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.

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.

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.

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.

A different perspective

I mentioned in a recent post about a wonderful exhibition that we visited with some friends.  I had read about it on a blog and was amazed, and delighted, that it was coming to a place near us as we live in a quiet rural area.  It looked amazing in the photos but it was of course nothing compared to seeing it in real life.  It is always hard to get a sense of scale in photos of places and things you have never seen, that is not a criticism but an observation.  I therefore had no idea what to expect when we walked through the door of the host venue.  It was one of those wow moments, we had all been chatting amongst our wee group and as we stepped over that threshold we all stopped talking and stood completely still.

Suspended from the high ceiling and slowly rotating round was a scale replica of our beautiful planet.  A very blue planet, the BBC series with this name was apt.  We read about the percentage of our planet that is water (around 70%) and that is very hard to visualise, the imagery of this exhibition made it very obvious.  There is a lot of sea.

I remember investigating sea voyages of long ago with Cameron, of reading about trips that would take years, of those earlier sailors vying, during the age of exploration, to be first to circumnavigate the world.  It is hard to imagine the shear scale of those early attempts and later achievements when they are written on the pages of a book, looking up at this slowly revolving globe it was so much easier to.  The distances are unbelievable in some parts of the ocean, those journeys seemed all the more remarkable as I stood there and soaked it all in.

I am grateful to Cameron who spent hours as a younger child reading atlases and maps like other children would read books, he taught me so much about the countries that fill the landmass of our planet.  I could work out where most of them are.  We could see how remote the island their dad spent two years of his childhood living on, and why it took six months to get there by boat from the UK.

As I stood there near that entrance, later in a raised viewing gallery and wandering around the building watching that globe slowly revolving, it pulled you in and made you stop and pause.  It is hard when our lives revolve around such a very very small part of the whole to think about the impact our actions have on the planet.  Whilst what I was viewing was a work of art, a replica, it drew you into its beauty and majesty in ways that are impossible in every day life in our small corners of the world.  It made me stop and think about my actions and the impact they could be having on the whole planet we live on.  

I have always tried to tread lightly, to, as a family, live mindful of our impact but sometimes that can get a little when we get swept along by possibilities.  It is also all too easy to become disillusioned when we feel like we are doing our best and we still read about wildfires, flash flooding and drought taking place on the doorstep.  The impact of which ripples out to effect agriculture, water supplies, not to mention the ecosystems themselves.  We hear about industries, companies, corporations who are held up as examples of malpractice, who should be doing more.  Those industries, companies and corporations are run by humans, humans who make decisions that effect their lives as much as anyone else's, humans who are feeling the impact as everyone else is, or are they?  Am I being naive to think that we really are all in this together and if you are incredibly wealthy or living in a place which is experiencing little climatic change (if such a place still exists) then does it feel like business as normal to you?

It is very hard for us to really feel and experience the effect that our decision make on the planet as a whole.  Our decision to fly in an aeroplane we know will discharge pollutants into the atmosphere, pollutants that are invisible and therefore hard to see the effect of.  When we buy an item of clothing we have no idea from the labels on that item what processes the item has been through to the point it is ready for sale, it may have travelled many miles not just as a finished item but as part of its manufacture too.  It is very hard to find this information and about many of the items for sale both in shops and online, including our food.  There is is also the impact of those processes to consider.  It can all become very overwhelming, it is easier to ignore it.

Like anything in the news these days I have to ensure that I don't get swallowed up in the doom and gloom of it all.  It is hard to listen to the news that the harvests may fail this year due to drought particularly when prices for so many things including food are going up at a rapid rate.  It is so hard to reframe that in ways that can lead us to positive action.  I think that devoting more time to my garden to ensure that I have a good supply of my own veggies would be a good start.  I have pretty much stopped engaging with legacy media, preferring to get my news from alternative outlets one of these is podcasts, I actively seek out those that focus on climate issues, the sort that get me thinking without the doom and gloom. I am currently listen to Famerama, Wardrobe Crisis, Drilled, Hot Take and the latest one I have found Local Zero.  If you listen to any others I would love to know about them, please do let me know in the comments below.

I very much hope that our beautiful blue planet continues to be habitable for many generations to come.

