My Pocket

december delights

This is turning out to be a delightful weekend. Yesterday I got all excited - it's Friday and I've got the weekend off, oh the things I can do! I went out gathering material for decorations first of all: holly, rosehip twigs, white roses, lavender and pine cones amongst other things. These I arranged in a turquoise and blue handmade ceramic bowl I found once.

Then I stuffed moss in these little glass jars with a small amount of water in the bottom. (All the while thinking of you Abbey - and your mum arranging moss!)

This morning I went to Alresford, a small village a little way from here that has the most delightful little houses, shops and streets. I was on the pursuit of ribbon, colourful tissue paper for wrapping presents, hyacinths, tazettes and possibly some small Christmas presents. Would you like to come with me and see?

I adore these kind of British houses, they're so quaint and traditional, with at least a colourful door if not the whole wall, plants climbing up to the windows, potted plants on the sidewalk and the whole house is basically on the sidewalk.

This colourful row of houses always makes me turn my head when we pass by, aren't they wonderful?

A man was selling his strings of onions on the corner just when I arrived. Doesn't it look just so old-fashioned and sweet?

They were putting up these tiny Christmas trees on every other house today, together with some fairy lights - it must look so pretty in the evening.

The old fire station has been done up, but no fire engines work there anymore - just for show. I do wish things were built and designed in the same thoughtful, beautiful way as in the olden days though - doesn't it make you smile, the details and the colours?

I went in all the tiny shops, looking at all their small things and listening to the happy buzz of people. I passed the greengrocer with their sidewalk display of fruit and vegetables and popped into the florist's after choosing from their pots and loose flowers outside. I found my hyacinths, tazettes, tissue paper and a small Christmas present for a certain someone who's been so kind and encouraging to me lately.

On my way home from the bus I picked this hydrangea that still has some of its colour to go with the tazettes - the room smells wonderful now. Next weekend, on the first of December, I'll be at college so I'm having my December preparations this week. My mum and I don't celebrate Christmas so much as we celebrate December - we love every day of it up until the actual Christmas days, when we're quite happy to just leave the whole thing. We both want plenty of lights, candles, little decorations, hyacinths and amaryllis before that, the coziest three weeks.

The last week or two of November we'll put up our advent star light, because it's in November you need the light the most and I get the same thrill every year when I've set it up and flick the light switch. The room fills with soft, warm orange light and small blurry twinkles dance on the ceiling and the walls.

sunday sunset watching

morning frost

The first morning frost has come.

Time for mittens...

...and candle light.

Wrap up warm!

And so I travel...

I found a book on the British poet Edward Thomas in the library and these words spoke to me. He was depressed and found that really the only thing that uplifted him was taking walks in the countryside. He was a restless soul too and moved around a lot, but for some years he lived close to where we live now and went walking close to where I go on my wanderings. I too find myself most at peace when walking and somehow it's touching to know somebody similar to yourself walked where you walk and thought like you think, but a hundred years ago.

I don't know how I will ever be able to move away from here. These wooded lanes are home to me, I never grow tired of the view. It's like walking in a green tunnel, protected at all sides by leaves, branches and trunks. It's silent apart from the occasional acorn falling, a squirrel streaming from branch to branch, the buzzard and her children calling in the sky and mice scurrying off under the leaves. The rhythm of my feet, the play of sunshine on the lane and the breeze above take me into a place where life is just right.

mist and snow

Britain has been showing a very characteristic face of autumn these last couple of weeks with grey hazy skies and misty valleys. I love the muted colours and peaceful air that this weather brings and it's so green still.

I like winter in England so I suppose I am not your typical Swede. I love snow with its slow, magical floating down to earth on a dark afternoon, the excitement of suddenly seeing the first snowfall from the window, the soft silence that envelops everything and muffling even the sound of cars, the crisp, clean and bright white of a morning walk or making a snow lantern as the light fades and it's time to go in and thaw your mittens. I love all that and I go home every christmas to get that feeling as well as going skiing.

