Around Here

It has got proper cold here, autumn is sliding towards winter.  We are due snow this week often that is the forecast but not the reality.  We are prepared, the winter tyres are on the cars, if we get loads we will just stay at home.

We have had our annual birthday month, my husband and I at the beginning of last month and my son last week. When Alice was little she found it so hard to wait six more months for hers to come round.  My son is now 20, that time has past so quickly, but slowly too which is a weird dichotomy.  I will not be writing about him much now not that I have in the past few years as I haven't blogged that much.  He is at home with us, working full time earning some funds to go travelling next year.  It is a new stage of family life for all of us.

After a very full and (too) busy October I have managed to keep the diary much quieter for this month.  A better balance of fairly busy weekends and whole weekends with no commitments at all.  The absolute perfect indulgence which I am embracing to the full.  I have turned down offers, meet ups and meetings, and am embracing the season.

My quieter weekends means that I have been doing many things at home that I never seem to be able to find the time for.  At the beginning of the year I wrote a list of the things that I would like to sew during the course of the year,  I have added to it a few times over the months but it was not a very long list.  I love sewing but I am slow and don't have room in my house for a dedicated sewing space.  Getting everything out and putting it away each time I sew means it doesn't happen very often.  I have, however,  completed two of the those projects this month alone.  I will share photos of them when the light is good enough to take some photos, it is a little grey and gloomy here at the moment.

I have also had a bit of tidy up of my yarn stash.  It is entirely made up of balls that are leftover from knitting projects most of which are parts of balls, there is a small bag of unused balls where I have bought that extra ball as a just in case and not actually needed it.  I am not one for buying yarn that I like and might use one day, although I am often tempted.  It is all stored in a big fabric basket that I made, you can see it in this post here.  It is hardly surprising that after four years of adding to the yarn in this basket and not taking much out it had become an overflowing mess.  It is still in Alice's bedroom although in a different piece of furniture now.  I was clearing out the knitting bags I have in the living room and found several balls that needed putting away in that overflowing basket.  I have been meaning to tidy it up and maybe get rid of some of the yarn in there and spent a least an hour doing just that.  Part way through I realised it was probably about time to find a project or projects to use up some of it so I had a look on Ravelry.  For those of you not familiar with this site it is a knitting (and crocheting) rabbit hole website with thousands of amazing patterns, many of them free.  I didn't stay on there long, but long enough to find at least one pattern that will use up a significant proportion of my stash.  I have moved all the yarn for that project into a basket which is now in the living room waiting for me to get started on it.  I put some in a bag for the charity shop and the rest has gone back in the fabric basket.  It is far better organised now.

Whilst my stash project waits to be cast on, I am knitting presents for that event next month, it feels a bit early to be writing that word here, although I am also on with making cards for it too.  I have a (second) sock, a hat, a wash cloth and mitts on the needles right now.   Lots of small projects, one of which always leaves the house with me wherever I am going, even if I only have time for a few rows it means they are all growing.  I have two more pairs of socks and another wash cloth to make, I think that is entirely manageable.  I have already finished a small jacket for a special bunny, the soft toy sort of bunny, that belongs to my nephew.

With life slowing down a little I have had time to revive my rather neglected sourdough starter and have been making bread more regularly again.  The loaves were a little weird to start with I think the starter was a bit lifeless, the loaves were so heavy and indigestible.  A little TLC has bought it back to life and the loaves are once again back to their normal, tasty selves.  We are not big bread eaters in our house, we only eat one of two loaves a week but much prefer home made bread.

I made a batch of sauerkraut last month, I bought one of these at the end of the summer and really wanted to try it out.  I have been making sauerkraut on and off for years.  I have a Sandor Ellis Katz book which I have used endlessly, I have yet to make a duff recipe from this treasure trove.  Apart from that is sauerkraut, it more often than not goes mouldy before it has fermented properly.  It didn't matter what I did, or how much I sterilised or didn't, the mould would arrive.  I even cleaned out my pantry as I wondered if it was something in the air in there, still didn't work.  I don't thing my weights were doing the job at keeping air from coming into contact with the vegetables.  The Kefirko fermenter seems to be doing just the job, after a whole month there is no sign of any mould.  I am looking forward to cracking it open this week to see if it tastes as good as it looks.  If it continues to work after a few more batches I might just have to purchase another one.

Despite a busy October I managed to read two books, Landlines by Raynor Winn her third book about an astonishing walk that she and her husband completed from the far North of Scotland to their home in Cornwall.  It wasn't their plan when they set out, they started on the Cape Wrath trail which is 200 miles of wilderness in one of the remotest parts of Scotland when they finished that they continued on the one trail after another until they made it home.  Those of you who are familiar with Raynor Winn will know that her husband was diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disease which improves when they walk.  She is a wonderful writer.  The second was Underland* by Robert McFarlane another writer I love.  This books is about Robert's journey into a variety of subterranean landscapes, he has a wonderful way of weaving words.  This months reading is Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth, a highly accessible description of an intriguing and most definitely possible way of redefining economics to meet the needs of humans (all humans not just the richest) whilst also not extracting to the point of depletion.  If you haven't already guessed I read non-fiction, pretty much exclusively.  I have read one fiction book this year so far.

I reached a rather amazing milestone earlier this month, a 1000 day streak on Duolingo.  That's over two and half years.  In reality it has been more like 1030 or 40 days as there have been many days when I have had to use a streak freeze to keep it going.  Most of those days when I have been out and about with zero mobile phone reception or access to wifi.  It has mostly been French with a little Ukrainian and more lately Romanian.  It is one of the first things I do when I wake up, a good habit to get my brain going of a morning.

So that is me at the moment slowing down and enjoying and embracing the cold and dark as we move through Autumn into Winter.

* When I typed Underland into this post, it autocorrected to Sunderland.  The Sunderland I know is a city in the NE of England and, absolutely no offence to the place, a totally different place to that of those described in Underland.  It probably has its own subterranean cultures which are every bit as wonderful in their own way.  It made me smile, got to love an autocorrect.

A Peek into my Day

Outside my window my view is somewhat shortened to a few fields, the clouds are low today

Around my house it is mostly tidy and clean, the carpets, however, are in a desperate need of a hoover, there is a pile of bits at the top of the stairs waiting to be put in the loft, I need them again on Wednesday so I suspect they won't make it up there, half a tent is waiting on a new tent pole as we broke one during its last use, a rucksack hangs on the newel post drying out.

Reading in the news of a terrible tragedy I am incredibly thankful that my Dad is still with us.  He is the same age and was assaulted by a 17 year old after he crashed into my Dad on his electric scooter in a pedestrianised area in his town.  My Dad has poor eyesight, a condition that has no name, but he struggles with changes of light and can no longer see things which are moving quickly, I am absolutely sure he would not have seen the lad.  Despite the assault breaking bones in my Dad's face, for which he was operated on this week, amazingly he did not fall over.  The outcome could have been so very different, for which I feel so blessed.  My thoughts are with the family whom have lost a loved one.

I have started on Christmas knitting this week, am I allowed to mention the C word this early in the year? I guess it is a bit late now.  I am creating a pair of socks, a present for a friend.  I do so love knitting socks.

After what has felt like weeks of rain I am hoping the weather forecast of three days of sunshine this week comes good.  There is nothing like a bit of sun as a pick me up.

