create little worlds. bent on creating the world I've craved since a child, where magic, the impossible and extraordinary can happen anytime (especially anytime).
drink organic hot cocoa with rice milk. no milk, no sugar, but life can be just as wonderful anyway.
snuggle up to the daffodils. we love rubbing our noses together - they'll all bunch around, their skirts rustling and their silky heads all soft against my face, their scent saying - hello you, we're friends.
In town I went looking for flowers to make me happy until more spring flowers come into bloom outdoors. I found a bunch of daffodils and a small orchid...
...with a little dragonfly hanging on
Someone else hanging on... :) Sunday walk with a cheeky monkey
Keeping hyacinths near for burying my nose in.
Staying warm and content on the inside with porridge in the morning.
Taking long hot lavender baths in the evening when the wind and rain chase each other around the outside of the house.
Wrapping small presents in crinkly paper and silky ribbon.
Watching who's growing in fairy moss world.
Inspired by December Views, that so many of you are doing this month - couldn't do without the text though, so I don't feel I can say that's what it is. I so enjoy seeing your contributions, so here is a small one from me. Wishing you much inspiration and warmth, inside and out.
Whoa! What a week that was... So much to do, so much happening at the same time. But now we're in December and I can't help but feel happy in December! How about you? We've no snow like some of you so I'm looking forward to seeing the white powdery stuff when I go home to my family in Sweden in a couple of weeks time. There's no mistletoe there though and I have that here - aren't they lovely with their shapes?
At college this weekend I was thinking about you all - I missed not being able to write every other day as I normally do and I missed reading and commenting on your posts. I'm intending to catch up soon if you haven't seen me around. :)
I've made sure to steal some time to stock up though so the shop is now officially open - :)! I'd love to see you come over and have a look, you're most welcome. I'll be putting up more prints over time and feel free to let me know whether you have a favourite you'd like to see there.
Every December since I was too young to know how, I've opened an Advent calendar every day leading up to Christmas Eve, which is when we celebrate Christmas in Sweden. Do you have Advent calendars? Each year I've kept the one I liked the most and let go only of the ones that didn't have enough magic - you've got to have magic this time of year. Usually I'll buy one new one each year. The doors on my favourites are becoming worn from being opened, despite careful and gentle treatment. This one below is my all time most loved:
My mum sent it to me four or five years ago (it's the size of a postcard) and I coveted it straight away - who wouldn't? The Bear Family Christmas I call it - the title of the artist is On Christmas Eve and it's a German print. I think it was invented in Germany, the Advent calendar? In any case, they make the best ones :). It's got so many delightful details, I still gaze at it even though I've seen it a million times before. Love all the little parcels, baskets, goodies, decorations and sleds. Adore the patched green bag Papa Bear has! And you've got to see what's behind the doors - I get childishly excited over this, because they doors all hide a little something relevant to the scene. Wanna see? Go on then! The first of December had...
...the key hiding place on the door frame. :)
For other days there are things like an acorn on the snow that has fallen off the sled, a mouse scurrying out the door or a little jelly bear that one of the bear brothers must have forgotten.
My second favourite calendar is the one with the elves living in a treehouse. Love the elfling with her pockets full of cookies in the top right corner - oh how I'd like to live in a treehouse! :)
Hello there! This is my 99th post and I originally thought I would reorganise my blog for the 100th, but hey, I don't normally do the done thing so why start now... :b I'm fond of giving presents far away from birthdays and christmas, cooking special suppers without an occasion and telling people how much I like them on the most ordinary days. That's when you need it the most, I figure.
I do respect the value of traditions and rituals, but I would like to find out for myself when and why I want to have mine. When during my year do I need a ritual to mark the occasion when I leave one phase for the next?
