A Year of Memories

As we take our first tentative steps into a new year, a new decade, spread out before us ready to be filled up with memories and wondering where it will take us, the year behind us is already filled with memories some of which are easy to recall, key events or fun times, the special moments.  Harder to recall are the ordinary moments, the conversations, the subtle changes in the children, those memories are still there stored in my memory bank but as one building an overall picture of the year.  It would be impossible to remember it all, our heads would be over flowing like the magic porridge pot.

I came back to blogging in August this year after a three year break which made me realise how few photos I took.  There were several months when I had no photos at all hence my collection of nine photos rather than twelve.

We started 2019 in the Bahamas the last few hours of an amazing month with friends who live there.  The airport on their island is so unlike those of the big cities so many of us are used to.  It was a small building with many staff doing multiple jobs.  We were able to hang out with our friends until twenty minutes before take off when we had to go through a very basic security check and show our passports.  We waited in a small waiting room much like you would find in your local train station before walking across the tarmac to our plane.  We could see our bags on a trolley behind a wire fence waiting to be pulled across the tarmac to the plane.  They had been passed out a big opening in the building to the waiting trolley.  So different from the end of our journey in the vast and bustling terminal of London Heathrow.

At Easter, in April we went on a big canoe trip around some of the lakes which make up my part of the world.  We had plans to do four, one on each of the days of the long weekend that makes up the Easter weekend here.  We set off early on the Friday but our car had different ideas and broke down on the motorway, lucky for us it was about 7am so the breakdown rescue service we pay for was not busy at that point.  We couldn't get the car sorted so it was towed to a garage where we left it, we managed to get ourselves sorted with transport but the lake for that day had to be shelved and we headed for our campsite for that evening.  We still managed to canoe on three lakes, Conistonwater, Windermere and Ullswater in the most gorgeous weather, we had sunshine and big blue skies every day.   We clocked up about 50km of paddling.

June is the month of the Summer Solstice and our annual home ed camp.  It was the tenth time this camp has run and the eighth time we had been.  This year I was heavily involved in the organisation which was tiring but rewarding, we had over thirty families camping this year and so many things going on from yoga to wand making, from knitting and nattering to swimming in the sea.  We held a beautiful ceremony in a glade in the woods followed by afternoon tea.  It is the highlight of our year and hope it continues to run for many years to come.

In early July I took the children off for our annual camping trip together, this is usually to somewhere that ties in with what they have been learning over the previous year.  This year we went to Shropshire, not an area of my country that I know that well.  We were there to visit a historical working farm and the many museums that focus on the Industrial Revolution.  It was a lovely few days away.

August was a month of being outside doing many hours of conservation and learning in nature.  We did bracken bashing, weeding, wildlife friendly gardening, butterfly and dragonfly counting, wild flower and grass identification and meadow plant transects all through our local wildlife trust an amazing conservation charity.

September saw Alice and me head off to Wales for a wonderful restoring micro adventure. In October we had a great week as a family biking, canoeing and walking in Scotland.  Followed by November when Alice and I explored the walking trails at a local forest park whilst Cameron was off on the mountain biking trails with a friend.  We particularly loved the poetry trail with posts such as the one above dotted along the path.

Finally December which started with our beautiful, annual Advent Spiral, and was everything I wanted it to be including a wonderful, calm and quiet time in the weeks leading up to the Christmas break.

It has been a full and busy year, not in an overwhelming way.  I can tell that the children are older we are able to do more in our weeks and months as they are able to help me to make all these special moments happen.

I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone that has visited here this year.  It has been lovely to be welcomed back in the world of blogging as if I have never been away.  The connections I have made to both old and new to me blogs and followers and the lovely comments I have received have been wonderful and so supportive. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

So what about this year?  In 2020 I want to continue to stay true to what I believe in and to look after my family to the best of my abilities.

What would you like 2020 to be for you?