With the advent of a new term comes changes to our routine we haven't quite refined it yet and I am thinking about some of the spaces that have been created an whether to fill them with regular things or leave them to see what happens.  It is always fine balance.

A chance conversation with a friend means that we no longer need to do quite so much driving one day a week I am loving the space this has created.  A small thing that has created lightness.

In my kitchen my sourdough starter is doing its thing, my sprouter is full of seeds and beans just reaching that stage of starting to sprout, tomorrows soup, a rather wonderfully named Belly Hug Soup, made with lots of spices, lentils and veg is sat in a pan, there is a loaf of sourdough defrosting on the side to be eaten with said soup.

Although I started work again when the schools went back on the 4th I am going to my first meeting of the term tomorrow night.  Most of my work is completed alone in a time of my choosing, it often gets done out and about whilst Alice is at her groups.

I have a presentation to do this week and I am pondering what to include, I don't want to create death by powerpoint.

I am remembering fond memories of my uncle who died last week.  He was an incredibly talented musician and inspired Alice to take up piano lessons.  I loved listening to him play.

I finished a book last night and am now on to the next one I am reading The Wild Silence by Raynor Winn I am already well into Chapter 3.  I am doing something I never thought I would and am reading some books on my phone.  They have a ridiculous number of pages but I am reading more than I have for a long time, if I am waiting to do a pick up and things are running a little late,  I always have a book in my pocket.

Before Covid I played in an orchestra, our rehearsals stopped when the pandemic reached our shores.  As is the way in family life other things filled its place once things started up again.  That night is once again free and I am wondering if I have space to start going again.

I love Podcasts, they are the soundtrack of my life these days. I am listening to Cautionary Tales with Tim Hartford an eclectic mix of fascinating stories of human error, catastrophes and hilarious fiascos.  I love it when an episode pops up in my feed, there were two this week, to my delight.

After reading an article on substack I am enjoying making use of the Calm app it was suggested as an alternative to doom scrolling on waking, this not something I have ever partaken of but I was intrigued enough to check the app out.  I had tried the Health and Her app but I didn't get on it with, I am enjoying the daily check-in's and reflections on Calm.

I am wearing navy leggings, a long sleeved merino top and stripy me knit socks, I have been for a longish walk this afternoon and have yet to get changed.

I was sorting through the notes on my phone which had become a little numerous, I came across a page of quotes my favourite quote amongst them 'you can't pour from an empty cup'.  I am much better at keeping my cup full these days 

A Peek into my Day

Unpausing

Hello.

Life has moved on.  By, ahem, 18 months.

A long pause. 

filled with things known, parenting, knitting sewing, work, volunteering, fundraising, a trip to South Korea (Alice).

and unknown, more work hours, more fundraising, a trip to Norway (Cameron), learning Romanian.

College is finished, courses successfully completed.  Home educating continues into a sixteenth year.  I am savouring these years knowing that they are slowing moving to their end.

As we move into a new season our lives shift into one too.  Cameron is out at work, full time, earning funds for future travel plans.  Alice is considering her future and where she might want that to go, pondering exams her cohort will take next year, will she too?  Pockets of time are ever expanding for me to do as I choose, it continues to be a novel experience, one which I am learning to lean into.  I will always be a parent but I can feel things shifting, I am not always needed.  

This new season is also a time for resetting things, a particular kind of new year.  After a summer of a free form version of routine it is time to find a new one, one that fits where we are now, this might be different to one that has gone before.  And that is ok.

Like the tides we are pulled together regularly by the need to eat and to enjoy each others company.  A sacred time every evening.  A tradition started my mum who insisted me and my siblings were home for tea every day whatever we were doing, in those days before mobile phones the time imprinted on to us via a blackboard in our kitchen.  We linger a little longer at this time of day now, making sure we eat at a time when no one needs to rush off.  These times are important aren't they, it won't be long before we are just two at home, the children out in the world doing their own thing.  I need time to move slowly right now, to prolong these moments and treasure them whilst I still have them. 

Pauses are a permanent feature for me now, I am leaning into them and finally able to enjoy them completely guilt free.  Book reading in the middle of the day, yep.  Napping when I am tired, yep.  Ignoring the housework when I need to rest, yep.  Life is still crazy busy and filled to the brim but sometimes there is room in there for a wee pause, one that is not filled with the guilt that us mums are warrant to pile on ourselves.

What do you fill your pauses with?

Busy (Gently) Doing

The last month has flown by and here we are nearly in the middle of February.  I most definitely did not want life to go back to business as usual after the lovely break over Christmas and New Year, that seems like a distant memory now but I would still love to go back to the gentle flow our days had back then.  

Alice and I had a lovely week away visiting friends.  It was a long drive which took most of a day but well worth the trip.  She spend a week with a friend, I stayed a little with her friends parents and also took the opportunity to spend a couple of days with a friend I have known for most of my life.  We met when we were 5.  It's that kind of friendship where we can pick up from where you left off last time we spoke or met.  We haven't managed to meet face to face for eight years but chat regularly on the phone.  I love that so many of the choices we have made in life are the same with out us even talking about it before making them, I sure that is one of the reasons that we have stayed part of each others lives for so long.  My great aunt who died last year at the age of 104 still talked about a friend whom she had known for nearly 100 years.  The friend died a couple of years ago just after their hundredth birthdays, they spoke on the phone every day, I very much hope my friend and I are still doing that in our nineties, if we live that long!  There is something very comforting about a friendship that has lasted so many years.  There is no explaining to do, the shared history is enough.  

Driving to stay with friends was actually my second time away in a month, most unusual for me who doesn't leave my county from one month to the next.  Eldest was on an Archery coaching course over a weekend, it was just far enough away that it would have been a lot of driving back and forth.  I decided to risk it with booking accommodation and wait until a couple of days before, sure enough I found a really cheap property for two nights reducing the driving considerably.  Unfortunately the bargin accommodation turned out to be cheap because the heating was on very very low.  The house despite being a terrace was freezing which we wouldn't have minded except there was no extra bedding in the house and sleeping was difficult in very cold beds.  I think I managed about six hours over two nights, driving home on the Sunday night it was a toss up between a warm car to take off the chill which made me sleepy or a cold car to keep me awake.  It took me four days to properly warm up again and I felt like I was keeping something like a virus at bay too, eldest sadly succumbed later that week and had his first day off college in over a year.

I have taken on some more work hours, it is a temporary situation helping out whilst a permanent appointment is made.  I did not think I have the capacity to work any more hours and I really don't.  It is only an extra two hours a week but it is two hours that I have had to take from other things, two hours, that  in reality I don't really have to give. I knew that, but it is not a permanent arrangement.  There have been many weeks when I have had things on every evening of the week and coupled with busy days and weekends I am meeting myself coming back some days.  But I know it will be ok as it is not forever, I can give it to someone else, I hope sometime soon.  

The day before our week away I picked up my glasses to read a recipe and realised that one of the lenses was missing.  I looked everywhere for it and all these weeks later it has still not turned up.  I hadn't worn them much that day except to drive Alice to her piano lesson.  I am pretty sure it was in the glasses then as wearing them without it made my eyes feel very odd, but who knows, maybe it wasn't there then.  I prefer to wear glasses for driving, I am right on the legal limit in my country, I don't have to, but feel safer when wearing them.  Luckily I had an old pair which were a similar enough prescription for driving.  I wear varifocals and the long sighted bit was not, reading and close work has been a bit of a challenge.  I had had my eyes tested recently and decided not to upgrade my lenses after that as there was only a minor change.  I now have two pairs of new glasses, if a pair breaks I mow have a spare.  It is the first time that has ever happened to me in thirty plus years of wearing glasses, hopefully it is the last.