However, where I grew up this lasts far from forever as it's too mild by the sea for the whiteness to remain. A lot of the time you trudge through streets of grey mush, pass hard and dirty piles of snow and get your shoes soaked by the slush. That's why I prefer it here, where it's mild, drier and greener. The ivy on the trees even gives you a feeling of still having green foliage in the woods.

We do have a sprinkling every now and then however, and I'll be one of the first to catch snowflakes on my tongue. D is the one to run around rolling snowmen though, since after all, being Swedish I can't show myself to get that excited over something as ordinary as snow. :)

Most of the time it looks like this however.

And I like that just as much.

evening light comes early

room inside

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 :)

autumn finds

I used to love filling my pockets with all the little treasures I would find on my way home from school as a kid. I've always been the one with her head down scanning the ground for smooth stones and seashells on the beach, curious twigs and pine cones in the woods or acorns and conkers by the road.

I've had a phase of a few years now that I haven't brought things home. I'd still pick them up, say hello, stroke them or smell them and carry them for a while, but then I'd say thank you and gently put them back.

Unless it was something extraordinary of course. Like the jet black, round and silky smooth stone I found when D lived in Cornwall. I didn't look for it, it kind of found me and told me to bring him from the beach with me. He's still with us. Just a bit camera shy - so difficult to capture something so black!

The reason I no longer kept finds is because I thought it was a pity to take them from where they belong to a place where they have no purpose, but lately I've begun to think differently again. They do have a small purpose, to bring me a little joy. Remind me of the outside which I love, of small living things, the beauty of natural purposeful things. To dry up, wither away and go back to the soil, reminding me things don't ever stay the same.

hello september

Goodbye summer colours, light evenings, warm breezes, rustling in the tree tops, bare legs, swims in the pool and lying on the grass.

Hello September, rusty, burning, vibrant colours, high blue skies, fresh breezes, rustling piles of leaves, autumn coat, woollen mittens and dark evenings for cuddling up indoors. I love autumn, I do I do. It inspires me like no other season, thinking what to wear, what new things to learn, walks to go on, places to see, making changes to my life, planning ahead, pouring over books, pulling out my soup recipes, picking up my knitting, wearing my beloved woollen hats again, skipping down the road on a good breezy sunshiny day.

What do you look forward to in autumn?

Some things of summer I bring with me though - I still wear my summer dresses, above the warmer layers, I still wear my sandals for as long as I can, with woollen socks, I wait to put on a coat until I have to because I love wearing only a knitted cardigan or pullover and wrapping my pashmina around me instead. I like sitting on the grass on a dry day, smelling the dry leaves and the soil, lying down to watch the clouds skim by high above, listening to the wind and the trees moving. I want to sit outside to eat my lunch way into October or November, wrapping up warm.

This feels like autumn to me:

"Read me a story inside
Lie if you like
But make the details
True in my mind
We need to feel
Absolutely wrapped
In your glove
Lie back and listen
As I read you my life"

The Wind-up Bird, Tunng

(I know I've recommended that song before, but I'll do it again, it's so sweet.)

Inside, I want to listen to stories, to magic, colourful scenes, details that spring out, seeds planted that grow into dreams. I wish you that and more. Have a good night!

Ile de Re

Warm breeze, barefoot, summer dresses, picnic rug, blue tent, outdoors cooking, green frogs in the bathroom,

freshly baked bread, smell of sunlotion, sultry evenings, palm trees by the swimming pool, sunlight underwater,

laughing at our appalling French, sand between the toes, lost in a book, sound of children playing, tide coming in, making sand castles, lighthouse sweeping at night, evening liquorice and mint tea, snug sleeping bags,

early mornings, French market, sea food stalls, quilt stalls, fruit, vegetables and bread, cycling across the island, salt marshes, egret herons, sailboats snug in harbours, narrow village streets, cobblestone,

colourful doors, whitewashed walls, smiling faces, bonjour, long sandy beaches, refreshing swims, tousled hair, sandals, soft sunset light, smooth rocks,

smell of seaweed, cry of seagulls, salty skin, colourful beach parasols, tanned arms, fresh air, simple life.