Busy (Gently) Doing

It's nearly a month since I last showed up here.  I naively thought that once I had been on my back to back camping trips then I would be able to return here as normal but that wasn't to be.  I am sorry I didn't come a visiting for a while, I am slowly catching up with you all and your news.

I wrote in my last post that June was full to the brim and I was happy it was all over now, looking back that was a little premature.  My life has finally slowed down to a very much less full to the brim feeling, but July was even more full than June.  The gentle part for me became about paring back my life to what was coming up next, focusing on that and not thinking about much else.  Spaces like this were quietly shelved along with most of the housework, tending the garden apart from a bit of watering when things were looking dry and anything else that I love to do when time allows for that.

The month started with a visit to a wonderful exhibition, I intend to write a post reflecting on that but I offer you one photo for now and a huge thank you to Ellie, an incredibly talented and creative blogger, who blogs at Feltabulous  who mentioned that she had visited this exhibition when it was near to her.  I thought that living in the rural North West of my country that it would not come anywhere near me so was amazed when I looked it up to find it was coming to where some dear friends live.  We visited together and all thoroughly enjoyed it, you can find out if it is coming near to you or somewhere you are visiting here.

We had a wonderful few days camping as a family.  It coincided with a heat wave with temperatures that were high for us Northerners (folks who live in the North of England are sometimes referred to as Northerners) who are used to cooler summers, it was exhausting doing anything.  I feel for all of you that live with those temperatures day in and day out all summer.  It only lasted a few days for us.  We walked many steps, swam in many rivers and a very deep lake, we rode bikes, a steam train and had a generally marvellous time.  We had the campsite to ourselves after the first night, sharing the place with the sheep and two traffic cones.  We were only a two hour drive from home in the same county as we live, we are so lucky that we do not have to go far to find a beautiful quiet spot.  I came home feeling totally nourished and relaxed.

Cameron, Alice and I barely unpacked from that trip as we had a day and a bit at home before we had to all go out again to support Cameron and his group for their D of E Expedition.  They had very different weather than the previous week, a lot more rain and cooler temperatures.  Whilst I think they would have preferred not have had quite so much rain they were glad it was cooler.  They walked 76km/47 miles over four days carrying all they needed for a camping expedition in their rucksacks, they are not allowed to buy any provisions on the way.  They were also unaccompanied by adults just the five young people learning how to take care of themselves and others.  They sauntered into the car park at the end looking totally relaxed and not at all exhausted having walked such an incredible distance carrying so much.  Alice and I stayed in the area they were walking through, we didn't meet with the group at all but were nearby in case they needed our assistance in any way.  We too were camping, the first night we spent on a sheep farm where we were serenaded by noisy sheep for most of the night.  We went on several short walks exploring new to us places.  We visited a village where friends used to live, they departed for a new life in Ireland about four years ago it was very strange to be back there without visiting them.  We had hoped to visit a wonderful antique shop and a lovely yarn shop but were very disappointed that they were both gone.  We had a lovely walk instead.

We arrived home late from our second camp and had arranged to have tea at our house with some other friends who moved away from the area and were up visiting, they were due to go home the following day. We had a lovely fish and chip tea from the takeaway in our village.  I ignored the car full of stuff until the following morning.

Unpacking and putting away got mixed up in preparing for an all day fundraiser.  In my head I was ready for this event but in actuality I was far from that.  I spent three long days finishing off the many bits I had mostly finished but not quite.  I ended up with thirteen knitted cloths, eight needle cases with embroidery on the front and fifty one beeswax wraps that were made into bundles of threes for selling, along with the felted hearts we had made for a previous event, ten aloe vera plants, thirty cup cakes baked by Alice and a box of prizes for a tombola, at about midnight the night before we were ready.  It was a lot of work, a very long day but completely worth it, after taking out expenses of about £40 we made just over £800 so a worthwhile effort, we have now raised nearly three quarters of the money and have another year to raise a little more than the final quarter so I think we are highly likely to do that!