I have finished reading two books already this year.  One I started last year so not sure that really counts but if I carry on at this rate I will double last years count.  Both books were non-fiction history books, one about Roman Britain, Under Another Sky was a interesting account of Roman remains across the country interwoven with the legacy of that time period both on the lives of subsequent generations and the built environment.  The other book was closer to home, Ring of Stone Circles is about the neolithic and Bronze Age stone circles and henges of the county where I live.  I knew that we had a lot, but I had no idea that they were quite so numerous, they are less well known as in other parts of the country.  My village has a rich history from this period although sadly the evidence has been mostly destroyed by road and railway building.  I love that both of these books has a useful glossary in the back listing the places they visited.

Alice and I have started going for a longish walk on a Monday afternoon each week, we have not always been blessed with dry weather but have decided we will go whatever the weather.  I prefer to walk at this time of year, going out in the rain is not always my idea of fun but there is nothing quite like returning home lighting the fire and warming up after a bracing walk in horizontal rain.  Inspired by my recent reading we have visited an Iron Age hill fort, two henges and three stone circles amongst other places.  We have just finished a project on Geology and have plans to do some geology walks locally too, we also live in an area rich in many different and interesting rocks.

We have also celebrated Burns Supper with our Explorer Scout unit, Imbolc with friends, helped plant over 1000 trees, learnt how to coppice, made a bird feeder, participated in the RSPB Big Garden Watch, finished sewing a rucksack, knitted socks, a hat and some mitts.

The busyness has calmed this past week as Alice had picked up a virus of some sort which has kept us at home all week.  She is all better now but I really needed that time at home to reset.  I managed an afternoon nap and some time on the sofa on more than one evening.  I have hit the weekend feeling more relaxed and am now ready to tackle another full on week.  The peaks and troughs of life flow on.

Memories to Treasure

As we enter a New Year ready to be filled with memories, I, like so many bloggers, have been looking back at the past year.  I sometimes write A peek into my day posts, I thought it would be fun to use similar prompts to look back at last year. 

Outside my window

I am so blessed to live in a beautiful place, I will never tire of the view from my window.  Each and every time I open my curtains to greet the outside world, I never know what I am going to see.  A grey dull day with low cloud obscuring my view, a cold and icy winter morning which is slowly waking up, the moon still shining brightly catching the first rays of winter sun, the green haze of spring or the beautiful colour palette of autumn.  Every single one catches your breath with its beauty.

We finally got new neighbours, they moved in a year, almost to the day, since our previous neighbour died.  We were a little baffled as to why it took so long for renovation work to start as we had thought the house had been sold back in February.  It turns out the sellers never sorted probate, to transfer the house to their names, after their mother died three years ago.  It seems they were selling a house that did not actually legally belong to them.  By mid August it was all sorted and renovation work started in earnest, for two months there was a lot of noise and bustle but all is quiet now.  It is bittersweet to have different neighbours, we are glad someone is living in the house, but it is tinged with sadness as a reminder that our beloved neighbour is no longer with us.  We really noticed last Winter that the heating was off, our house was noticeably cooler the heat drifting into the unheated space next door, our house is the middle of a terrace

It felt like we had four proper distinct seasons last year.  Sometimes spring, summer and autumn can all feel the same as the temperatures don't rise enough to distinguish summer from the seasons either side, the extra hours of daylight the only differentiation.  The warm and sunny summer meant that my garden produced plenty of vegetables for us, we don't have enough space to be self sufficient, but there is nothing like a home grown salad freshly picked and eaten immediately.  We found a CD with photos of the garden when we moved in, I had been searching for those pictures earlier in the year and finally found them when we were decluttering last week.  A computer died on us about sixteen years ago and took two years worth of photos with it, luckily we had shared many photos with family members so we got them back but had clearly not got round to putting them back on our current PC.  It made me realise, seeing those old photos, how much work we have put into our garden .

The dramatic rise in energy bills has galvanised us into increasing the number of solar PV panels we have in an attempt to reduce our bills slightly.  We already have solar water heating panels on the roof of our house which fill it front and back so we are making use of the garage and workshop roof for solar PV panels.  We already had a few up there which have been using to provide electricity for the garage and workshop, but we are in the middle of installing an array of 24 panels to give us a greater supply.  We have a friend who is an electrician who is going to wire them into our mains feed so that we can supplement the supply we pay for. It may also be time to find a suitable place for a small wind turbine which we have talked about for years.

I am thankful

I have had so many things to be thankful for this past year, I am sure I could write a post entirely about that.  We had a wonderful family gathering in March, our first in years.  It was lovely to spend a few days with my niece, all my nephews, siblings and parents, I very much hope we can find a time to do it again this year.

I continued to embrace rest and pausing during the year, making more space for it in my life.  I started off taking afternoon naps, something I shall continue this winter, it felt good to have this as part of my hibernation.  Even when lift got crazy busy in the summer there was still time for pausing, a different kind of rest to that which I was taking in the Winter but a rest none the less.  This is a legacy of lockdowns that I want to continue with for years to come.

I have some wonderful friends in my life, their friendship has carried me through many a time this past year, when I needed a listening ear there was always one available.  Those tough moments in our life are always so much more bearable when we have someone to help us through.

In my kitchen

I started making sourdough again, creating a starter and keeping it going.  I watched a lovely series on the internet which gave me a new found confidence and improved my loaves no end.  

In those weeks when I have a little more time to plan our menus I have made sure to get out recipe books that I have not used for a while to search for old favourites that I have forgotten about.  What that reminded me is that I am making recipes from those books.  When I cook something often enough I can then cook it from memory so those books which I don't think I am cooking from are getting used all the time, from my head. 

The slow cooker has become my new oven and gets used far more, a bonus as it is so much cheaper than turning the oven on.  I have had a couple of fails but in the main I have managed to wing it to adapt oven based recipes to great success.  What that means is that I have to be highly organised on the rare days that I do use the oven to make bread and cakes neither of which I have tried in the slow cooker as I am not sure if that is possible.  Perhaps that is something I should look into for this year.

I have created

Almost all the creating this year has felt like it was for fundraising, with the exception of several pairs of socks, I have knitted one hat, a pair of mittens and two jumpers which is a very short list of finished projects for me.  I did not do much fundraising knitting just a mountain of dish cloths, it is a little slow to be a good use of time in relation to the funds you can raise.  Small items tend to sell better, we have found, even small knitted items take time.

It is the same with sewing, I completed one project, a basket, which was a present for a friend, I started but have not finished a picnic blanket, and Alice and I have started making her a rucksack.  Fundraising sewing was making needle cases out of old felted jumpers and scraps of fabric from my stash.  

We were lucky enough to invited to join some home educating families on a few day courses to make jewellery, willow baskets and a stained glass hanging it was lovely to be able to have a go at these things, guided by a professional, without having to buy in all the equipment ourselves.  I have long realised that are a lots of things I would love to do but simply don't have the time to devote to them all, so attending a day course is a great compromise.

