bug. A week later, and I'm sorry to say, those perimenopause symptoms are hanging around, even bigger & bolder than before.
I had another migraine that lasted almost 48 hours; have felt myself becoming increasingly quick to lose my temper (sorry, family); and suffered my first hot flushes. It’s been at least as bad as before I started on HRT earlier this year, if not worse. Clearly I can't put off a call to the doctor's surgery much longer...
It wasn't all bad though. It was the last day of school for us on Tuesday – cue Alice:
While 'no more pencils, no more books' will never be a phrase I can get behind, I think it's safe to say everyone in this house is relishing 6 weeks without the school run (the little one is still in nursery right up till she starts school in September but they don't mind if we arrive late so it's a lot less pressured in the mornings!)
Elsewhere, England wrapped up a convincing three-match win in the Test series against West Indies (check out
for some chucklesome match reports even if you couldn't care less about cricket). And what was the other thing?Oh yes. THE OLYMPICS ARE ON!
I *love* the Olympics. London 2012 was without doubt one of the happiest fortnights of my adult life. I'd just left my longstanding freelance TV job having got enough investment in my independent film to work on it full time. My colleagues bought me some expensive pyjamas as a leaving gift – they anticipated I would be spending a serious amount of time on the sofa wearing them. And they weren't wrong 😄
I wallowed gloriously in the BBC's bounteous streams of coverage1 of sports I'd never previously paid much attention to – beach volleyball, taekwondo, kayaking, dressage (horses dancing for medals – how had I not known??!)
And then on Sat 4th August I was in the London Olympic Stadium to see Team GB win three gold medals on Super Saturday. With my 79 year old Grandad (who passed away last year), who was born and bred in the East End, just a couple of miles up the road from the stadium. And who'd been at the last London Olympics as a teenager back in 1948. It was a truly unforgettable evening.
12 years later, I'm back on my sofa watching a new generation of incredible athletes doing incredible things.
Only now I'm watching it all unfold with my sports-mad 10 year old and endlessly inquisitive 4 year old (I've not yet found an answer she's satisfied with as to 'why' all these people are shooting arrows, throwing each other on the floor, swinging around on high bars etc – other than 'why not?’ - the fundamental pointlessness of sporting endeavour being one of the things in its favour as far as I'm concerned).
I hope they find it all as inspiring as I do.
WORK WINS THIS WEEK
With another migraine stealing time off me – in the acute phase of pain, nausea and light & noise sensitivity, but also in the fatiguing brain fog afterwards, not to mention the frustration and misgiving about its appearance so soon after the last one – I was yet again constrained in what I could achieve this past week.
But there were a few things I could do to gently nourish my working self – a metaphorical inhalation and exhalation, drawing inspiration in and sending connection out (the conceit perhaps coming to mind because focusing on my breath is one of the only things I find helps in the intensity of a migraine at full force - when the pills haven't cut it off before it takes root, as they've often failed to lately).
Inspiration came from watching films, slices of existence captured on screen, real & fictional, past & present, live action & animation, long & short.
While connection came from reaching out – to a handful of contacts for potential screenings of my nuclear doc and to some of the amazing people writing here on Substack, particularly in a a couple of chat threads specifically set up to invite and foster collaboration (by
and respectively, both of them generous and encouraging space holders).And then there was one prior item on my work plan for the week - which otherwise pretty much went out the window - which combined both inspiration and connection and which I pushed myself to do as I knew I'd regret it if missed out. And that was:
1. 'Art in the Nuclear Age' reading group, discussing Ness by Robert Macfarlane & Stanley Donwood
This is an informal reading group convened every couple of months by an academic in Southampton and it's a great space with really thoughtful discussion. It's also something of an inspiration for what I'd like to try and do with an 'atomic movie club' hosted on Substack.
I was particularly keen to attend having read the book in readiness (in a prior, blessedly migraine-free moment). It's a singular piece of work and quite hard to characterise – I've seen it described as 'part-novella, part-prose-poem, part-mystery play', which seems quite apt. It's inspired by Orford Ness which, if you haven't heard of it, is a former bomb and radar test site and secret atomic weapons research facility, situated on a shingle spit on the Suffolk coast in the East of England.
It's now a nature reserve maintained by the National Trust who are pursuing a policy of 'nonintervention' – essentially letting nature gradually reclaim the site and the various abandoned buildings dotted across it. Macfarlane and Donwood's work speaks to this duality of science/nature with a group of archetypal figures including the Physicist, the Engineer and the Armourer being slowly approached and taken over by other-wordly, elemental figures (It, He, She, They and As).
I'd certainly encourage you to get hold of a copy of the book if you can, both for the text and for Donwood's haunting illustrations. But I was also interested to discover this short film adaptation, atmospherically shot on old Super-8 film stock and narrated by Macfarlane himself, which packs an eerie, sensory punch all of its own in its marriage of image, sound and idea.
WHAT I'M LOVING ON SUBSTACK THIS WEEK
Three gorgeous and thought-provoking pieces for you here, delving into the value, purpose, fragility and fallibility of memory and how we might look back and piece together our own life stories and those of the people we have loved, knowing we can never hope to capture the entirety of past experience - all topics very much on my mind of course in connection with my nascent life stories business.
And if you’ve never heard of Miss Rumphius - as I hadn't -
has got a real treat in store for you 😊
And there I shall leave you for now, dear friends. As always, please do feel free to leave me a comment or reply via email. And if you’re an Olympics fan like me, sit back and drink it all in - these are golden days indeed.
I’ll be back meandering on a weekly basis from September - but will have a few other nice things to share with you before then too. I’m also planning to dive into some more great writing as a Substack reader and will no doubt be popping up in the comments and on Notes - so if you’ve not yet downloaded the app, why not give it a go. Come on in, I promise you the water’s lovely.
Here’s to August adventures, however they may manifest in your life.
with love and thanks as ever,
Vicki x
Proudly taking part in the Sparkle on Substack 24 essays club – this is post number 17.
Watch my film on Netflix (in Europe) or Vimeo (everywhere else) - or see trailer, reviews & bonus content HERE
Life stories website – coming soon...
Sadly not replicated for these Paris games since the European TV rights were sold to Discovery, leaving the BBC with greatly reduced coverage
Have a wonderful summer break! I hope you're feeling better soon too. Thank you so much for the mention! I'm touched 🥰 I'm glad we connected!
I’m sorry you’re still feeling rubbish Vicky. It can be extremely debilitating. School’s out by Alice plays in my head every summer without fail.
I love the story about you and your grandfather going to the Olympics. A memory to treasure.
Have a lovely summer break. X