Housekeeping

Adam (00:00): I mean, I basically have a PhD in Overcommitting.

Georgia (00:02): There was a mention of fonts on my hinge profile.

Adam (00:06): I'm not crying. You are crying.

Adam (00:11): Welcome to the Yarn Library podcast with me, Adam Cleevely

Georgia (00:14): And me Georgia Denham at Tulipurl on Instagram.

Adam (00:17): And what are we going to talk about this week, Georgia?

Georgia (00:19): Well, we have like two provisional plans here. So either this episode is gonna be entitled Travel, or it's gonna be entitled Housekeeping. Um, because we've had a couple of episodes out. It's been a while since we have recorded. We managed to record ahead of time for a couple of weeks. And so this episode is actually going out on Thursday coming. So when you listen to this, it'll be Thursday. Well, we started writing down a list for housekeeping and then realising, actually there's a lot of things that we wanna acknowledge and talk about and things. Uh, but actually the original plan was to talk about travel. So that might be next week's episode.

Adam (00:51): So we don't know. Basically we are just gonna see how long this takes us to dump our brains into microphones. And then, you'll either be treated to one episode or two episodes in which we discuss housekeeping and travel.

Georgia (01:02): Yeah. But as ever, it will be tangentially topical. Um, and we'll endeavour to bring, what, what do we bring?

Adam (01:11): I dunno,

Georgia (01:11): Academic rigour to your yarn hobby.

Adam (01:14): You said what, what do we bring? And I was thinking we bring snacks, but I looking around, the table. You've already eaten your white chocolate. So

Georgia (01:20): I- there is, I've saved half of it for later.

Adam (01:22): Oh, I thought you were gonna say, you saved half it for me. No.

Georgia (01:25): I mean, it's right there. You can have some if you want.

Adam (01:29): That's all right. It's all right. I keep my chocolate outta sight. There is some in this house. I just hide it from myself.

Georgia (01:33): I have a really lovely memory actually from childhood in terms of keeping chocolate out of sight. Wow. Already tangenting. Um, my lovely dad and I, we had this lovely daddy daughter tradition, where we had a secret milky bar that we kept in the top drawer of his, he had this like tall art tool thing with lots of small drawers, and the top one, the handle had broken off it, and so you couldn't get into it in a normal way. You had to get it opened by opening the one below it and then like shimmying out the top drawer.

Adam (02:02): Mm-hmm.

Georgia (02:02): So before I was born, my dad smoked a pipe occasionally

Adam (02:05): Mm-hmm.

Georgia (02:05): In this very sort of Sherlock Holmes kind of way. I'm reminded of, Nessa in Gavin and Stacey where she says "I smokes a pipe on Easter". And so it was that kind of thing. and he had this really lovely, now I'm not a fan of smoking at all, but, there's like a pipe tobacco that my dad would be able to tell me what it is a really lovely, nice tobacco-y smell.

Adam (02:26): It's, it's funny, isn't it? The...

Georgia (02:27): Yeah.

Adam (02:27): ...My granddad smoked a pipe as well. In fact, I believe both my grandfathers smoked pipes, but I didn't meet one of them. Um, but he's, he smoked a pipe and there was that smell

Georgia (02:39): Mm.

Adam (02:39): Of the, of the tobacco, which is sort of very familiar. And it's, it's very different from,

Georgia (02:43): Yeah.

Adam (02:43): Cigarette smoke or something like that's much more acrid. Pipe tobacco can be much sweeter, anyway... We're not,

Georgia (02:50): Well, yeah. But basically I have this association between white chocolate milky bar and really lovely pipe tobacco. Um, and yeah, there, there's my first tangent of the day. Onto housekeeping, adam.

Adam (03:04): Georgia and I have sat together for the last two hours, so you can believe before recording,

Georgia (03:07): We needed a regroup. It's actually the first time we've knit together in like...? It was really, it was very grounding. It was, it was grounding.

Adam (03:14): We needed that. We needed a, a personal catch up as well.

Georgia (03:17): Yeah. Well the reason that we were kind of inspired to talk about travel was because, you just had your retreat. This is genuinely, this was my suggestion 'cause I want the podcast to be so where that Adam can talk about his, his cool retreats and that's, that's allowed, but we just needed a bit of a catch up because it's been so busy.

Adam (03:34): Well, the other thing, and I suppose this, this does even bring us back into housekeeping. The other thing to talk about and acknowledge is that for those of you that are very keenly aware and following on social media, you might have seen that we were, we have done an interview...

Georgia (03:48): Mmm.

Adam (03:49): And we had planned to, be bringing that out, but basically long and the short of it is that's not coming for another month or two at least. And the reason is that firstly, the interview took a long time to do, and so it's quite complicated to work out now, how do we, how do we downsize that interview into something which you guys all want to really listen to all of.

Georgia (04:13): Because we had like a long chat. It was a two hour conversation. Even if we break it down into two things, it's just that the editing things down and tangents about random stuff. It was our first time doing an interview together and...

Adam (04:27): Yeah, It's complicated.

Georgia (04:28): Yeah, it's complicated.

Adam (04:29): That was one thing we wanted to pick up on housekeeping. What was the other thing that we wanted to talk about in housekeeping?

Georgia (04:33): There's also been some funny review story situations that have occurred, a, we are not gonna name names, not because anyone is, like we just, we haven't asked permission if we can share a name, so, that's why we're not saying it. We got this email, or rather the first person to pick it up with was Dima. I was, I think in the middle of writing up. You were busy being Adam. well I got a text from Dima being like, "right, you got an email, but I responded to it quickly 'cause I just didn't wanna leave her suffering". Sorry I'm just very aware that I'm doing a lot of the talking right now and I want to like make sure that I'm pulling you in. Um, which I'm not doing a very job,

Adam (05:08): You're just asking me questions that I dunno the answers to. "Adam, what were you thinking about Adam?", "What was this email that was sent a month ago?" These are not thoughts I keep in my head.

Georgia (05:16): So basically I said something about like exterminator person that we got some like mean review and then some lovely, lovely, gentle, kind person thought, oh my goodness. Maybe that was me. I said about the " oh, it would be nice if they could talk about something else, 'cause I can't watch Game of all where I live". She emailed us to say that she went back on Insta on, iTunes reviews or, apple, not iTunes anymore podcasts. You can tell how much I engage with the modern world. She went back and checked Apple Podcasts and checked her review and thought, well, there's only five or six reviews here, and the one that most closely fits the description that Georgia gave and so this lovely person deduced that it must have been them, that we talked about giving a no star review. This review, in fact was very, very positive and kind, and had only got a drop in of " only four stars, because I just really can't wait until they talk about other things". This led us to discover that actually Apple podcast reviews are regional. Um, we didn't know that. So this person was in another country. We were seeing the UK reviews and when she looked for this review to corroborate and think, maybe that was me. She didn't see the actual review that I was referring to and so thought that it was her. And now we found out that there are reviews all around the world that we've not seen. So thank you very much for those. That's a long-winded way of explaining thank you for your lovely reviews that we had no idea existed. They're not cumulative. Who knew?

Adam (06:44): Yep. They're regionally specific, but now we know how to get them all and we found even more of them.