We made a mountain of clay Christmas decorations most of which sold, they were a great return for the time and cost of making them, a three pound block of clay made over a 100 which we sold for 50p - £1 depending on the size.  We have also made some daisy chains which did not sell at Christmas markets but hopefully will sell at stalls in the coming months.

We also did a lot of needle felting, this is another creative project that does not take a lot of time and has a good return for the cost of making them.  We felted numerous hearts which we made into garlands changing the colours with the seasons as we went through the year.  For the Christmas markets we made small star garlands.  We have sold about 30 heart garlands (that was 90 hearts in total) and ten star (that was 50 stars in total).

I have been

I haven't travelled a great distance this year despite driving many miles a week, it is all close to home.  We travelled in March to our family gathering that I mentioned above, we accompanied Cameron on his D of E expedition in a neighbouring county and returned there a few months later to assess another group both of which were a lovely few days of exploring the area with Alice.  We visited my mother in law twice once in the summer and a second visit that ended up being squished between Christmas Day and a commitment on the 29th.  The arrangements for both of these visits were less than ideal, I am not sure where the communication is breaking down but I have realised I need to be more on it with making sure that they are nailed down water tight at the earliest opportunity.  When you get invited for Christmas and then get told in December that that does not include Christmas Day as other arrangements have been made, as they also have on the 29th, a one full day visit is a rather short and expensive, for a 600 mile return journey.  

We had a wonderful family holiday a few miles from home, I realise that my intention to blog about that did not happen, lost in the busyness of the summer months.  We have become very last minute about organising husbands time of work, usually shoe horning it at the last minute between other commitments.  I am thinking that it would be better if we got some dates in the diary now and then other plans can be made round them, family life needs to come first.

I am remembering

My beloved Great Aunt who died earlier this year at the age of 104 and a half.  She lived a seven hour drive from me, not a journey I managed to make that often.  Our annual visits for the last thirteen years have been an important part of our year.  I have missed making that trip this year.  She was the most wonderful story teller remembering times in her life from so very many years ago.  Her memory never faded, my memories of her will never fade, she is our link to an earlier very different time.  I am blessed to have a photo of her as a toddler with my granny and their mother, my great grandmother, taken in 1920, it used to sit at the top of the stairs in her house so is also a memory of my time spent with her.

I had been blogging for ten years this year an anniversary that passed me by in February,  I have had several long pauses in that time so I may only have about five years worth of posts.  This is post number 906.  I love reading back over old posts, not just to see what we were up to but so that I can see how much my writing has changed over that time.

I have read

I am not one for keeping lists of the books I have read, I have no idea how many books I have actually read this year.  Looking at the books in the house I was not quite sure what I have finished reading this year and what I might have actually read last year.  I did not visited a library in 2022 so I know that if I have read a book it will be in the house somewhere.  What I can say with confidence is that I did not read a single work of fiction this year.  Highlights for me were Hand Wash Cold: Care Instructions for an Ordinary Life by Karen Maezen Miller, Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard, Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake and Mothers of Invention by Katherine Marcel.

Around the house

We have done very little work inside the house this year, a couple of new shelves and other tweaks.  I wanted to do more decluttering in 2022 and boy did I manage that.  I went round the house slowly room by room, removing things that we had not touched for years.  Cupboards and other spaces were emptied out and sometimes completely reutilised as the entire contents were no longer needed.  There were many spaces that were not touched or need revisiting this year too.  Decluttering is an ongoing job and one which I am loving doing.

Along side the decluttering I am still using the same method for keeping the house clean that I started at the beginning of 2020.  I often take breaks when the whole family is home but as I know I will be picking it back up again when the holidays are over it matters not that the house is ignored for a few days or weeks.  The premise of this method is that you have daily jobs, thirty minutes a day on one room a day for four days of the week and then one day a week when you focus on a deeper clean on one of your rooms on rotation.  My days of the week and the jobs I do are very different from the inspiration for this method but they work for me and that is the important thing isn't it.  I very much had a love hate relationship with house work before finding this inspiration, I wanted to do it but hated the tasks so never got started.  Breaking it down like this is perfect for me which is why I am still doing it three years later.  It is now a habit and an integral part of my morning routine.

Favourite quotes 

I am a sporadic collator of quotes, I have a few that I keep in the front of my diary and transfer from year to year.  I did not write many down this year, I thought I had more but this is all I could find.

We can't change our history but we can change our relationship with it.  

These are words that I have read on repeat this year to remind myself that things that happened in my past were not my fault.  Like a big hug, which we all need sometimes.

The thing that screws us up the most is the picture of how it is supposed to be, what if we deleted that, the idea of that, and we just looked at what is and found it to be enough.

I heard these words on a podcast and pressed the rewind button so many times to listen to them again and again before realising that I needed them to be written down.  They were spoken by Glennon Doyle.  These words have reframed things for me completely and when I find myself reverting to the unachievable picture these words pop into my head as a reminder that that is a less than helpful place to go to.

Enjoy the little things in life because one day you will look back and realise they were the big things.

A friend shared these words with me as she had found them to be a comfort to her.  She didn't write them and I have seen them written elsewhere too.  In the last few years I know that I have changed my focus a lot and one of the things that gets more of my time is those seemingly little things.

Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.

I went on a course many years ago, which spent some time looking at the impact of our actions on others.  I don't remember much about the rest of the course but that part has continued to stay with me.  I always try to be careful about the words I use around others to ensure that I don't cause harm or hurt, I also accept fully when I have done that to others.   I have been on the receiving end of messages that were written in this vain in this past year, if I had written a reply immediately it would have come from the heart not the head, writing and speaking when emotions are running high is never wise and invariably leads to pain.  Pausing and reflecting is the only way I can respond rather than react.

I have learnt

I rekindled my Duolingo account, after a long hiatus, at the end of 2021 after watching many films in Swedish and wanting to learn some of the language.  I managed it for a few lessons and then my limited knowledge of the intricacies of grammar in English meant I had to stop so I switched back to French.  I am lucky to have an old Duolingo account which was set up in 2012 so I get to make as many mistakes as I like as I have unlimited lives, you have to subscribe to get that on an account now.  I received some stats at the end of November which told me how much I have learned in the previous year, I don't remember receiving this before or maybe it was switching to the app on my phone that meant I was a lucky recipient.  Duolingo is learning done in isolation but alongside millions of other users worldwide, you can, if you want, be a part of league tables but I found them to be too distracting so turned them off on my profile.  I was somewhat surprised to learn that I was in the top 6% of language learners on the platform, I didn't think I used it that much with only a lesson per day, I spent an astonishing 4756 minutes (that is 79 hours) learning 1422, new to me, French words.  The few minutes each day add up it would seem.

When Alice secured a place as part of our County's contingent to travel to the World Scout Jamboree taking place later this year I knew that we were in for many hours of fundraising.  I had organised very little fundraising before so it has been a steep learning curve for me and all my fellow parents.  I think by the time we have raised the full amount we will be experts in what works and what doesn't.  The things that you think will be big earners have turned in to big flops and those that you cannot imagine will raise much end up being the best and easiest.  We are nearly there and need to keep going this year to get to our total, I feel sure we can do it and I know I will miss this part of my life when we get to that point.