I still could not put my feet up as the following day I had headed out early with Alice in tow to the first day of a two day first aid course, she stayed with a friend for duration of my course. It was great fun and the best one I have been on in all the years I have held a first aid certificate.  I was tired by the end of it and looking forward to finally being able to have some more restful days.  Life has now slowed completely.  There is no more having to focus entirely on the next event which I am glad of.  I used to be good at looking at the bigger picture and being able to factor in preparation time for things, it would seem I have become a little rusty during the past couple of years of life being a little different.  The coming weeks include extended family time which we are all looking forward to, I know that in the blink of an eye Cameron will be back at college and Alice back at all her groups but for now we are all enjoying each others company at home.

Busy (Gently) Doing

I am happy to report that our dishwasher is finally fixed.  I am not entirely sure what solved the problem in the end, I am just happy to have it back in the kitchen and working; it sat in the garage, in pieces, for weeks whilst it was being fixed.  I missed it.  

It has been another month filled to the brim, some days it was about prioritising the most urgent of urgent things, I am happy that that is all over now.  I have, it would seem, forgotten about planning my life to ensure that things are not too close together, allowing time for organising and sorting time things has been forgotten too.  I had got rather good at that prior to the first lockdown but it would seem that skill has been neglected for too long and has become a little rusty.  I managed to double book myself for one evening as I failed to put a meeting in my diary which had been planned months before.  I fitted them both in but not without spending considerable time re-arranging the times to make that work.  It was an extra I could have done without.  It is all too easy to drop a ball when you are busy.

I have been looking at the coming weeks which are the summer school holidays here in the UK, for us this means that several of the things that we attend are paused and we change over to a more fluid, go with the flow rhythm.  I had convinced myself we were not that busy, that is not quite the case, we do not have a single, completely free, weekend until 10/11 September that has been blocked out to keep free.  The weekdays are not jam packed but there is little space for much else.  I am really looking forward to three days at home completely alone when everyone else is away.

It seems like weeks ago now but we started June with a long weekend for the Platinum jubilee, husband was home for two extra days.  Beacons were lit across the country all at the same time, one was within walking distance of our house so we wandered up there.  It rained, very hard, whilst we were walking up the hill to the Beacon we got rather soaked.  When the Beacon was lit it was dry, we used the warmth of the fire to dry out a bit before walking home in another rain shower!

We have spent some wonderful hours with friends, a long bike ride over hills and lanes not far from our house, a wild swim, my first of the year in a local lake, visitors from the USA who moved away eight years ago and we have stayed in touch with.  We spent a lovely afternoon at a local place, revisiting memories of the hours spent there together when they lived in the UK, I love that each time they come over we pick up from where we left off despite the long gap in visits.

There has been a lot of fundraising going on, I am ready for a pause but, with it being the summer and living in a tourist area, that is not going to happen any time soon.  We are over half way through now so we might actually achieve our target by the end of the year which would be rather marvellous.  We have had a second hand book sale and pop up cafe, a have a go Archery day, a garage sale and a BBQ.  We were supposed to be hosting a Curry night and Quiz in our village but two weeks before the date we did not have a single booking so we pulled the plug on that one, I don't think my village is into curry.  Luckily the hall we had booked did not charge us despite our cancelling.  I have to say I was quite relieved,  organising large events is great as it raises lots of money but, it is exhausting doing it on top of everything else going on.  I have become a master at baking four cakes simultaneously, I am using the same four cakes each time baking is needed and now have a good supply of each in my freezer.  I just need to get better at remembering to take them out of the freezer in good time!

Cameron has been home with us full time for weeks now, Alice and I are enjoying this whilst it lasts.  I have taken him out with a friend to go mountain biking, a few times, Alice and I have been enjoying walking in the woods whilst they are riding.  He came to a home ed group with us a couple of times which felt like old times again.  His course and exam results will be out in August, we are hoping that they will be good enough for him to earn a place on the next level course that starts in September.

My Explorer Scout unit has had a busy programme, we had a fun evening with a local outdoor bowling club who hosted some of us to have a go.  I could not even get my bowling ball, the bowl, to the end of the green and could not roll the bowl as everyone else seemed to be doing with ease until someone pointed out that the ball I was using was far too big from my hands which admittedly are on the small side.  Once I changed bowls I was all set and rather enjoyed the last few matches we played.  We have had two evenings with other local units, a wide game in the woods and a rounders match and BBQ.  I assessed a small group for their  Bronze D of E Expedition, Cameron and his group have been sorting themselves out for their Gold D of E Expedition which is taking place in a week or so.   Husband and I led a day of canoeing training for some other leaders in our area, it was a great day out on a local lake.