Georgia (06:49): Yeah. And this poor lady was really worried that she defended us and Dima quickly responded.

Adam (06:54): I also wrote her a lovely review.

Georgia (06:56): Yes.

Adam (06:56): I gave her a five star review as a podcast listener because she was thoughtful. She wrote well, she was caring and responsive and so yes, she got five, five stars, which would recommend.

Georgia (07:07): Thank you very much for that. We've also had a lot of lovely emails.

Adam (07:10): We get messages everywhere. I've tried to... I went through a phase. I was really trying to keep up with the messages on, YouTube as well: hello and thank you, if you're watching on YouTube, I don't acknowledge the camera enough when we talk 'cause we imagine this is an audio podcast. I do try to respond to comments on YouTube and I know you do too.

Georgia (07:27): Likewise. Yeah.

Adam (07:28): But it's, it's, it's awesome. Lovely to hear from everyone.

Georgia (07:31): It's, it's lovely and it's tricky sometimes, especially when I get lovely emails and I'm like, I really wanna respond to that. Particularly the last couple of weeks, we've both been really, really busy so just wanted to acknowledge that.

Adam (07:41): I will say as well, I mean personally is not connected to the Yarn Library podcast, but I will say in the last week I've had some shockingly like, 'cause it just doesn't happen. But I've had, they're not, they're not reviews, but like negative comments on Instagram. They happen normally, they're once every few months, but something obviously is, I dunno, the world's obviously in a crap place at the moment anyway, but the comments that I've had DMs and stuff in the last week have just been not helpful.

Georgia (08:09): Yeah. You sent a screenshot of one to our Rogue Yarn Club and it was mean and uncalled for and not fair.

Adam (08:17): Yeah. I think, I think they probably didn't mean that in a, in an unkind way.

Georgia (08:21): Yeah.

Adam (08:22): But like I'm, I'm giving the person the benefit of the doubt there, but I mean, they were out, out and out telling me that my colour choices were terrible and that I must be colorblind. So...

Georgia (08:31): That's the thing is it's not that deep, like, it's not that serious, but it's just like, why would you? You know, the world is, I don't know, falling apart, so, I don't want to overemphasise something that in the grand scheme of things wasn't that awful, but like, why just waste your tippy taps with like, saying something like that? I dunno.

Adam (08:54): It's funny, but there we go. I suppose I view that as a bit of a tax of being on social media that you get that. Um, yeah, that wasn't the only one, but they happen. But it was weird that last week I seemed to attract an awful lot of that.

Georgia (09:06): There's something that my family, we say when someone makes like, a slightly like digging comment...

Adam (09:13): Mm.

Georgia (09:13): We say "let the s%!* stink". Because if someone says something weird

Adam (09:19): You just let it hang there.

Georgia (09:20): Yeah, that's a bit bigoted. You know, you just sort of let it hang there and then... obviously it's important to call things out for sure, but it does work very well sometimes.

Adam (09:29): Yeah, I mean, I think both ways about that 'cause I think that works as a strategy. But then I've also, like in a workplace, for example where there's that awkward silence. I also don't believe in doing that because you have a job to police an environment. That's the difficult thing about Instagram, I also don't want to call people out on it directly because I have a relatively large voice on Instagram, and that's a, it, people put far too much weight into that.

Georgia (09:52): Mm-hmm.

Adam (09:52): Which I don't like.

Georgia (09:53): I think that's one of the reasons that we aren't so keen to say names of people.

Adam (09:57): Yeah.

Georgia (09:57): Because sometimes...

Adam (09:58): It can get misconstrued and I don't want people jumping on a bandwagon and causing...

Georgia (10:02): Yeah. No, that's not our vibe. There was something years ago when I moved to my college here in Cambridge. I remember reading, all of like the statutes of the college. And like, not many people actually like sit down and read all of these like, old random rules...

Adam (10:17): But Georgia does.

Georgia (10:18): Yeah, I did. I was very excited to be here, okay. And one of the things it said about my college was like, don't be b$!%&y about people, I think it says don't speak poorly of someone in your college. The thing is, people do that all the time, but I always have it in the back of my mind that actually the rules do say...

Adam (10:37): Only do it to their face or talk about people behind their backs if they're from another college.

Georgia (10:43): Yeah. Well, yeah. That's the funny. It was college specific.

Adam (10:45): That's a guiding principle. Like, don't be mean about any of us be mean about everyone else in the world.

Georgia (10:50): I'm worried now I'm gonna like misquote this and then make Cambridge look terrible. But it was, it's a sense of like fostering community and also like free speech and debate and talking to people openly. I mean, it wasn't just four years ago that I've heard like, no, you shouldn't talk about people horribly. My mum used to talk about when I was a child that your mind is like a garden, and when you do nice things like flowers grow and when you do like crappy things, then weeds grow and like the flowers die, which is maybe a bit dark, but it's, it's nice to do nice things.

Adam (11:18): Nice to do nice things

Georgia (11:19): Like inviting Adam to knitting groups and knitting picnics.

Adam (11:24): That's a great callback.

Georgia (11:25): Yeah.

Adam (11:25): Have you had any like negative comments on your..? 'Cause you are big enough now on Instagram, you've got like 60,000 followers. I would imagine that's certainly at the point where I was starting to attract...

Georgia (11:35): Yeah.

Adam (11:36): Negativity.

Georgia (11:37): I had some fairly early on because of a video we put out about Damien Hurst. It was a clip from the...

Adam (11:44): Oh, I remember you talking about that.

Georgia (11:46): Yeah. Yeah. That was tricky 'cause it was early on in my editing journey and in the way that I'd talked about it and edited it, I hadn't acknowledged like a long tradition and history of assistants and apprentices within fine art practice. And like that's a historic thing, it's not new to Damien Hurst. That wasn't what I was criticising.

Adam (12:04): Yeah, that's right. I remember that. It was about how artists work and that they've got ways of making their practise more efficient overall.

Georgia (12:11): Yeah.

Adam (12:11): As in their the workshop practice,

Georgia (12:13): Yeah,

Adam (12:13): That they go through. Yeah, I remember that.

Georgia (12:15): And people have been doing that for a long time. And I got a lot of comments with people telling me that I was in different shapes of forms, like ignorant or just didn't know about it. And I thought the best way was to pin a very long comment with lots of sources, acknowledging what they said, but saying, actually I should have used this example.

Adam (12:33): Did it work?

Georgia (12:33): I think it kind of did actually. 'cause I was able to all those comments just go. Some of them were nice, they weren't all horrible. There was one that was a bit sharp. But in the grand scheme of things it really is okay. And people have generally been very nice, though... so, like you said with your comment earlier, it wasn't meant to be mean and it wasn't meant to be unkind, it was genuinely meant in a supportive capacity.

Adam (13:00): Mm-hmm.

Georgia (13:00): I always love hearing from people and hearing their thoughts on things and yeah, feedback is useful. Um, we both encourage feedback.

Adam (13:08): I love this prelude that you're given. I can hear this is your brain is ticking away trying to be like, I've got something really crappy to say. I need to introduce it in the nicest, gentlest possible way. Georgia spit it out.