Not long before Alice secured her place to attend the Jamboree I stepped up to become a Scout Leader myself.  My unit is the one for older teenagers, 14-18 year olds, we call them Explorer Scouts in the UK.  I have been volunteering on and off for this unit for the last twenty odd years but doing a little bit now and then is very different to being the leader.  I am so lucky to have the support of two very dear friends both of whom have years of scouting experience between them.  It was very time consuming at first as I often had to look things up before doing anything, I also wanted to set up my own systems which again takes time.  They always say that your first year in anything new is about learning and your second is about consolidation, this definitely rings true with me and I feel so much more confident with what I am doing now.  There have been moments when I have wondered what I have taken on but I know that learning about this role and learning about fundraising and all the time that consumes, at the same time, was not ideal but I am through the other side now.

I have long wanted to have more spontaneity in my life and be ok with it, to not be controlling and planning everything to be totally watertight.  Life is not like that.  I tried a bit more spontaneity in our lives over the summer last year and it felt ok, in fact it felt more than ok, it felt good.  I really enjoyed the flow our lives had at that time.  I know that I could not be like that all the time and that is ok too, the balance of a bit of it now and then is enough for me.

I have listened

I love listening to Podcasts, they are my own curated radio station these days.  I cannot remember the last time I switched on the radio to listen to a programme.  I could not have imagined writing that a few years ago when the radio was my aural wallpaper from waking up to going to sleep.  I listen to huge variety of podcasts from current affairs such as politics, the environment, LGBTQ+, book reviews, comedy, music, my local countryside and many more besides.  Stand out favourites this year were the wonderful candid interviews on Call me Mother, I hope there is another series this year.  The monthly seasonal podcast released on the first of each month As the Season Turns, it is a cornucopia of interesting information about the natural world.  The fascinating and witty Stories of Scotland which explores Scotland's nature, culture and heritage, each episode is completely different but well researched and a joy to listen to.  I am so grateful to all the folks who give up their time to make podcasts available to us completely free, I donate to some of them to support their work which I hugely appreciate.  

I have not listened to as much music this year, I have some downloaded on my phone but tend to listed to Podcasts when I am driving.  I listed to Spotify at home but don't have it on my phone so can't have it on when out and about.  I often have Spotify on in the evenings when I am reading things online.  They kindly created a playlist for me of my 101 top listen to songs this year, all six hours 35 mins worth, I think some at the bottom have probably had two or three listens, so it is stretching it a bit.  I don't know how many hours I listened to those at the top of the list as I don't have the mobile app, but I do know that my top three songs were, Painter by Låpsley, Roses by George Taylor and Burned by Love by Juke Ross, I know that I listened to these alot, they were amongst a set of songs that I found towards the beginning of the year and made up, along with fifteen or so others, into a playlist which became my go to songs in the evenings.  The artist that featured the most in the list was Blanco White closely followed by Tones and I, two completely different musicians both of which I love.

I am looking forward to

The diary is already looking busy for the coming months, weekends are filling up fast, we blocked out some time to travel to spend with friends who live way south of us, an old school friend for me and a friend who has moved there for Alice, we are looking forward to these days with them.

We are in the process of finding another big house to rent for a few days for another extended family gathering, we need fourteen beds so they are few and far between.  I very much hope that we get something organised again as it was such a lovely long weekend last year.

A few plans for 2023

I don't usually make resolutions for the year, or come up with a word, although I love to read about others doing both, they don't work for me.  I have a few intentions which I am hoping I can make into habits or make happen this year.

I want to make time for my friends, to arrange calls or meeting up face to face.  I always think this will just happen but time drifts by and it doesn't, life is such that I need to be more intentional about making this happen rather than just hoping it will.  My visit to my old school friend is the start of that.  I have already made contact with few other friends whom I don't see or speak to often to see if we can arrange a date for a catch up chat.

Alice had a hard year last year with her oldest friend going off to school which was difficult enough but much exacerbated with a total lack of support extended to her, from them, as she worked through that transition.  She started to feel ready to make new connections at the end of last year and we tentatively started attending a new group.  We have reached out to a new family and hope that we can meet in the coming weeks, she is nervous about this, the lingering effects of last year's events.

Alice and I started doing sewing every week at the end of last year and once we have completed the project we are currently working on we want to make clothes.  I got a book of patterns for Christmas and am looking forward to doing this with her during the year.

I have mentioned my morning routine earlier in this post, another part of that is my daily yoga practice.  On the days when I need to be out of the house earlier I don't manage to fit this in as I am not prioritising it.  When one day becomes three and then more, I really notice the ripple effect of this on the rest of my life.  I want to make sure that I don't miss more than one day in a week during the year this year.  I am also going to restart a journal this year as I know that this will help me to support my yoga, amongst other things.

My last intention is another thing that I have neglected and that is making and eating more fermented food.  I regularly used to make sauerkraut, chutney and pancake mix amongst other things.  I have a lovely fermented food recipe book which I want to start looking through every month to inspire me to try new things.  I know that my gut is in a much healthier place than it has been in the past, my Chrohns Disease has been in remission for 18 years now, but it it is important to look after your gut all the time not just at those times when it needs a bit of extra support.

Thank you so much for reading this very long post.  Thank you to all my lovely readers and those of you that have commented in this past year, I am grateful to you all.  I very much look forward to reading along with you all in 2023, which I hope is a year filled with memories to treasure for you all.

I will leave you with a poem to start your year:

May love and laughter light your days and warm you heart and home,

May good and faithful friends be yours, wherever you may roam,

May peace and plenty bless your world with joy that long endures,

May all life's passing seasons bring the best to you and yours.

Drifting with Purpose

The Winter Solstice slipped by this year without me turning up in this space.  I have moved into hibernation mode slowing down as the earth has slowed around me.  The busyness that Christmas can bring into our lives feels like it pulls me in the opposite direction of the one that I want to be taking.

We spent the solstice as we usually do, with a walk up a local hill to watch the sun setting.  After a week of beautiful sunsets the day itself was grey and gloomy the only sign that the sun had set was the gloom getting darker.  It was still as magical, sitting at the top of the hill looking down at the lake, the lights of the houses twinkling in the gloom.  It is where I wanted to be a that time, an important place, one where we have watched the sun set for all, bar one, of the last ten solstices.

We made a list the following day of all those jobs that need doing but there is never quite the time for, it is our holiday list to be worked slowly through until the time when work and college are calling again and life goes back to that.  We have cleared out several spaces in the house, getting rid of things that we no longer need.  It is a good time of year to remove things from our lives, from our homes or from our minds, letting go of thoughts that are unhelpful, that influence us in ways that leave us sad and unhappy.  A clearer mind is so calming, we are more productive, we sleep better and we can manage our day to day life more efficiently.  I love this act of reducing, when you know that things are coming into the house, a house which is small and fairly full, there has to be some space made to allow those things in.  I find a cluttered space overwhelming, it is a constant process to keep our house less cluttered.

I also find this time of year overwhelming and have worked hard, over the years, to reduce the overwhelm.  I have said no to so many offers of things to do this December, to ensure that we had more breathing space, and this year has been almost perfect.  I am not sure what would have made it more perfect other than going to a country where Christmas is really low key.  I have a bit of a love hate relationship with Christmas.  We spent the day itself out on a long walk, it was not the best conditions but we rather like our long walks on Christmas Day as it gives us a chance to park and walk in places that we would not normally visit.  We live in a very touristy area and there are some beautiful places which can be teeming with people in the warmer months but on a cold wet Christmas Day are pretty much empty.  We had the car park to ourselves.  Breakfast was large and hearty, so we only took snacks with us to eat whilst out, tea was prepped in the slow cooker alongside breakfast so we could eat when we got home.  We had filled the wood burning stove too so we came home to a toasty warm house with wonderful smells of tea filling the nose as we opened the door.  