Despite the busyness I have managed time for resting too.  I have continued to have afternoon naps which have been a life saver.  The pause and recharging an absolute necessity to keep everything moving along.  I have been going to bed earlier too and spent more time reading.  I managed to finish reading three books in a month which is unheard of for me, I had no book to read for a few days until I manage to borrow a couple from a friends shelves, the best kind of library.

We are off as a family camping this weekend for a few days, with a day at home following by a second camping trip to support Cameron and his group whilst they do their D of E Expedition.  I am rather looking forward to the simple life of camping without the clutter of life at home.  I apologise in advance if I don't come visiting for a while and if you comment, it will not be lost in the ether of the internet it will just be waiting patiently for me to approve it.  There is patchy reception where we are planning on camping, normal service will be resumed soon after. 

Busy (Gently) Doing

It has been a month of things breaking here, I have already mentioned that the washing machine, dishwasher and fridge need repairing.  The repairs on the washing machine and fridge have worked but the dishwasher is still not fixed, we sent off the circuit board to be repaired as my husband found that one of the microscopic parts on it was damaged, he had to use a magnifying glass on it to see the damage.  The board has now come back but it is still not working so back to the drawing board.  Thank you to all of you who offered to come and do my washing up for me in exchange for me cooking for you, please form an orderly queue, you are all very welcome to come and live with us.  

My watch fell off whilst I was changing the beds.  It took me a moment to realise that I was no longer wearing it, I then had to retrace my steps to work out where it had got to, that took a while, my mornings are often busy with movement.  When I finally found it I realised that the strap had broken, it is a metal one but as the watch is over twenty years old it had lasted well.  I knew that the strap had stretched a little over time but it seemed it had stretched more than I had realised.  We managed to source a new one that fitted, it was really strange not having a watch for a couple of weeks waiting for it to arrive.  You don't realise how much you use a watch until you don't have one, I know that a lot of folks use their phone and don't wear a watch but as I often don't have a pocket to put my phone in that option didn't always work for me.  

The whole family attended a weekend Explorer Scout camp over a weekend.  Cameron and Alice were taking part in the programme, Alice is not old enough to be an Explorer yet (they start around their 14th birthday) but as husband and I were helping out she opted to come too.  We were asked to bring our camping stove for the catering, we haven't used it for a couple of years due to COVID.  It was kind of inevitable that when we got it out a crucial washer had dried out and perished.  Luckily it was easy to get hold of a replacement which arrived in time for the camp.

We had a lovely weekend in the company of 22 young people and six adults.  We were running the canoeing on the Saturday, we had eight in four canoes.  It was a really sunny day which was unexpected as it was not what was forecast, the climbing group who were in another valley had a much cloudier day than us.  We managed 12km and had all our meals on islands on the lake we were exploring, the photos at the top are from that trip.

It was the second weekend of camping for me, I had spent an earlier weekend on a scout training course and had chosen to camp rather than share a dorm room.  I knew that I would get more sleep in a tent than sharing a room.  It was a very tiring weekend, a lot of sitting listening with periods of thinking.  My brain was overloaded by the time I got home.  I managed to lose my glasses at a home ed group I went to on the Monday and I could not remember what I had done with them after I had got out the car, my brain was completely blank.  It took a few days for there to be any space available.

I was lucky that my two weekends of camping were warm sunny ones which could not be said of a fund-raising day we had organised.  It was not for the Jamboree but something else, as I don't have enough fundraising in my life.  We were running a pop up cafe in a usually popular spot, on a very rainy day it is most decidedly not.  We managed to stay for four hours during which we had two inches of rain, we raised £50 which is not bad considering how few people were about.  We had a lot of cakes left over which we managed to sell to colleagues and friends raising another £50.  Thankfully that fundraising is now completed as we have raised all that we need, so we can now focus entirely on the Jamboree.  We had a slot booked to go back and run another pop up cafe this Sunday and I am watching the weather forecast very closely to see if it is worth going back for another go and raise some more Jamboree funds, if it is wet I will be staying at home.