Georgia (13:22): I want my mind garden to be pretty. So, someone got in touch via my dms on Instagram and they said that I needed to stop talking about my PhD so much.

Adam (13:37): Right.

Georgia (13:37): Or mentioning it. Again, I acknowledge she did say " I'm neurodivergent, i'm probably being very blunt, I want to see the podcast succeed. I, but it's bound to be putting people off and I just want you to stop doing it so you can stop putting people off if they've not been put off already. And I was a bit like. Huh. Okay. Um, how do I take this? On the one level want to take this as constructively as possible, and so I know this person listens and I don't want this to come across as any way, like, as attacking or anything like that, it's not about that. But it did bring up some interesting thoughts for me because we, like, we're both, we live, live in Cambridge, right?

Adam (14:18): Mm-hmm.

Georgia (14:18): It's just very naturally like a very academic city in lots of ways.

Adam (14:22): Yep.

Georgia (14:23): We are around a lot of people doing PhDs and when I say, "oh, there was something I was working on for my PhD", I see that as a contextual cue, not as any kind of, "oh, I need to remind people I'm doing a PhD".

Adam (14:35): Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that is a very, very, I say Cambridge thing, but it's the same in Oxford, any other university town in a way. Saying your PhD is like saying I was at work the other day.

Georgia (14:49): Yeah.

Adam (14:49): And like that's literally what you're doing is you're saying, I was at work the other day and

Georgia (14:53): Yeah.

Adam (14:54): The difficulty is that in non university environments signalling PhD does signal a like it does mean a different thing. It doesn't mean when I was doing my day job the other day.

Georgia (15:07): Yeah.

Adam (15:07): It means something else. I mean, that is right at the heart of what I find difficult about, like the random comments from time to time and this is, it's absolutely no one's fault because people do talk and say things in different way. No one has got an idea whether the one thing that they say actually is striking a really deep chord with you because it's a, it's much more deep in your personality about is this something which is part of your identity rather than something that is, which is a superficial comment.

Georgia (15:37): Mm-hmm.

Adam (15:37): For example, I, last week, one of the things that I, um at the retreat, we went and got a bunch of snacks for people 'cause it came up in conversation. We had international visitors for the retreat and we were talking about British snacks. Whole load of the British snacks were not known. And so I went

Georgia (15:54): Outrageous.

Adam (15:55): Exactly. Like, well this is supposed to be an educational retreat. I'm gonna go to the supermarket and get British snacks. And I posted about it on Instagram and it was on stories briefly, but yeah, I got a couple of messages of, I dunno, I would this borderline hate back basically criticising me for engaging with snack culture at all. Mm. And kind of

Georgia (16:13): Snacks are friends.

Adam (16:15): Careful what you say. One of them was like a fat shaming comment as well, which is like, I know that the comment that wasn't necessarily meant in a, in an aggressive or mean way, but, because I've got a long history of being overweight, like, it just, it hits something much more deep and personal than I think necessarily the person intends. Same thing with your PhD comment, because it's, it does form part of your identity, certainly at the moment that it's, it makes you think more.

Georgia (16:42): Well, it was funny actually because the things that they were saying in this message, and I did, I responded and we had a, a back and forth a little bit. Again, I could tell in her messages very supportively and in subsequent episodes and things, she said, "oh, this episode was great". And she's, it's been very positive. I should say, also, this person herself has a PhD. One of the things she kept coming back round to was saying, " well, it's coming across that you are insecure and that when you, get more experience in this, you won't feel a need to qualify what you're saying with telling everyone that you're doing a PhD. Like you're saying, that there are some things, right, that if people said them to me, they would really cut me and hurt me. I'm pretty objectively secure in I'm a PhD student and there were times when I wasn't so secure in being in Cambridge and I wasn't from a kind of community that did that kind of thing, and I don't feel that way anymore because I've done a lot of work on it. And so I kind of knew that my motivation was never feeling that I needed to qualify my position. It was really recognising, huh? There is a contextual cue here, but the biggest thing was thinking, I don't want people to get the wrong impression or feel that it's alienating or annoying or that I'm trying to one up people. Like one of the things that the person suggested was that I referred to things differently, like I could say, "oh, I was doing some reading on", or "in my research on" or whatever else and she did acknowledge it might just be a cultural difference. I dunno. But those different phrases in a Cambridge context would come across much more pompously probably just because Cambridge has really tried to move away from people saying like, "oh, I'm, I'm reading such and such"... and it just comes across differently in this cultural context and I recognise that's not the same for everyone else. And so in a way I wanted to mention it here because if you have ever felt like, "oh, Georgia is mentioning her PhD or mentioning Cambridge" or whatever else... I also know that me talking about it in detail could also indicate that "well, she's clearly insecure about it, but I think it hopefully can communicate more that I am very neurodivergent and think about things in all kinds of layers and directions, regardless of how I actually, emotionally feel about it and really want to just acknowledge for people that's not my intention.

Adam (19:09): So just just to be clear on the 5 minute, on the 10 minutes side note about specifically your PhD, that isn't a thing.

Georgia (19:18): Like there are lots of other insecurities I have, but that it's just objectively true, I know I'm a PhD student. That's, that's a true fact.

Adam (19:26): It's funny, the, it, I went to, I went to Oxford University or University of Oxford, I don't, I don't talk about it enough, Georgia, but like it's one of those things that when you are there, you think that it is the be all and end all of everything. And literally, like once I was out of it, maybe it was the career and jobs that I went into, but I literally never mentioned it again. Like I left and I was never a thing. And it's like it comes up maybe once every couple of years as something that I bring up. But actually I have always found that talking about it in the areas in which I have worked, it serves as way more of a barrier to talking to people

Georgia (20:05): Mm-hmm.

Adam (20:05): Like I actively ignore it and try and cover it up. I'll talk about having done an engineering degree or engineering economics and management degree. Like I'll push it as, as the side.

Georgia (20:16): Yeah.

Adam (20:17): And I'll talk about all of the other features of it to avoid talking about the university because it's, because more often than not, it is a barrier. But...

Georgia (20:25): Yeah, part of it is almost a corrective thing though, because I want to acknowledge in that being at Oxford or Cambridge is like, there's so much privilege wrapped up in that, in that sense I'm cautious to call it like a "barrier" -though I know what you mean. Like I do know what you mean, 'cause sometimes people are a bit fishy about like, "oh, they're at Cambridge". The other thing is though that you said about it being like in it, you thought it was a be all and end all. I'm very aware that like there is life outside, but when you are writing up, I'm sorry if I mention my PhD a bit because I'm, I'm in it, I'm in it like

Adam (21:05): 60 hours a week of

Georgia (21:06): Yes. I'm so in it all the time. And then, and the other thing is I'm doing a podcast that's basically on my PhD research.

Adam (21:13): Yeah,

Georgia (21:14): So I, it's gonna come up and I'm sorry about that.

Adam (21:17): Is your PhD research on the same topics that we cover in this podcast? If looks good, kill, I would be dead six times over.

Georgia (21:29): Well,

Adam (21:29): Ouch. That hurt when you pulling your leg, Georgia?

Georgia (21:33): No, it's just 'cause I took you literally and then realised that you were taking the mick um, anyway...