Present giving was low key, a couple each before breakfast followed by a few more when we were home and fed.  Husband and I tend to give gifts to each other through out the year so we don't give each other presents at this time of year, we give the children something they want, need, to wear and to read at this time of year.  We had a small bag of gifts from my parents.  We had also been sent some presents from friends we have not seen for a few years as COVID has stopped us meeting up.  We were rather surprised to be sent these, we randomly get presents from these friends and as much as we appreciate the thought they are rarely anything we want, only Alice did well out of those, the rest have boosted the fundraising stock and the present cupboard.

Boxing Day saw us packing up and heading south to visit my mother in law, we joined the roads with thousands of others, we naively thought it would be a good day to travel, that the roads would be quiet.  I guess the rail strikes have effected folks travel plans and everyone took to the roads.  A four hour journey turned to six and half as we met accident after accident.  We only had one full day together before we returned home with an equally long journey extended by yet more accidents.  In the twenty odd years we have been driving south to see parents I don't think I have ever seen so many cars on the roads, I know I don't go far on the roads these days but they did seem a lot busier than normal. 

We have returned to work on the list, there are now three remaining, all the large ones, they always get left till last don't they.  I have some work to catch up on, those jobs that there is never time to do normally so a similar list to our round the house jobs.  It is good to start a new season and a new year feeling like you have cleared up the clutter from the previous one, it gives me the space and time to do some thinking and planning.  I love the slowness of the days at this time between Christmas and New Year, they are drifting with purpose.

We are slowly heading towards New Year my favourite time at this time of year.  We are hosting friends this year, an open house with food and drinks.  I am not sure we will make it to midnight, the last few years we have toasted the New Year in earlier and headed to bed, it is the being with friends that matters more to us than doing things at the 'right' time.  I am loving these slow days with all my family at home, full of moments to treasure.  I hope your days are full of those moments too.

The Spaces in Between

One of my favourite places to take a walk is in a wood.  A wood in summer, with the trees in full leaf can feel like there is hidden magic hidden round every corner, the sunlight shining in rays through the trees creating magical spots of light.  In the winter a wood feels more open but can still be dark as the daylight hours can often be cloudy and gloomy giving a wood an ethereal light.  The colours in the spring and autumn are always magnificent, the green haze in spring and the ever changing colour palette in autumn bringing a wood alive in more ways than one .  The spaces in a wood, the gaps between the trees are what makes a wood for me, it throws the light around giving it a special magic that changes with the seasons, a wood with trees close together is a dark foreboding place and not one I particularly like exploring.

My life has finally gone back to be being nearly as full and busy as it was pre-Covid, it has been a slow build up.  I loved the quiet that lockdowns bought me.  I enjoyed the stillness and slowing down.  I thought I could maintain that but it was not to be, I am my own worst enemy for taking on things that fill my time.  I don't, however; regret what I have taken on, the paid work, the volunteering it fills me up as much as it fills my time.  I thrive on having things to do, I don't long for a time when I have nothing to do, I prefer to direct my energies elsewhere.  What I have taken from the time of Covid is how very important time for stillness and rest are and however busy I might be I find time for this each and every day.  It does mean that some things, like writing posts on this blog get shelved for a while but that is how it has to be.  I am still writing it just takes me so much longer to get a post to the point of being able to post it, I am rather enjoying the mediative and slow process of taking time to write a post, dipping in and out as time allows.  I feel sure that it will improve my writing, time will tell.

When life is busier and there is more going on, there is so much more I could share and write about that ends up drifting by and remains in my memory without being recorded.  Life slips along wrapped up in food preparation, housework, planning, creating, spending time with friends, family, fund-raising, working and then every now and then I show up here to share snippets, the breadcrumbs that I have yet to sweep up and forget about.  It is so easy to paint a particular picture, the parts that we are comfortable sharing or the image that we want to create of ourselves online, we read about the lives of others through the lens of our own experiences which are often so different from the writers.  I am guilty of making it appear that my life is ticking along all rather wonderfully, it is like that most of the time but there are those moments when it all comes crashing down or those days when it feels like I am going backwards rather than forwards.  It is what we make of those times, those days when anything we do feels like pushing a car uphill, can we move on and put it behind us, or do we carry them around for days feeling them getting heavier and heavier, creating barriers that we can't see over.   

We had a significant day in our family this month, a rather special birthday.  We are now a three adult household, I am a parent to one adult and one child. Nothing changes but everything has.  I spent weeks putting together a memory book for his birthday, collating all the letters that I wrote to him on each of his previous seventeen birthdays some of which I published on here.  I have never been totally comfortable sharing details of my children, the names I have used for the past few years are not their real names, I debated for a long time about whether to share the letter I wrote for this eighteenth and decided on reflection not to, those details are not mine to share anymore.  As well as the letters I loved looking through eighteen years of photos looking for a selection to include in his book.  We bought our first digital camera a few weeks before he was born in November 2004, we decided at the time that as we were likely to take many more photos that we needed to make sure we organised those photos in folders on our computer.  It made looking for them so much easier, we still use cameras for almost all of our photography we only started using smart phones a couple of years ago and they are very much not the latest model with a fancy pants camera on them or a lot of storage.  My digital  SLR is usually my go to camera.

I managed to double book Alice for a weekend in February next year, this seemed utterly ridiculous given that it felt so far in advance, in reality it isn't really.  The end of the year always feels like a big landmark to me and the new year always feels so much further away than it really is, like I need the old year to be finished and done with before I can start thinking about the next one.  I always realise at about this time of year that that simply does not work and I need to get on and buy a diary.  I have tried keeping track of our goings on using electronic diaries but it does not work for me, I love the bigger picture that a paper diary gives me and have simply not found a way to replicate that satisfactorily using any electronic diary.  I keep a list of dates for the following year at the end of each diary but a list of dates is not a good way to keep track of plans, hence my double booking Alice and saying yes to something when she was already busy.  Thankfully it was easily resolved.  I spent a day filling my new diary with birthdays, festivals, lunar cycles, work meetings, and plans we have committed to, there is something rather satisfying about adding to those completely blank pages.  I don't keep a journal but my diaries are a wonderful record of what we have been doing, I often refer back to them and always keep the previous year's diary close to hand on my desk.

I started this year with an intention to walk every day that I could manage it, an intention that slipped a little as the year went on.  I have found myself circling back to that intention in the past weeks, it has quietly slipped back into my day.  It is dark at about 4.30pm here now, properly dark and I love going for a walk in the dark.  It is less stimulating and as a busy introvert that meets my needs, giving me a balance of calm and peace during a full day.  

I don't know when I will be back here again but please know I haven't gone for good I am just taking my time to bring the words and pictures together.  Thank you to all of you who drop by to visit and for all the lovely comments that you leave me, they are much appreciated.  Till next time..............

Busy (Gently) Doing

It would seem that I haven't written one of these posts recently, not since early August, that feels like a lifetime away now.  The evenings are darkening here as we head to the halfway point between the Autumn Equinox and the Winter Solstice.  I am ready for this, the dark evenings always make me want to be still and restful, sitting on the sofa in front of the wood burner enjoying the warmth and cosiness that that brings.  