I think - one when I hear the first blackbird sing in spring that makes my heart flutter, one for the first day I can walk barefoot and I feel the warmth that is to come, one for the day the first fresh autumn breeze comes and I think of knitted sweaters, one for the first blustery rain that makes the leaves fall and cover the ground and I go to find a good storybook, one for the first frost to whiten the grass in the morning and I pull on my mittens, one for the day I put up my December star light in the window and think with fondness of my mum and one for the first dry day when the streets go dusty and I find seedlings under the leaves. Hmm, I'll definitely need one or two in the winter for no reason whatsoever as January to March is looking rather empty... Lucky thing I've got my birthday in mid-February! I don't exclude common traditions you see, I just add to them. :)
Or rather, I haven't so much yet apart from in my head, I'd just like to try. As long as one doesn't get so attached to the traditions that they become institutions with compulsory shopping and over-eating I think they could make life richer and closer. What you consciously welcome, acknowledge, give thanks for, appreciate and let go can give meaning, structure and acceptance to life. I'm not saying this should bring pressures to do more, I just mean acknowledging where you are - in the muddle where time is slipping away fast, you're not sure what you're doing and so many things are left to do. Just a moment of thanks when you're hanging the laundry, looking out the window or walking home from the shop. That's what I intend to do anyway. Goodbye dry leaves and fresh breezes, hello rainy roads and warm jackets.
As for this pocket of mine - it will go through some more changes soon I think, but this will do for now. I have wanted to change that blog header for so long now. It was only ever meant to be a transitory one until I came up with something better. I would like to change some other things already now though - one being responding to the lovely comments you people give, which I don't always do, and the other being commenting on other people's blogs, which is something I balk at - too shy!
It's so good to come home. Even if it's just from being away for two nights I always get childishly excited over it. I love going on the train every other week after college, absorbing all the travelling vibes of people and waiting for the station where Duncan will pick me up.
When I lived in Sweden and I'd come over to visit every couple of months for a week I would have that fluttery feeling inside for the whole journey and when the station was announced I'd be so excited my heart felt ready to burst. I still find myself delightfully happy on train stations, from all the memories of the times I've stepped off a train, searched the crowds on the platform for him and ran the last steps for that hug I'd been longing for. Anyway, what was I saying?
Oh yeah, coming home. I just thought about it last night when I was met by the smell of my own home opening the door. You know how you don't smell it when you're living there all the time and being away just for a little while you can sense it for a brief moment? I love smells. I go on small adventures with my nose every time I go to Reading (where my college is).
This weekend there was a stall on the Saturday open air market amongst all the vegetable, fruit and trinket stands where they were roasting something and the air filled with wafts of smoke. The leaves that have fallen give that dry, earthy scent and the fresh breeze somehow smells clean. People passing me in the street leave trails of perfume or eau de cologne, that clean laundry smell or this group of teenage boys who were eating jelly bears and smelled like raspberry flavour.
I passed a lady on my way back around 20.00 (I stay at a hotel on Friday and Saturday night), one of the many homeless folk in Reading. She was squatting on the sidewalk with her backpack and her blanket, cap drawn down over her face and looking down. I recognise most of them by now as I walk that way every other week and I like saying hello, in fact I find them far more refreshing than other people as they're more likely to look you in the eye and enjoy a chat. Besides, several of them have dogs to keep them company (and protect them, bless) and I can't pass by then, I love dogs. I know I shouldn't give money, but I do quite often anyway and I'll buy a copy of The Big Issue only to give it back to them to sell again.
This lady I hadn't seen before though, so after passing her by because I didn't have any change I turned back and offered her one of the peaches I had just bought. She said "I'd love to have one actually" and she had such a sweet face. Older than I had thought at first, worn and grey face, but that kind of bright, mischievous smile. I turned to go and was just about to turn the corner when I heard her shouting something, eventually realising it was meant for me.
"You know, it's just like in James and the Giant Peach! James and the Giant Peach. You know?" I said yeah, Roald Dahl, I loved that book! She was such a funny character ("I'm eccentric, but I'm harmless.") that it made my evening chatting just for a few minutes. I gave her another peach ("Now they can keep each other company in my bag! Are you ripe yet? No, are you?") and she described her favourite sandwich (a thin spread of marmite and a generous layer of peanut butter on thick wedges of bread) and that was about it.