Adam (21:39): I'm gonna need a 10 minutes sit down after that. The other thing that I'd like to bring up in terms of like housekeeping, I remember being coached by this amazing woman. I've used her to coach a number of teams that I've worked with in a number of different businesses. She's absolutely amazing. Um, but one of the things that she's really amazing at one of the many things is that when she sits down with a group at the beginning of the day to do whatever you're focusing on in terms of team understanding, is she sits down and she says, how is everyone. And obviously everyone just sort of grunts and gives that very quick response of like, I'm fine or whatever. And then she says, I'm not gonna take that 'cause that's not true. And it's not where, it's not why we are here. And then she says, I've had a bit of a disrupted morning because this happened. And so I'm feeling a little bit, paraphrasing at this point, I'm feeling a little bit triggered because of that and I'm trying to resettle myself now because blah, blah, blah. And then she forces you to go around the room and have that like, because she wants everyone to be on the same page. Like where's everyone's energy levels at?

Georgia (22:44): Mm-hmm.

Adam (22:44): Just like, not because there's anything wrong with coming into the room, feeling annoyed, feeling whatever, but like just to acknowledge where everyone's at. I was gonna try and do that 'cause I thought, 'cause I was coming into this podcast. Quite low energy and quite a difficult place.

Georgia (23:02): Mm-hmm.

Adam (23:02): I'm, I'm very, very emotionally run down over the last like, few weeks. Uh, and so that's that, I, that's where I wanted to sort of base.

Georgia (23:11): Mm-hmm.

Adam (23:12): Our housekeeping like to ground both of us,

Georgia (23:15): But then we already had like a nice, our own personal grounding that I think has pepped us up a little bit. Is that the kind of point you're making and you dunno what the point is you're making? 'cause I interrupted you again. Sorry.

Adam (23:25): Thank, thank you. Yeah. I think I guess that's partly it, but I also wanted to sort in the housekeeping acknowledge like where we're at in terms of recording the podcast and the frequency and—

Georgia (23:36): Yeah.

Adam (23:36): And so on of it, so in terms of like things we've been up to recently.

Georgia (23:40): A friend of mine is a really, really lovely, amazing organist. As well as being a PhD student actually in classics. She's been organising this really lovely project for people who kind of in a similar situation to me, maybe have done a lot of singing in the past, haven't really done it recently, and it's a very low commitment, but really nice bunch of people and we're singing The Messiah and we've been rehearsing that and it's literally the first time that I've like Sung, sung, in five years.

Adam (24:11): Are you in the choir or are you one of the soloists?

Georgia (24:13): I'm just doing the choir. I said I don't wanna do solo. I just, I just wanna go and like see if I can still cope with being in a choir and I'm really enjoying it and it's actually teaching me to like actually enjoy something again like that, which is lovely. It is happening in my college chapel, which is where I got married. So I know it really well, it's a beautiful space for me. Very, very, like heartwarming. Like weird things happen in that church that make me go, "oh, I'm kind of going on the right track here". And on Saturday, the first person ever who's come up to me to say. "Oh, are you Georgia Denham? I know you from your podcast" was someone who was in that choir who I didn't know, but was like mutual friends of friends. And they came up to me and were like, yeah, I listened to your podcast. And I said, I'd give her a shout out and it's Kitty - also a PhD student.

Adam (25:03): At Cambridge?

Georgia (25:03): Yeah. Very, very cool stuff actually. Um, and we had a lovely conversation on the break and she walked up to me in like, basically exactly the spot where I got married and I was just like, "I think I'm doing the right thing". Like this is, I, "I feel like I'm on the right path. This is nice". So yeah, it was a very lovely, lovely, heartwarming thing.

Adam (25:23): I find it so bizarre to be recognised in different places because. And broadly I am never recognised outside of craft environments.

Georgia (25:31): Mm-hmm.

Adam (25:32): I think I've been stopped once in the supermarket. It was in Sainsbury's and, that and that, and that was it. Like, and someone recognised the scarf that I was wearing like, you, "you are wearing that scarf, you must be Adam".

Georgia (25:45): Oh.

Adam (25:47): But obviously you go to a craft place, you go to a yarn, fair or something. I'm, I...

Georgia (25:54): You're fair game

Adam (25:55): Yeah. Uh, but yeah, otherwise I'd travel around completely incognito. It's really bizarre because I don't like my, no one else around me. My children don't understand what, what the difference is. And also they see like big numbers on Instagram. They think that means an automatic level of fame, but really, like in the grand scheme of the world, like

Georgia (26:13): Niche.

Adam (26:13): It's nothing

Georgia (26:14): Like niche.

Adam (26:14): It's, it's like niche, niche, niche in terms of

Georgia (26:17): Mm-hmm.

Adam (26:17): In terms of numbers.

Georgia (26:18): It's a fun niche though.

Adam (26:19): It is a fun niche.

Georgia (26:20): I'm, I'm happy to be in this niche. I think,

Adam (26:23): I wonder if we're gonna get through a whole episode without talking about knitting Georgia.

Georgia (26:26): This feels so egotistical just to have this just on this... um, my supervisor who've, who's like, oh God, I'm talking about PhD and again, aren't I? Um, my lovely supervisor. Spoke last week about how, he was recently asked to write a piece for a journal, that's, it was like a first issue of the journal.

Adam (26:50): Mm-hmm.

Georgia (26:50): And they asked him to do like a. Oh, I mean, he described it as like memoir style, like talking through his life, and how he got to the place that he is this like really great disciplinary, human computer interaction researcher. And he said he just feels uncomfortable about it because it's like not a scientific paper and he's like, I just feel like it's really self-indulgent. And, I'm feeling a lot of that right now that I feel like we should be talking about hard hitting content about important things such as travelling with knitting,

Adam (27:20): Travelling with knitting and,

Georgia (27:21): And your yarn retreat

Adam (27:22): And my yarn retreat.

Georgia (27:23): So that was the big motivation for talking about travel, so let's talk about your yarn retreat, and then that's an episode

Adam (27:29): You want to talk about my yarn retreat now? Then we'll lock off this as an episode

Georgia (27:33): And then talk about travel.

Adam (27:34): And then we'll talk about travel in the next one. So this is gonna be like the introduction to the next episode.

Georgia (27:38): Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that could work

Adam (27:40): Well, well done for any listeners that have made it this far through the episode,

Georgia (27:43): Oh my God, I hate this thing. We are trying new things. Okay. This is the experimental season

Adam (27:48): And I just want to make sure, in case Georgia has cut it out, but in case you weren't aware, Georgia has done a PhD or is.

Georgia (27:56): I'm not insecure. I'm very confident. Thank you for acknowledging.

Adam (27:58): I'm gonna get, I'm also gonna get a little sign that I can hold up that says, joke, maybe on the other side it says PhD question mark.

Georgia (28:04): That would be a really lovely, reasonable adjustment for this neurodivergent friendly space. Thank you.

Adam (28:07): I feel like it is important. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna tell you about my yarn retreat.

Georgia (28:11): Yes, please.

Adam (28:12): Before we go any further.

Georgia (28:12): Yes, please.

