Katy Emma Partridge

#collage Writing, Art & Creative Journals: Stories of place, nature & messy-glorious life. Feminist, multiculturalist, pro-transparency in govt.

[Katy Emma Partridge @KatyEPartridge]

So very happy to have spent time today watching the house martins and swifts diving, gliding, and banking as they traced patterns across the sky outside my window. Bloomin’ gorgeous. #distractions #roomwithaview

[Katy Emma Partridge @KatyEPartridge]

@StephenMoss_TV Just lovely Stephen

[Katy Emma Partridge @KatyEPartridge]

@StephenMoss_TV Thank you Stephen :)

[Katy Emma Partridge @KatyEPartridge]

My article and illustrative collage are in September's edition of Devon Life Magazine. It's all about the delightful Tiverton Canal Company who run one of the last horse-drawn barges in the UK. Such a wonderful experience to take a trip with them.
@StephenMoss_TV

[Katy Emma Partridge @KatyEPartridge]

@RachelBurch2 Lane near Eggworthy 👌

[BBC Archive @BBCArchive]

David Bowie was born #OnThisDay 1947. In 1964 he (then known as David Jones) appeared on Tonight in his role as creator of 'The Society Of The Prevention Of Cruelty To Long-Haired Men'. Oh! You pretty things.

[Katy Emma Partridge @KatyEPartridge]

It 's that time of year again and the fly pasts are in full swing outside my window #swifts

[Stephen Moss @StephenMoss_TV]

I'm delighted to announce that Ten Birds That Changed The World has been shortlisted for the prestigious 2023 @wainwrightprize #JCWP23 #10YearsOfWainwrightPrize Huge thanks as ever to @broodoherty @DHHlitagency @lucymcrobert1 and all at @FaberBooks 1/3

[Katy Emma Partridge @KatyEPartridge]

@StephenMoss_TV @wainwrightprize @BrooDoherty @DHHlitagency @LucyMcRobert1 @FaberBooks Excellent! Well done Stephen 👏👏👏

[Katy Emma Partridge @KatyEPartridge]

Just when you think Suella surely can’t sink any lower …. Home Office buys tents to house asylum seekers https://t.co/8rVNg8OqbZ

[Hanif Kureishi @Hanifkureishi]

A VISIT HOME

A right-wing acquaintance - a man I have met just once before, during lockdown - comes to visit me. He says that the problem with Rishi Sunak is that his voice is too high. He’s not convincing as a leader. I say I can imagine him in a white coat, behind the counter of a pharmacy discussing haemorrhoid creams. My friend says the politicians with deeper voices do much better.

It is unfortunate for people of the left that Keir Starmer sounds robotic and mindless, as if he were reading from a menu. My friend says that men with deep voices make for the best seducers. He adds that David Beckham’s voice undermines his masculinity, which is still considerable.

As I try to fall asleep later, waking up approximately every twenty minutes, wondering if the clock has stopped, I consider all of this. The actor Brian Blessed, known for his booming voice, must be quids in, a master of the universe.

My family and I have been planning a brief trip home this weekend. But the clinical nurse is adamant that a physiotherapist should visit my home before I do, to ensure, as he puts it, that the place is “safe” for me and my wheelchair. I wonder if this guy really has the right to tell me where I can and can’t go, after all I am not in prison, I haven’t been kidnapped.

The following morning I’m in my wheelchair and Isabella pushes me out of the hospital and across the road to the bus stop. Almost straight away a bus comes, its ramp slides out I’m shoved on. Ten minutes later I am on the Shepherd’s Bush road where Tracey and the dog Cairo meet me. This is the first time I’ve seen Cairo since my accident. He is quite big and bouncy, and I wonder if he recognises me; after all he loves everyone.

Together we walk down the familiar street towards my house. It has been eight months since I’ve been here. I didn’t want to become too upset, and so I tried imagine I’d been away on a long holiday. Isabella and Tracey push me into my house and Carlo joins us. Thankfully the place is the same, except that I am at a lower angle; I can’t get an overview as I could before. The chair is uncomfortable, and I know I won’t be able to stay long before I have to go back to bed in the hospital.  I am glad Isabella has been living here, although she has allowed  the garden to become overgrown. In another life I would be out there with a machete, but she loves it this way, where she entertains foxes, birds and squirrels.

We have lunch and sit together with the dog. I wish I could go upstairs and see my study again, and the bedroom, but that is impossible. We wonder what adjustments will need to be made to the house, for it to become habitable again by me.

On Sunday Isabella and Kier push me to the Thames, near Hammersmith Bridge, and we walk along the riverside path, up to the back of the River Cafe. I’ve lived in this area, around West Kensington and Barons Court, since I was a student in 1976 and have cycled this way scores of times. Kier says he remembers long rides with me as a kid, and Isabella and I used to walk the dog along the river path.

The dog was more of a menace then, and loved to take a dive into the Thames, and it was always a lot of trouble to persuade him to come out, covered in thick mud. In fact he was a menace all round. One time, while charging across Ravenscourt park, he tore a woman’s hijab from her head and ran off with it in his teeth; another time he stole a blind man’s cane. He still steals the balls of other dogs and can cause mayhem during picnic season.

I’ve started to have very long, lurid and convoluted dreams. They are like novellas. A friend suggests this may be a side effect of the antidepressants I’m taking.

The other night I woke up in a cold sweat yelling my head off, dreaming I was being swallowed by a snake, and a worried nurse came into my room and started asking me questions which would assure her that I hadn’t lost my mind: where was I? What was my name? and who was the Prime Minister?

[Katy Emma Partridge @KatyEPartridge]

A #jerseytigermoth visited my house today, flashing its luscious orange underwings as it went on its way

[Katy Emma Partridge @KatyEPartridge]

@CaroGilesWrites Happy Birthday Caro 🎉🥳🎂🎁🎈🎊😘

[Little Toller 🇺🇦🇵🇸 @LittleToller]

We will be doing a very limited special edition signed by Michael prob 100 copies. Watch this space....

[Katy Emma Partridge @KatyEPartridge]

@NearbyWild @Naturalcalendar @patrick_barkham @bigmeadowsearch Very helpful pictures thank you!

[Katy Emma Partridge @KatyEPartridge]

Can anyone help me with this id please? Dozens on heathland at Wellington Monument, Somerset today - barely settled, wings always closed … @naturalcalendar ⁦@patrick_barkham⁩ @bigmeadowsearch #meadowbrown or #smallheath

[Katy Emma Partridge @KatyEPartridge]

@elgeeko1506 @Naturalcalendar @patrick_barkham @bigmeadowsearch Thanks Vanessa 😊

[Katy Emma Partridge @KatyEPartridge]

@bigmeadowsearch @Naturalcalendar @patrick_barkham Thank you for your help!

[Katy Emma Partridge @KatyEPartridge]

@Tazzyb @Naturalcalendar @patrick_barkham @bigmeadowsearch Thank you so much for this

[Aleator 🇺🇦🐝🚶🏽‍♂️✍️🦋🌿🦅⛰ @gegegamble]

If you’re anywhere near Balranald today and love nature, this is in the ‘unmissable’ category. 🌿✍️

[Katy Emma Partridge @KatyEPartridge]

@darkangelraine @amy_historia @HachetteKids This looks amazing 🖤