Autumn Cottage Diarist

Treading Quietly in January

January! By mid-day, it had hardly got light. It was blustery, blowy, misty-
drizzly - but oh, so mild. My hair looked like a birds nest - my cheeks
looked - healthy!

I have taken a walk through the woods - and it was wonderful. I felt as if all the cobwebs from the last month of hibernation have been blown away. I actually NEED to get out into Nature, to keep me from "Cabin Fever".

Here is the result of days of lashing rain - ditches and water drains overflowing. surely there can be no "hosepipe ban" THIS year?

Here are just a few images taken along the road through the woods, from
around mid-day. This is where the first of my "WoodWalks" writing day workshops will take place in February (local readers - mail me for details!)

These are some of the features of the natural world that I am privileged to have all around me here. Come for a walk along "The Drove" with me.

As you can see, I love the old, gnarled tree trunks, deeply cleft and covered with mosses and lichen, bent and  twisted into what I think is a magnificent expression of their age.

But look also how green and lush everything is already - this is not the frozen midwinter, but unseasonally warm weather - the yellow furze here is flowering months before its usual appearance. Yet one more indicator of global warming?

Then the light began to fall once again, and the misty drizzle covered the fields, but still - it was silently beautiful, peaceful and calm. Blissful to be walking in it  - the soft rain, the best skin treatment ever.

Enjoy your own winter evening..........

Further to our Previous Conversation...

Look what I've found while clearing out the drawers in my office. A lovely piece of drawn-thread whitework on fine muslin, which I bought, apparently, in Dinan in 1994! About 30 cm square - and all embroidered by hand. Isn't it lovely? Click on the picture below to see the detail.

It will make a lovely bed cover in one of the dolls houses - needs to be a special one, I think!

Time to Tidy!

Hey - now come on. I mean - is THIS the office of a smart, professional
woman? The control centre of Creativity Unlimited?

I don't make New Years Resolutions - but if I did - then getting this
office organised would be the first thing on the list, because truly,
Dear Reader - everything happens here. I write these blogs, research the
old journals, make bookings for apartments in Venice, put together
talks, workshops and courses.

And its a mess.

I've got an excuse - this is also where all the wrapping of parcels, writing of Christmas cards and all the other Christmas "stuff" went on - and it has been neglected ever since.

But - Roz - what is your excuse for the other 50 weeks of the year???

So - the first week in January is going to be dedicated to working *towards* one of my goals - of making this office a more pleasant, professional place, than to making a resolution of perfection which I will then not achieve and feel bad about. 'Cos every step towards a GOAL, be it only so little, brings you closer to success - not failure. And even one piece of clutter cleared will make me happy!

Note... Worthy Helper - asleep on the job, outside my office door. She's waiting until about April before she even THINKS of goals - but for now she does "Keeping me company" very well :-)

The Remnants of Christmas

Christmas and New Year have come and (nearly) gone – here are just a few remaining fragments. All I wait for now are the signs that springtime is on its way. The pond and the summerhouse wait for the sound of frogs and the song of the birds. The pots on the patio are waiting to be filled with waterfalls of colour again – and I wait as well for the warm sunshine to return.

Very few photographs of Christmas time here at Autumn Cottage (after I left my camera out in the rain overnight) – the sparseness of which rather parallels the paucity of Christmas cheer here this year – for several reasons, the ball never really did get rolling properly.

But at least I’m now lucky enough to have a new mobile phone (after no updates for five years!) – which came with an onboard camera with nearly as many pixels as the one left out in the rain – so now I can capture the early part of the year and share it with you here. Losing the use of a camera was like losing part of my anatomy!

I’m hoping that at least one of my online friends, Rose, will be taking tea with me in this summerhouse in a few months time – I have the tea (sent from another ACJ friend, Dora) - I’m already getting ready the table linen, and where are the china cups?