Adam (28:13): I'm gonna, I'm gonna stop tangenting.

Georgia (28:14): Okay.

Adam (28:15): So the yarn retreat. Uh, it was, it was amazing. So I've always, always wanted, I haven't even been knitting that long. I've wanted for a long time to create a space for yarn retreats that I would want to be on.

Georgia (28:28): Can confirm, you have been talking about this for a long time.

Adam (28:31): Because I think it's like, I love mit. I love meeting people in the knitting community. I love the fact that basically when you meet people in the knitting community, there is a...

Georgia (28:42): And crochet

Adam (28:43): And crochet and...

Georgia (28:44): "shame!"

Adam (28:45): And macrame and sewing, whatever you else you wanna throw in there.

Georgia (28:48): Textiles. Crafts.

Adam (28:49): There is a vibe that is just generally lovely and I really want, like, I celebrate the fact that basically I now feel very confident. I absolutely wouldn't have two or three years ago, but I would feel very confident if I'm alone travelling in a city somewhere, I would now feel very happy Googling and looking on, on Meetup or whatever, like finding a local craft knit night or something in a pub and just rocking up. I know how open those spaces are and that they, that... they're familiar enough to me that I understand what they are, why they exist, and the kinds of people that generally go. But I also want to cr... I like, it's never enough. Like spending a couple of hours with people is lovely, but it's not as much as like going away and really having time to focus on your project or knitting or what you want to do, and being able to do that with similar like-minded people. So I really wanted to create that and I know that they exist already and I've been invited to teach on, I was gonna say loads of other several, I call it a few other peoples, retreats or holidays. But when I've got into the details of it for one reason or another, it's not been either financially worth my while, because you end up taking a huge amount out of your time. Like it's fine if, if you are regarding it. If I were regarding it as a holiday, that's one thing, but I don't go on that to have the holiday for myself. It's not, I want create the experience. It's not, I want to create the experience for someone else, in which case, like own the whole project. Um, and that was like, that was so exciting to set that up with Louise, my partner in crime there maker on the move, that we've created this, kind of experience. And it was, it was, it was wonderful, but my goodness, it was stressful. It was like just, just the anxiety because you've, I love having friends for dinner parties or house parties or whatever. Like I love that thing. But then. It also doesn't mean that I don't get stressed out by making sure that everyone's having a good time. And I want to, like, I feel other people's emotions acutely and I want to make sure that everyone is getting out of it what they want and need too. Um, and obviously it being the first one that we've done that was just full of, stress and

Georgia (31:15): Yeah.

Adam (31:15): You know, just, just making, just really trying to keep on top of stuff. And of course you're learning so much, there's so much you can go on a retreat and you won't understand the things that if you run a retreat that you learn. And so like the rate of learning learning's always exhausting. Um, and it's like, like remembering all of the things you want to change for. Next time. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but like, just how we structure the days and programme the days and um, and also giving ourselves downtime. There was one, one mistake. We talked about mistakes the other week, didn't we? One massive mistake that Louise and I made is that we created this schedule where we were basically with everyone the whole time.

Georgia (32:01): Ah,

Adam (32:01): So I was from roughly eight o'clock in the morning when I was at breakfast with everyone. I didn't get more than like, literally a few minutes to myself until 10 o'clock in the evening. And that was something which, in terms of like Louise and I, having time to catch up and talk about like, what's going well, what's not going well, who do we need to look after? Are there any extra support we need to put in place or so on? Like, we just didn't have time for that. Um, and that made it kind of super exhausting, but, but a hundred percent worthwhile and a hundred percent. Like, I cannot wait to do the next ones.

Georgia (32:41): Mm-hmm.

Adam (32:42): There were times where I was like, looking at myself in the mirror thinking, what on earth have you got yourself into Adam? But like, it's, it's 'cause it's something I care about, and I care about so passionately, like it was a, that makes it worthwhile in itself.

Georgia (32:57): Yeah.

Adam (32:57): Because you just get into the joy of doing something that you care about is a, is such a nice thing.

Georgia (33:02): I've really seen how this has kind of opened out over time for you and how much you've been behind it. Going from like, the early conversations we had about like, "oh yeah, we should, it would be really nice to get an, an like a retreat together" and in a way it sort of inspired our own like rogue young club " oh yeah, should we do our own little retreat? That would be really fun" So going from there to actually seeing you do it's very cool. It's very cool to like see, see something like hustling to the point of like, fruition and it's like a legit thing. And I was seeing all these reels and posts and stuff and like that one of all the yarn laid out... oh, that was, that was scrummy.

Adam (33:41): I know for any, anyone that runs a yarn shop, that won't have been a big yarn delivery 'cause it was like, it was 120 skeins or something of yarn. But...

Georgia (33:49): I was like showing it to Dima, I was like, "do you know how much yarn this is? This is insane". It was, it was very cool. And I know how much, attention you put into those kinds of things. I don't tend to say that I'm proud of people because, I have this, I was raised with this idea that like, you can take pride in yourself, but my dad didn't say who he's proud of me because he thought that it wasn't his place to, 'cause it was my own achievement. So I don't tend to say "I'm proud of you, Adam", but the version of that I do say is like, I'm really happy for you and it's a lovely thing to witness you achieve and accomplish this thing, 'cause it's very cool.

Adam (34:26): Thank you. Well, you say accomplish, and I immediately want to excuse it and say, well, it's not accomplished yet because we haven't, we haven't finished with this retreat in terms of like, there is still wrapping up to do.

Georgia (34:39): Mm-hmm.

Adam (34:39): There's still all the, accounting to do for it. There's still, there, there's stuff that we're sending up both virtually and physically.

Georgia (34:47): Mm-hmm.

Adam (34:47): We've got plans for, for people. Like, there is, there is still so much to do.

Georgia (34:52): Yeah.

Adam (34:53): And excitingly like we want to launch the plan is to launch three more retreats within the next two weeks.

Georgia (35:01): That's fancy.

Adam (35:03): I mean I basically have a PhD in over committing,

Georgia (35:08): Yeah. By special regulation. That's what it's is, phD by special regulation. We'll just get you through some kind of committee

Adam (35:14): Who can just award me at that. Um, yeah. So I mean, one of the bits of feedback was that like a lot of people wrote it and said, 'cause we did this at very short notice. Like, Louise and I were having the conversation for a bit and I very much said, "let's just [baa] do this!" And that was a, "okay, well we're gonna do it. What's the date? Let's lock it in. Let's do it". And like, 'cause that's the thing. 'cause you can talk about these things forever and you say it's been in conversation for a while. Anything that's in conversation for a while with me either has to happen or it's not gonna happen.

Georgia (35:48): Mm-hmm.

Adam (35:48): And like, "[baa] or get off the pot". Sorry, we're going through all the baahs. I know. Very quickly

Georgia (35:55): I've never heard that phrase.

Adam (35:56): Oh, it's a brilliant one, isn't it? "[baa] , or get off the pot".

Georgia (35:58): It's, it's so good. I love that.

Adam (36:02): I'm sorry. I dunno. How you get, how you're gonna include that

Georgia (36:04): Has practical applications as well. It's like someone's in the loo too long.