Alice had some disappointing news when she found out that a friend that she has known since she was four is going to start school in September.  If you are new here then you may not know that Alice is home educated and is now thirteen, her friend is fourteen and has also never been home educated all her life.  It was a real blow to her, the friend was the last member of a group, who have been part of Alice's life for years, who has not headed off to school.  We were really hoping that the big changes she has had in her life over the past few years might have finally come to and end, but this is yet another one to navigate through.

I realise it sounds like it has been a month of disaster, disappointment and getting exhausted but there were more wonderful moments than the scout camp.  We spent a day out with my brother and his family exploring the woods and hills by a local lake. It was a lovely day out, my nephew is such fun company.  We took him on an adventure up a hill and through a wood, he loved it although I am not sure my brother would say the same.  

I have managed to find time to spend in the garden this month, it was starting to look a little over grown and was in much need of a weed/clear up.  I finally made it up to the jungle at the top of the garden and have started clearing it.  There are still a few seven foot high kale plants up there.  I am leaving them at the moment as they are all in flower and the bees are loving them.  I don't need the bed just yet so I am leaving them for the bees for now.  I finally placed a seed order, I realise that is quite late compared to some but there is little point sowing any seeds before May round here as it is not warm enough.  If I sow them earlier I end up with seedlings that I cannot plant out as it is too cold for them outside, I start most of them off in the polytunnel.  I have now have a tunnel full of seed trays and pots of wee plants that will be ready to go out soon, I am just hoping that the weather warms up and stays warm.  

This year we are having a rather cool spring, I am still wearing winter woolies.  We have the odd warm day but it has not been continuous enough for it feel like it is warming up.  The winds, which we get a lot of,  have also been mostly northern and eastern which are cold, so even when we do have those rare days of sunshine it feels really cool.  I am ready for it to warm up and hope it comes this way soon.  

The triffid like kale has been stripped of leaves which we have been enjoying in our meals.  It was lovely when it had warmed up just enough for this to start growing again.  It is a very hardy variety that copes with our cold winters but it does not grow when it is cold so I have to be careful about how many leaves I remove during the winter.  It is an heirloom variety which I have had in the garden for about five years now, it self seeds each year providing me with a continuous supply of plants hence my letting some of it run to seed and grow very tall.  I have had a good supply of small plants already growing for my next crop.

I also have a good supply of salad leaves in the garden now.  Some of it is wild rocket which self seeds all over the garden, the rest is oriental leaves such as mizuna, greens in snow, mustard leaves some of which has seeded from our own compost which we spread on the garden at the end of the winter.  Free salad leaves. What is not to love?

Crafting has moved from needle felted hearts to knitting dish cloths, embroidering needle cases and making beeswax wraps when the oven is on, all for fundraising.  I now have ten completed needle cases and twelve dish cloths.  I have paused with both of these for the moment as they had ceased to be enjoyable, they are for an event at the end of July so I have plenty of time to make more.  I have returned to my much neglected jumper which I have been ignoring since before Easter, I had to look at the written pattern to remind myself as it had been so long.  I am now a few rows away from finishing the body after which I can start on the arms.  I think it is not going to be a year of big knitted projects this year, that time will return again but is paused for now.

On a grey drizzly day we had a ray of sunshine celebrating Alice's birthday .  She didn't want a big party this year so we had a quiet day at home cancelling all our usual activities.  I had not thought about what I was going to do on the day until I woke that morning.  I decided to spend the time sewing, I am making a patchwork picnic blanket and managed to add three rows of patches to it, it has grown considerably, it needs another two rows to bring it to size I am after, then I need to work out a backing for it.  It is the first time I had had my sewing machine out for a long time and it was very over due.  I really need to make some more cloths that we use in place of toilet roll our current batch are pretty much past their usefulness.

It has been a full month, one filled with lovely things but rather tiring at times.  I find being busy at the weekend and then hitting the ground running on the next week quite hard work.  I have just about managed to cling onto my rest times although many weeks this was reduced to moments here and there.  I had many naps during the day a much needed recharge, they were a necessity not a luxury, I can thoroughly recommend them.  I can feel more of them being needed this month which is also looking pretty full.