I didn't managed much of the rest and stillness on the sofa last week, I had four meetings on three evenings which was not great planning but as they were all meetings that I had to attend and others were organising I had little choice.  Two were for work which involved some pre-planning for me, the others I just had to turn up.  The week was completed by an assessment over a weekend, I thought I was going to be out for the whole weekend including an overnight, so when I discovered late in the week that it was going to one day, and not a particularly long day, Sunday at home felt like a much welcomed bonus.

Weekends have been really full with courses, weekends away, canoeing with Explorers and Alice on two Scout camps on back to back weekends.  We have something on every weekend up to Christmas, lots and lots of fundraising, two family birthdays and friends staying, all lovely things to be looking forward to.  I used to find it hard to manage with full weekends one after the other but our weeks are much slower now, so busy weekends feel possible.  A full week followed by a busy weekend can be too much week in week out.

I spent a lovely day out by myself after dropping Alice and a fellow Scout at a Jamboree training camp.  It came at the end of a full and difficult week.  It was a wonderful recharge and gave me the space to be able to reframe things that I have been trying to make sense of.  It was lovely to be able to move through the day at my pace without anyone else needing me to move on before I was ready.  It is a very long time since I have been able to do this.  I know that I am slowly moving into a very different passage of motherhood, my children are becoming steadily more independent and it is gives me more and more time to do things for myself.  It is strange, yet liberating.  I sometimes feel like a toddler as I take these tentative steps, wistfully looking back to those times when my children were by my side, yet also loving this new way of being.

Alice and I are still feeling into a rhythm which has not quite revealed itself yet.  It has needed to be a slow process for her to absorb changes that have hard for her.  She is loving her music lessons, her French lesson that she shares with Cameron, but is missing connections with a group of friends.  We had hoped that we could have a pause from changes for a year or two but another friend going to school this year has hit her hard, particularly as they offered no support to her as she made this transition, despite us checking in with them that school was going well for them.  The past weeks since schools started back here have been really hard for us both, last week has been the hardest.  I am hoping that we have now sown the seed of some possibilities, dipping a toe into some new things that will hopefully lead to the connection she is looking for.

We have created space for a day at home each week, one that we make a commitment to.  If we are not going away and needing to pack and prepare we are using the time for creativity.  Alice has been keen to make a rucksack for herself for months.  I naively thought that could just fit around whatever else we were doing, I have realised it needs a set time, so now it has.  She created a pattern, the fabric has been purchased and is slowly being cut into the shapes needed.  A slow process fitting around the ebb and flow of everyday life.

One of the things I have loved about moving from the summer to the Autumn is that my morning routine has a space again.  I wrote about the spontaneity of the Summer and how that looked for me this year.  I did enjoy it but those things that I like to do each morning often got sidelined, I am loving the way that they anchor my days for me.  I have a few things that I do each morning, not always in the same order, before Alice and I get the day going together.  It gives us both a space before coming together.  I have missed this over the summer and have loved finding this groove again,  which has a more comfortable feel to it this year as we begin our second year without Cameron.

In the midst of all the goings on round here I realised that Cameron's eighteenth is in a few weeks time.  I have long had plans to give him the words that I wrote to him on each of his birthdays, some of which I have published here, in a book along with photos.  Those readers who have older children may, like me, have years when their children simply did not want to be in any photos that you take, I have so few from the past few years.  I am glad I remembered to do this in enough time, I am just finalising the last few tweeks and hope it will be delivered in time, postal strikes permitting.

Before I go, I had a few requests from my last post for the Rhubarb and Orange Sauce that I mentioned so here is the recipe that I follow.  I tend to just throw everything in the pan without weighing it so I am sorry that this is a bit vague with the quantities, I find that all recipes are a matter of taste so if isn't to your liking the first time you make it, do adjust it to suit your particular tastes.  It is rather delicious.

Rhubarb and Orange Sauce

Approx 2lbs Rhubarb chopped into smallish pieces

Juice and zest from 1-2 oranges

1 tablespoon honey

Optional 1 - 2 teaspoons ground ginger

Put all of the above in a pan, the amount of orange juice to add depends on how juicy your rhubarb is.  If you live in a very dry climate you might need to add more juice.  I don't always remember to add the ginger it tastes just as good without it.  Bring to the boil and then simmer for approx 30-40 minutes until the rhubarb is no longer recognisable as pieces and the sauce is fairly thick, it will thicken more as it cools.  I put this into jars, allow to cool and then freeze them until I want to use them.  This will not keep unless refrigerated due to the low sugar content. If you prefer things sweeter then add up to 400g of Caster Sugar for this quantity of Rhubarb.

Learning to embrace Spontaneity

We are well and truly into the throes of Autumn here, weather that changes from gloomy grey, heavy showers and bright blue skies all in the space of a few hours.  It keeps you on the toes and you never quite know what clothes to wear.  If the sun is out it can be really warm but the second it goes behind a cloud it is baltic.   I always feel like it takes longer to get out of the house at this time than it does in the depths of Winter when many layers are an absolute must.  You never quite know which coat to wear, if at all, do I need a waterproof? hat? gloves?  I usually end up packing them all into a bag which they invariably never leave, but I know that that one occasion I don't is when I will need them.

For the second or maybe third year running, I have not been keeping track, my sunflowers have decided that this is a good time for them to burst into flower.  Whilst most other plants in the garden are dying back, they are blooming away, a burst of sunshine amongst the decay.  I am hopeless at growing flowering plants, I think they collude behind my back, but this waiting until it turns cold before flowering, whilst rather wonderful and cheery is also a little baffling.  Perhaps I should just stick to edibles, they seem a little easier to master.

We have slowly found our groove with a rhythm gradually evolving and revealing itself as we find our feet with a new college timetable to work around.  Cameron is totally settled into his new course, Alice is still trying to find her way.  She is really missing being part of a group of friends, we are looking at ways to make that possible.  She is not ready for too many new things, they feel just a little too much right now, the recent changes have not yet settled for her.

As we have transitioned into our Autumn rhythms, I have also been reflecting back on the Summer.  It was a super busy one this year, maybe a little too full at times but I did love each and every one of the things we did.  The heat, the sunshine, feel like a distant memory now.

My house was very neglected for a few months.  I usually do cleaning and tidying as part of my morning rhythm, this was totally abandoned for most of the summer.  The laundry was about the only thing that got regular attention, the kitchen surfaces stayed clean and I waved a cloth at the bathroom when things looked bad.  I was pleased that I did not notice the dust bunnies having a merry party in plain sight.  They were invisible until I started my morning clean again,  I think they have mostly been moved on to new party locations.

Our summer days had a very different flow to them this year, we completely abandoned our structured learning time which we only usually stop if we are away or have guests.  As we spent most of the summer doing one or the other it is unsurprising that the days when neither were happening there was none of that going on.  On those rare days that we were at home without guests or a trip away to get ready for, we were busy just being.  Resting.  Doing whatever felt right for the day ahead, the hours slipping by so fast that it felt like breakfast was followed by tea.  Learning still goes on all the time, structured learning time is not always visible in this house, only when it is requested.