Adam (36:08): So for anyone that's that's they're not familiar. I mean...

Georgia (36:11): Wait, what does it mean?

Adam (36:12): Well, poo or get off the toilet. That's the...

Georgia (36:14): Well, yeah. So that's what I thought. Yeah.

Adam (36:16): Because you are occupying the space and time, like a thought is occupying space in your brain. Like, or, or

Georgia (36:23): Yeah.

Adam (36:23): That you are occupying a space for someone else, like get out of the way and let someone else get on with the

Georgia (36:28): Mm-hmm.

Adam (36:28): With what their business is. Um, so yeah. No, I, that was very much it. So it, so it crystallised, but a lot of people said like, if this was booked longer in advance, I'd love to come because they're organising international travel, all the rest of it.

Georgia (36:40): Mm-hmm.

Adam (36:40): Totally Fair enough.

Georgia (36:41): I think I've learned a lot from you in being in your proximal area of just doing things. I saw something the other day, oh gosh. It was like "ADHD is having enough ideas to build an empire, but getting stuck on choosing the font".

Adam (37:01): Oh my God, that's, it's such a thing. Absolutely. Like it's so easy to do. And also yeah, that there are a thousand ideas to test and to, and to do.

Georgia (37:11): Yeah.

Adam (37:11): But, but I also like my corporate background, my experiences, you have to test something and testing something that's 80 or 90% of the way there is what you have to do.

Georgia (37:21): Mm-hmm.

Adam (37:22): And I get, I mean, broadly, I get fed up of conversations that go on too long about, oh, I could do this, I could do this. I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. Like. Are you actually or are you not? Because if you're not,

Georgia (37:34): Yeah,

Adam (37:34): Just start talking about it. I don't wanna hear about it anymore.

Georgia (37:36): Having conversation with you, even as a friend is really, I enjoy the structure of it sometimes where like, we'll just have a nice, fun, like free, easy conversation. I'm not saying that you're like a businessy, like when we have conversations, but like earlier we were having a chat, we were just trying to decide what we were gonna talk about and what the plan of action was. And then you really well, like wrapped up the thing. I suppose it comes with experience of being able to say, okay, two questions for you, boop boop, and um, right. So this is what we're doing, right? Let's like crack on. And it wasn't passive aggressive. It wasn't me. That's just like how you are in terms of that movement forward trajectory. And I've really learn so much from that. I mean it's even just this podcast, I and you were like, shall we record a podcast on Monday? And I'm like. Okay. Yes, please. And I mean, going back to the Empire and font thing, I mean, Yarn Library would, I'd still be choosing the font if, if Adam hadn't have just asked me to do it. So, in fact, I've, I've spent a shocking amount of time choosing fonts for Yarn Library.

Adam (38:36): So if you've got any comments or questions on, on fonts specifically, then Georgia sounds like she needs to be bombarded with that.

Georgia (38:42): To be fair though, there was a mention of fonts on my Hinge profile when I met Dima

Adam (38:49): There we go.

Georgia (38:50): And also postal stamps.

Adam (38:52): Well,

Georgia (38:53): I embraced all of the nerdy cliches.

Adam (38:57): I'm very, very happy for the two of you.

Georgia (39:00): We found each other

Adam (39:02): Through fonts.

Georgia (39:03): He, this is my favourite one that I just have to share with the room, so on this dating app, you scroll and you see,

Adam (39:08): Right?

Georgia (39:08): It gives you different prompts and you could put like a picture in response or some text and, the prompt was, my love language is, and he wrote Aldi Knockoff Brands. So good.

Adam (39:25): Amazing.

Georgia (39:25): Yeah. So that's how I found my man.

Adam (39:29): What else do you want to know about Yarn retreat? What else can I tell you about?

Georgia (39:31): I wondered about like, how many people did, did you do name tags? How did you remember people's names?

Adam (39:36): We did do name tags, so we had, wooden name tags that were laser etched with everyone's names.

Georgia (39:43): Oh...

Adam (39:45): That was fancy. Then we also did a, an exercise, which again, it's a creative step that I wasn't really thinking about. The first thing I. I did there, well, the sort of taught class was on, was on I chord. So it was a, about having an I chord cast on using an I called cast on I cord, embedded I cord edges and then an I called cast off.

Georgia (40:07): Mm-hmm.

Adam (40:08): And then also I was doing it with, different colours, the colour change and showing how to vary tension within an i-cords anyway

Georgia (40:16): I don't want you to give it all away. But what you're describing there feels like a mix of skill stuff. But then I also saw something about, you were also looking at some patterns or doing some small squares or something. I don't know. What was the structure? Like how, what were you teaching and doing? And I know that also Louise was doing crochet things. So how did that work?

Adam (40:30): Well that, so that was a class, but that made a beautiful rectangle

Georgia (40:33): Uhhuh

Adam (40:33): In pairs of colours and that, so what people did, which was really beautiful, is they pinned their name badges through that, so that became like beautiful knitted name badges.

Georgia (40:44): Rosette.

Adam (40:44): So that it absolutely, that's the thing, like that's a nice thing for learning on future ones is making sure that everyone knits their own, oh, crochets their own, name badges.

Georgia (40:53): It's like a personality brand.

Adam (40:55): So that was one thing, but that was also the reason that was an important class for this one is because everyone on the retreat got a pre-release of the pattern.

Georgia (41:03): Mm.

Adam (41:03): Never doing that again in my life. That was an absolute, like in terms of stress, that was such a mistake. We thought it'd be a really cool thing to do, to do a pattern release basically around the retreat. In terms of the stress of the actual moment of a patent launch, there is way too much. Absolutely, do one on a retreat, but the patent release still isn't for another week or two afterwards.

Georgia (41:23): Mm-hmm.

Adam (41:23): Like they need to be separated. That was too much though. After the final dinner as an example, Louise and I were up for another two and a half hours making sure that everything was in shape, in place. So that's almost one o'clock in the morning doing that stuff after the dinner where, we've been entertaining everyone at the end of a long day. So that, like, that was...

Georgia (41:45): Yeah,

Adam (41:46): That was a big mistake from us, from an emotional point of view. Um, but we, the reason the class and the pattern went together is because the class on I chords directly led into the structure that's in the pattern. And so you could do the class and then understand some extra bits about the pattern, which you wouldn't understand necessarily if you just buy the pattern. Getting some niche, tips and techniques. That was part of it. Uh, one person felt that they had truly mastered, I cords, you're gonna get that with mixed ability knitters. And they stepped out and they took a one-on-one crochet class at that point.

Georgia (42:21): Mm-hmm.

Adam (42:23): And there were other times as well during the retreat where people stepped away just to go and like... we really lucked out with the weather and people sat outside and knitted.

Georgia (42:30): Mm.

Adam (42:30): But then I also did some bespoke teaching, so like asked around the room what people were particularly interested in, and there was like, I did some, like one-on-one, two-on-one how you knit cables.

Georgia (42:42): Mm-hmm.

Adam (42:43): As well as a, like a bigger taught class on, on wrapping stitches and so on. Uh, so yeah, it was a, it was a whole mixture of stuff and that kind of teaching people what they wanted, how and when they wanted to do it and I was also, I had a stranded, stranded knitting on the go. So we, there was a bit of class on

Georgia (43:03): Mm-hmm.