I went to my hotel wondering where she calls home, but also thinking we were at home for a little while, meeting, laughing together and sharing. Both giving something. That's my definition of home I think. The most at home I ever feel is with D, wherever that is.
Angie at Cozynest kindly tagged me a few days ago and I've been mulling over what to write since. 6 to 8 things that I am thankful for... I decided not to write a list of the most obvious and important things so here are a few, in no particular order, small things that I feel grateful for daily:
~ sunlight waking me up in the morning
~ D offering his shoulder to lie on at night
~ laughing with the cheekiest students in the school corridor
~ the rustle of the leaves and the light sifting through the branches on my after-lunch walk
~ finding sweet comments on my blog from lovely people
~ feeling comfortable in myself, my body and my clothes
~ seeing a creative seedling in my head turn into something real in my hands
~ developing yet another crush on this boy who sits opposite every supper
Thank you so much for tagging me Angie - I've really appreciated these days thinking about it! They're all relationships aren't they, what we are thankful for - to people, nature, ourselves, creativity, that underlying energy.
Fridays don't mean what they used to to me. Every other Friday I go up to college for a weekend of lectures, which I like very much, and I get to go in shops on my lunch break, but it means my weekend is used up entirely. On the Friday I never get that excitement that weekends bring with promises of places to go, time to relax and projects to delve into. On Sunday night however I come back with that distinct feeling of anticipation - can I have my weekend now? No, but how's Monday morning? :o)
The Fridays I have free are more precious to me than they have ever been and I cherish the luxurious feeling of time to my disposal for crafting, walking or spending time in bed. :>) Doing full-time degree studies whilst working has forced me to look at what I want in life. To consciously choose what is worth my attention and live as I go along, not putting things off for later. Of course, I don't always do that. I have periods when I let it all go and pull the duvet over my head, stick my nose in an inspiring book, let my room overflow and tell the world to go away. I know how lucky I am to be able to do that. I have no children to depend on me or a full-time job to worry about.
I've always been a come-and-go person in life. It's what I feel comfortable with, since being a kid. I'll spend time with people but without an escape route I'll get uncomfortable. I was the aloof one: friendly, kind and caring, but if I didn't like it I'd be off like a startled deer. I often think I'll end up like one of those characters in books - you know, the old grumpy man or woman on the corner of the street whose apples you wouldn't dream of pilfering, but once you get to know them they are actually very warm and friendly. I like to keep to me'self, is all.
But I still have to clear up the mess, because it's time to reemerge from that duvet...
This is the last of the posts on our place, from the outside. I told you already that we live on the first floor, up the stairs, and that we share the cottage with other people. There are four flats all in all in the house you see, and within one flat (unless there is a couple like us living there) there are two staff members of the community living in one room each and sharing a kitchen and a bathroom. So basically we know all our neighbours very well, working with them over at the School or the Centre, which is lucky as the walls and floors are very thin! :o)
There are entrances to the bottom floor flats on the other side of the house as seen below and our porch opens up to the field and woods. Must admit we don't do much at all to keep the flower beds tidy... It's one of my absolute favourite places of our home, that porch step when the door is open. Half inside, half outside, listening to the birds and lapping up the sunshine.
There is a small building, the annex, behind our cottage (to the right in the picture above) and it has two rooms for mature students at the School.
That's our common laundry room behind the little door to the right in the photo. The cottage is surrounded by lawn, apple trees, plum trees, raspberry bushes and of course the woods running the length of the garden to the left.
It's a lovely little wood, with oceans of bluebells covering the floor in the spring, cherry blossom petals drifting out across the field like snow early summer, copper beeches turning dark wine red in the autumn and dusky green ivy covering the trunks of the trees in the winter.
Well, that's the end of the corners of my home to show. Hope you enjoyed it - I did! I'll be away at college this weekend, so I won't see you for a couple of days. Wishing you well. May the small things in life make you happy :)