There was a time when I used to worry about those days where you did whatever felt right.  They felt wasteful as often they seemed to disappear in a flash of nothing.  I had nothing to show for them, it has taken me years to realise that you don't need something to show every single day.  Some days don't have measurable evidence of achievement, and you need those days too.  They are an important part of the balance, not everything we do needs or indeed should be measurable.  Those hidden achievements are the building blocks of life, the skills that give a foundation for life and are more important than knowing what 126x39 equals or the effect of the Romans on British society.

The summer is a time for spontaneity.  It is so much easier to get out of the house in the summer, there is no requirement for organising clothing which can take as long as you might end up being outside, it has certainly felt like that at times, especially when the children were really little.

I have always thought that I am not very good at spontaneity, it is all too easy to get into a mindset about what spontaneity is.  When we view it through the lens of other peoples life and what they get up to and the bits of their life they choose to share, it feels impossible to replicate in our own life.  Unsurprising really.  We have no ownership of it, it is like trying to fit a square peg in a round whole, it will just not fit.  When I looked at what we had been doing during the summer this year I realised it was spontaneous, it was my spontaneity, our spontaneity. It is not quite a perfect fit more a work in progress.

I didn't need things to be organised well in advance.  I said yes to many things at short notice.  I abandoned all pretence at keeping the house clean and tidy.  I had lovely days that evolved as they went along.  I went to bed when I felt like it.  I had long lie-ins.  I woke really early and went for walks.  We ate meals at random times of the day. 

I loved it, but I know that I could not be like that all the time.  I needed that space over the summer, the change, a break from the norms.  I am loving getting back into my rhythms.  I have welcomed back my mornings, filled with language learning, yoga, cleaning, breakfast, before my focused time with Alice or getting ready to go out depending on the day, like a long lost friend.  

Autumn is my favourite season.  I am totally ready for a slower pace.  I need the rest after all that spontaneity and busyness!

Resting and Reflecting

I have been a little absent from here in the past few months, my sporadic posting in some part due to my busyness.  My life has been much quieter and slower over the past couple of weeks.  I read blogs and write posts in the evening, it is the time of day that is mine. When the evening arrives at the end of each day I have been reading blogs but the words have not been forming together in ways that I needed them to to bring a post together.  My evenings have been full of knitting, of watching, of pausing, of rest.  My head has been so full during my busy time now that that life has slowed the capacity to arrange words has taken a while to return. 

The summer is a time of energy, the world around us is at is peak, nature is bursting with life where I live. We have not had the drought that other parts of my country is experiencing, it is green and lush where I live, the occasional rain that has fallen nourishing the earth and all that grows.  It is a time of being busy, of making the most of the warm temperatures, of being outside soaking up the valuable vitamin D that the sun provides us with, before the temperatures turn cooler and we hibernate inside around our fires or whatever provides us with warmth during the colder months.  As an introvert who loves quiet I find summer a difficult time of year.

The weather has been really warm, it is lovely to not have to wrap myself up in endless layers each time I leave the house.  We have not had such a reliably warm summer for a few years here.  There is so much to love about the summer but it is not a time of year that I can completely embrace just yet.  It is not that I feel like a fish out of water it is more akin to that feeling when you are wearing an item of clothing which doesn't quite fit and despite your best efforts you cannot seem to make the adjustments so that it is a completely comfortable.  All that said we have had some wonderful adventures.  

Way back in July we went away camping during a very hot period, a large tree next to our tent bought some welcome shade and coolness to our living quarters.  We are so lucky to have such beautiful countryside on our doorstep, we travelled a couple of hours from home along winding slow roads to reach this wonderful spot.  We walked miles.  In an effort to reduce our driving whilst away we took our bikes with us and used them to reach the areas we wanted to walk in, a good move as there were few parking spots which were always full as we cycled, somewhat smugly, passed them.  We found places to lock our bikes up before heading into the hills or round lakes for long walks, interspersed with swims to cool ourselves down in the heat.  It was good to spend this time just the four of us, chatting and enjoying each others company.  As the children get older these times feel so much more precious, moments to treasure as we all spend more and more time doing our own things.

We were home for one day from that adventure before heading out to the next one, this time it was to drop Cameron for his D of E Expedition whilst Alice and I were supervising remotely.  I usually assess D of E expeditions but am, quite rightly, not allowed to do this when my own child is in the group.  I swopped roles and supervised his group, which involved us being in the area should we be needed if a problem arose.  We camped too although it was cooler and wetter for these four days.  It was a pottering time, with shorter walks which were no less interesting.  It was lovely to spend so much time with Alice, we spent lots of time in our tent chatting, playing games and reading many words from the chapter book I am reading to her at the moment.  We got ourselves into a lovely rhythm.

The next adventure, a couple of weeks later, was for Alice and Cameron. They headed out for an  international scout camp which was held a few miles down the road from us.  The,y along with 4,000 other Scouts and Explorers, enjoyed a week of activities both on and off site from the venue they were using.  I was hoping to have a relaxing week at home mostly by myself as my husband was also away for three days that week too.  Sadly one of the leaders did not leave me with much confidence in her ability to care for my children and those in the rest of the group, so it was not relaxing experience I had hoped for.  They enjoyed themselves in the main, Cameron felt that he was treated like a ten year old and as he is nearly eighteen this was somewhat waring for him.  The lack of trust and respect by the adults of the young people in their care has been reported back to those who can implement further training.  

We have enjoyed time with both sets of grandparents, time, which now that Cameron is at college, is restricted to college holiday time so it added to an already busy summer.  Time with them has always been arranged throughout the year, college holidays being new to us we need to get better at using this time more wisely so we don't end up filling the days up completely.  I have lost my ability to see the bigger picture too, a skill I had honed very well before lockdowns came to our shores.  I have already blocked out a few weekends in the coming months to ensure that we do not get ourselves too busy in the coming months which are already looking rather full.  They will be our pausing time, quiet time at home pottering and resting which is so important to us.

Whilst my parents were staying with us Cameron got his results from his course and exams.  He was delighted with them, his hard work over the year paid off, he passed them all including a Distinction in his Art Diploma (Film and Photography) which was higher than he had been predicted.  He had been working at upper merit all year and did not think he would gain this level of mark, we are so proud of him.  This means that he has easily gained a place on the next level Art Diploma which he starts next week, he is both nervous and excited.  I was really nervous when he went into college to get his results, it has felt like I have been examined as well as him, my support of his education over twelve years he was home educated under the microscope.  He has just applied for a part time job, having given up his village paper round of four years back in April so that he could focus on his final course project and his exams.  I hope he can find something to give him a small income whilst he is at college.  It was strange supporting him through the application process, it is years since I have written a CV or applied for a job.  Although I do have two very part time jobs, both of which I have started in the last couple of years,  I did not need to apply for either of them.

Over the past week I have felt things shifting, as the nights draw in, the temperatures steadily dropping especially at the beginning and end of the day we are heading slowly towards the start of Autumn, my favourite season.  After the busyness of the summer I am ready to head into a period of transition to hibernation over the Winter.  I wanted to have a summer which was full of wonderful adventures after what has felt like a long period of not being able to do that, I have had that this summer but I don't think I would do quite so much again.  It has felt a little too busy for me with not quite enough pausing in between for rest before the next thing.  This past week has seen that shift too of having a long enough pause that has enabled me to feel rested and ready for the next thing which is another four days of camping from Saturday.  A D of E Expedition again, this time I am assessing.  When we return Cameron will have started his new course and it will be time to start planning a rhythm for Alice as all her groups start up again.  I feel ready for that now.