Adam (43:03): On that teaching that it was. And that's what I love about doing relatively small groups is that you can help people based on individual needs as well.

Georgia (43:14): Yeah.

Adam (43:14): And give people bespoke tips. There was so much good that came from that, such a lovely vibe there. Mm-hmm. And such a wonderful group of women that came. But the one, the one person that went away for me that was like, she said something which was so special for me was that... was how her confidence had changed as a knitter, as a result of being away. Because she felt that the way in which I had taught was so empowering in terms of being able to get past mistakes or being able to like not stress about some of the details. And honestly, that mattered to me. So much because I, 'cause I know that I do that and I know that I talk about mistakes and I do get the feedback that people say, "it's nice to hear you talk about mistakes and acknowledging them" because like, knowing that not everything has to be perfect, but seeing that transformative step in someone

Georgia (44:17): Mm-hmm.

Adam (44:18): And them acknowledging it for themselves about, like, I can see where I was getting hung up on that. And then finding something within themselves about how they don't need that part of themselves, that, that they can find a way around that. That was, that was very special.

Georgia (44:35): And for visual description, we are both teary-eyed.

Adam (44:38): Yeah.

Georgia (44:39): So yeah, I can completely see that. I think having these conversations with you on the podcast and off the podcast. That's something that's so important to both of us. Not to project myself into the retreat thing, 'cause I think that's very much your and Louise's thing. Um, but I know the conversations we've had that... well you know, if you listen to this and you've listened to our other episodes, how we've talked about learning and skill and confidence and what it means to someone. That's why I'm getting emotional as well, is just 'cause it taps into so much that I know that we've talked about on the podcast and how many people have commented, shared. I mean, it goes back to the housekeeping at the beginning, like how many people have said, "I'm gonna go to an a knitting group and I've never been confident enough to do that before". And, I've, "I've started a new project where I'm gonna try Mosaic knitting" and I'm getting goosebumps now because that is just amazing. Like really, really amazing.

Adam (45:38): There were so many times and I said it whilst we were there I think everyone thought I was joking when I said, you've just given me goosebumps., 'Cause I don't think they think it's real, but it's so,

Georgia (45:47): We love knitting so much.

Adam (45:48): It's so real. Like it matters. It matters to me so much on, on such a deep level that people, that people can feel a transformation because I know, because I know that it goes further than knitting. It isn't just,

Georgia (46:02): Yeah.

Adam (46:02): When someone achieves something in knitting, you are not just unlocking,

Georgia (46:06): Why are we crying?

Adam (46:07): I'm not crying, you're crying. It goes much further than that because you know that when you're giving someone that air of confidence or that little bit of extra ability, I know that it supports someone in the rest of their life too. And ultimately that matters. That matters so much to me. I have like, because I, because I felt that as well, it's not just extrapolation because I've seen it and I've seen where it matters. I see it in the, in the charity work that I do, I see it and in all sorts of groups and environments that I go into. But the different thing about the knitting retreat for me, because it was an extended period of time with the same group of people and working with that group, there is so much more emotional support and connection that you're creating. I feel like, I mean, maybe it's just like the same thing as going to a knitting group 20 times in a row, because that's the amount of time that you're spending, condensed into a few days.

Georgia (47:01): Yeah.

Adam (47:01): I posted about it 'cause of it was, it was very real for me, but like the last person literally walked out the room and I turned around and I was obviously exhausted as I said, like we'd done a pattern release, so I was up at, till I didn't get to sleep till two in the morning and then I was up at, I dunno, half past five, six to get ready for everything. Then, everyone left at sort of about half past 12 was the last people out the door. And I turned around and there was this, there was an envelope on my desk and it just said Adam and Louise on it. Now, the first thought that went through my mind was, I wonder if this is a complaint. And gen genuinely, that's the, that's the,

Georgia (47:38): Yeah.

Adam (47:38): Some vulnerable space that I was in.

Georgia (47:41): I feel that way when I get voice notes from you.

Adam (47:45): Ouch. Adam dies for a second time. Oh my God.

Georgia (47:50): Sorry. That was mean.

Adam (47:51): What have I done to do that?

Georgia (47:52): No, no, it's, it's more other trauma. Don't worry. Uh, sorry. Carry on.

Adam (47:56): So I, you, sorry

Georgia (47:57): I spoiled a beautiful moment. That was terrible. I just couldn't resist.

Adam (48:01): It's fair enough.

Georgia (48:02): No, no, it's not, it's not you. It's not you.

Adam (48:05): No. We're gonna, we're gonna award you an honorary PhD for interupting Georgia.

Georgia (48:08): I had a really, really scary boss. Okay. Right. Carry on.

Adam (48:11): And so I opened this envelope, and it was just, as I picked it up, Louise called me and in terms of like more emotion on the scene, so obviously, not scheduled, but, Louise had to attend a funeral, and so she had to miss the last couple of hours and she happened to just call me because she was between funeral and wake at that moment. And she said, how's it, how's it going? Is everyone gone? And um, I said, well, I explained and I said, well, I've just got this envelope in front of me. Do you want me to open it and read it? And so I opened it and I, and I read it out and it was, it was obviously, obviously, obviously it wasn't obvious to me until I read it, but I was reading it out to Louise and it was this just very heartfelt...

Georgia (48:56): Mm,

Adam (48:57): Thanks of a thank you card. And I was overwhelmed and I just cried because it was, it was so, like, it was such a relief as well that... I mean there, there's so much that goes into that. I mean, someone's gotta have the, someone's gotta have the thought that I'm going to, I'm gonna write a thank you card and like, what a kind and lovely thing to do anyway. And that's such a lovely thing to do on top of then the, the emotional relief of like I dunno, I do trust everyone, but then there's always that 1% of doubt, like I was saying, like

Georgia (49:33): Mm-hmm.

Adam (49:33): This was the person who loved being there. And I was still thinking, oh, it could be a, like, it could be a formal that someone's left on my desk.

Georgia (49:41): Yeah.

Adam (49:42): Like where was like, I dunno where that could have come from. Like, we catered for everyone's needs, but, I guess it's that, that constant anxiety of like, like fundamentally I just think that I've must have done something wrong somewhere.

Georgia (49:56): Mm-hmm.

Adam (49:56): But yeah, it was, it floored me, but I think it was, it was a very particular moment and it was also that I was having to read it out loud to Louise on the phone.

Georgia (50:05): Mm-hmm.

Adam (50:06): And then, yeah, that was,

Georgia (50:08): In a, in a way I feel like this episode has become a kind of a homage to our lovely listeners. And our community and the people who are in some way connected to us that maybe weren't connected with us at the start of us doing this. There's something about hearing people's stories and seeing their progression like you described and getting those lovely cards and lovely messages. Like when people share something really personal. Maybe it's a story about their grandmother or their mum or how they learned as a child and that they felt like, "oh, thank you so much for talking about that, because it's made me realise x, y, z thing". And recently I've been getting like super emotional about. Like, not all the time, but super emotional sometimes. when I've been, doing reading for my PhD, on like different craft things and genuinely I've been so like, overcome with emotion sometimes that I've been like "am I pregnant?" And I'm not. But like, I feel like I have to put that as a disclaimer, 'cause if any woman says that she's feeling emotional about stuff, irrationally then people could be like, "are you pregnant?" Um, anyway.

Adam (51:25): Also, can I just say, not that you have to f&%!ing tell anyone.

Georgia (51:29): Thank you. Thank you. Exactly. Exactly. Um, but it just unfortunately I feel like if I told this story, then like, or just even tell, told it to friends or someone, they'd be like, "oh, you're pregnant". Like, I get that stuff all the time.

Adam (51:43): I know it's a, it's a period of life that you are in, and I know that is, it is a suffocating.

Georgia (51:48): Yeah. But the point of this is I've been getting like weirdly emotional recently. Um, and I've assumed it's just 'cause I'm tired or 'cause I'm really passionate about what I'm researching. Um, but sometimes I'll read something. So one of them was a book called, it was a passage from Amateur Craft, I think it's called Amateur Craft, by Stephen Knott (Knott, 2015). And it was actually his PhD thesis that was then turned into a book by Bloomsbury, Visual Arts.

Adam (52:18): Mm-hmm.

Georgia (52:18): And, it was a beautiful section on paint by numbers and I, it was just so lovely and so heartwarming and talked about how people hadn't really respected it as a thing. And then the people who had, and like the first exhibition of Paint by numbers and about paint by numbers as a means to make art more accessible for people and people wanting to pursue it. All these things, I was weeping. It was so beautifully written and so powerful that I was feeling and seeing the emotion and the people who were implicated by these ideas.

Adam (52:54): Mm-hmm.

Georgia (52:54): And, or the people that were impacted by these ideas. And I was in bits. And then a couple of days ago I was reading some bits of William Morris and oh my gosh, like, I mean, he just wrote about things (Morris, 2012). There's a, a beautiful thing that one of his biographers said in like the seventies that was something along the lines of, he wrote about things in such a way that we would know how he felt about them now, if he were alive today because he wrote almost in a time travelling way. Um, I mean literally sometimes in time, time, travelling way. And there were a few little bits maybe I have actually been thinking about making like an Instagram post of like my favourite, William Morris things I've come across recently. There was one about like science and pollution. And there was another one that really got me that was from like 1890 something or 1885, where he talked about, how museums were actually really violent, brutal places or that he could go around a museum and that because of, like colonial theft and taking things from different places.

Adam (54:17): Right? Yeah.

Georgia (54:18): And he wrote about that like 120, 130 years ago.

Adam (54:22): Gosh.

Georgia (54:24): And he wrote this, it is only passing, but it's in, the lesser arts, there's two different names for different things. One is a speech, one is the essay, and it's one of one of those where he says, words to the effect of like museums are great, but going around them, there's a kind of a melancholy hanging over the place and then he kind of said that actually if we look more locally and look to great cathedrals and to arts within our own nation, and maybe we can dive deeper into those things rather than going into museums all the time to look at these things that we've taken from other places.

Adam (55:02): Yeah. I suppose it's the, it's the type of museum that exists.

Georgia (55:05): Yeah.

Adam (55:05): And when you look at something like you're looking at national museums like the British Museum or Smithsonian or, the Met in the US

Georgia (55:12): Yeah.

Adam (55:12): Very big collections of

Georgia (55:13): Mm-hmm.

Adam (55:14): Of international stuff. Yeah.

Georgia (55:15): Yeah. I had a friend who's doing a, sorry,

Adam (55:17): What? I was just gonna say what an interesting insight to have had in the 19th century Yeah. Though, because that's

Georgia (55:25): When was currently happening,

Adam (55:25): Because it was very much still part and parcel of what, I mean, certainly what the British were doing at that point, but also, that was very much how the world existed.

Georgia (55:35): Yeah.

Adam (55:35): And to have understood, or to have the foresight, I suppose, because it's a, it is a cultural foresight at that point to

Georgia (55:42): Yeah. It absolutely is. You know, it was a, a topical, timely commentary on what, on things that were currently happening, but it's something that we associate more with, like, oh, people are talking now about repatriating things. I was in the V&A the other day, or actually the V&A East, the storehouse, and they have a lot of really amazing decolonizing museum practises. There's a book club that the staff at V&A can go to. There was something mentioned, I think I've heard of it before, but, there's actually like a, a legal law thing, an act from like the seventies, I think. Um, I'd have to look it up, that actually prevents museums in the UK from repatriating (National Heritage Act, 1983). Things like it's legally blocked,

Adam (56:20): Huh?

Georgia (56:21): Which is interesting. They described actively working with different communities around the world to arrange loans because they're actually legally blocked from giving those things back.

Adam (56:30): Well, that's the, that's just created...

Georgia (56:31): Can of worms.

Adam (56:32): That's the, that's the barrier that people can then hide behind and say, oh look, there's a law that stops me doing that. Yeah. Well that law was made by people. Laws can also be made to undo other laws.

Georgia (56:40): Exactly. Exactly. When the V&A was saying it, and the exhibition and the they were actively trying to say, look, we are trying to figure out ways around this and we don't want to, we don't want this to be the case, but we are legally prevented from doing this. It was just said in passing in one of the paragraphs and I went, "oh, that's interesting". So yeah, I wanna defend the V&A there a little bit. Yeah. Wow. That was a tangentful, joyous episode.

Adam (57:02): So we get the comment from time to time that people wish that they could hear more of our tangents and go off on one. Um, I wonder what feedback are we gonna get this time Georgia? Yeah, I know. I feel like we have managed to fill. Oh my goodness. We've definitely filled a, an episode worth of tangents.

Georgia (57:15): The irony that we're probably gonna get loads of savage comments going, I didn't enjoy this one. This was a bit too egotistical for me. Um, you talked about yourselves too much, where's the _literature. _Um.

Adam (57:26): It's funny, I think, well, I think your, your audience and my audience are different as well, because the comments that we get is different. You've got.

Georgia (57:32): That's true.

Adam (57:33): You've got a more academic audience.

Georgia (57:35): That is true. I need to talk to you about that. Actually.

Adam (57:37): We are not, we don't have time for that.

Georgia (57:38): Not now.

Adam (57:38): I'm gonna wrap up this episode. Georgia.

Georgia (57:40): Yeah,

Adam (57:40): I'm gonna say that's all we've got time for on Yarn Library podcast. You've be listening to me, Adam Cleevely

Georgia (57:45): And me, Georgia Denham at Tulipu- Oh, I was gonna do, it in accents, wasn't I? Next time.

Adam (57:48): Oh, you were. Where's the Dutch accent gone? Go and say goodbye and

Georgia (57:51): No, I can't do it under pressure. Like I might mess it up. No, I You already had a bit of a Welsh accent earlier. That's all you're getting.

Adam (57:58): Oh, I did?

Georgia (57:58): No, I "Nessa".

Adam (57:59): We did. It was, it was lovely. And,

Georgia (58:02): Thank you. Thank you.

Adam (58:03): It was interesting to...

Georgia (58:04): "Georgia Denham". No, that was, that was, that was appalling. That's not going in. Goodbye.