Halloween Time Again

Hope you like my creepy self-portrait. Its been a tough couple of months, and I am busy trying to work on my redraft of my novel, with slow results. Not much time for other writing, hence the lack of posts here. Still, this time of year always starts to get my juices flowing. The clocks go back, the evenings close in, we light the fire and snuggle down. An interior time of year. That is when books are made.

It is also Pagan New Year. I am thinking of all the things I am leaving behind as I leave this year, and the new seeds I want to plant in my life for the next. A time of new beginnings. The veil is thin. I am aware as always of mortality, and the cycle of life, death and rebirth around me. Putting the garden to bed at this time of year is the outer manifestation of this process - putting one's life in order before going down underground, into the Other.

Letting go seems to be the theme that is coming up, over and over again for me right now, whether it is the constant nagging memories of failure from my the past, of emotions, of people (including me) who are getting older, of old patterns of ill-health that no longer serve me or just entrenched patterns of tension and stress. I think that even if we are chucking stuff out, it is important to remember that it was once crucial to us, and to honour the part it played in our lives. So I am trying to do that, slowly, carefully, sitting with what I am trying to release, knowing that letting go will lighten the load.

We all need to let go of things so that we can make room in our lives for new, exciting things. What are you letting go of right now?

Thresholds

A lot has happened since I last posted. Suddenly I am aware that I am passing across one of life's thresholds. Everything is changing.

The other day, I took my wedding dress to a charity shop in Norwich that specialises in bridal wear. It will be sold in aid of the local cancer charity, The Big C Appeal, which has raised vast sums so far to set up a support centre for cancer sufferers and their families at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, as well as for other projects around the county.

It was a huge wrench to leave it behind in the shop. I burst into floods of tears. The volunteers are used to this reaction, though. They were very kind. And it had to go. It was huge. It was taking up space and gathering dust. Now it will bring someone else happiness.

It was not until I had sat in the garden in the church across the road and cried my eyes out that I began to realise what I had let go. The wedding dress is a symbol of youth and beauty. You wear it on the best day of your life, when you look your most lovely. By releasing that dress into the world, I was letting go of that young image of myself. But I needed to mourn its passing too.

On that day, in 1996, I became Mrs Barrow. Together, Pat and I created for me (for us both, in fact) a new identity that has progressively allowed me to become more myself. It is because of the love we share that I have grown into the woman I am now, older, yes, but also wiser, thank Gods,and more at peace.

Now I hope that someone else will come along and love that dress as much as I did, that it will carry someone else into the life of love that I have been priveliged to enjoy. And I hope that the money it raises will help someone else to face a threshold, to embark on a journey of release, whether it is letting go of cancer, or coming to terms with letting go of life.

Oh and....

Every girl needs a mad mum.....
You can tell she's going 'What are you doing with that camera?' The nose-crinkle thing is her trying to see the camera through the right part of her trifocal lenses. Actually, I don't think she'll ever forgive me for letting people see this pic. Seventy-eight, and mad as a bag of cats! Go Mum!

Crochet Bliss

I've been expanding the whole creativity thing...

I have spent today in our lovely cool study, playing with my beads. And this is what I came up with:

And then this:

(Not a very good photo I have to admit. It looks slightly more even in real life.) But then I made this, and I think its the best...

It's just glass pearls and AB coated crystals on silver wire, but I think it looks quite impressive.

Now, how did it go, again?

I am trying to remember how to doodle. This sounds utterly ridiculous. How can you forget how to doodle? Actually I think it is something to do with perfectionism. I have a nice sketchbook, but there are only so many pages in it and I want every one to be perfect. So its really hard to just muck about. There can't be one page that is manky and a mess. There can't be one page that looks amateur.

Ridiculous.

I painted the above pages ages ago when I bought this new acrylic colour. I thought I'd try it out. I was going to stamp and collage all over it, but instead, when I looked at it today, I thought I would try out some doodling. I have been reading this book and found it very inspiring. It's basically about making a mess and trying things out, but I can't seem to do that.

Doing this doodle page took me ages. I just couldn't seem to think what to draw next. I mean how hard can it be? And yet it has made me realise how little I doodle now. I used to do it all the time, at school. Then art got serious and sensible and 'A' level-ish, and now here I am, blocked.

But the only way you learn things is by practising,and the whole point of practising is that it isn't perfect. You get mucky and make an unholy mess and have to do it time and again to get anywhere near what is in your head to come out on paper. I think this month's challenge is to learn how to muck about again. Time to undo forty years of colouring inside the lines.

Garden Under Construction

Before..... (okay, its in the snow, but you get the picture, there was nothing here.)

Having spent an embarassingly large amount of money in the garden centre on Wednesday, planting up is now well under way, in spite of the weather. Its beginning to look like a real garden. All salutations to Pat, who has done all the backbreaking work!

And we have the photos to prove it! He showed great dedication is sifting out stones, which he estimated was about 15 trugs full!

The roses we have bought are going to be excellent. They are all old roses, and include 'Winchester Cathedral', which is the white one we had at our old house (a salute to the sight of my graduation), and 'Geoff Hamilton', a variety I've wanted for a long time because of its fabulous pink ruffled blooms and glorious scent. This one is called 'Eglantine', I think.

It all looks a bit spindly at the moment, but when it gets established I will probably find I have planted everything too close together.This is the border with the lavender hedge. The bottlebrush tree in the corner is having a second flush of flowers, and we managed to find a bush fuschia that is smothered in blooms. When I had finished putting everything in, the whole bed was teeming with bees and hover flies!


As you can see, its starting to get there. Next year, when the Philadephus, Weigelia and Sambuca Niger start thickening up to form a screen at the back corner, it will really start to look nice. Lets just hope the whole scheme is 'peacock-proof'!

It so nice to have a garden to potter about in, in the evenings. I feel much more at home as a result. It's amazing the sense of wellbeing I get from gardening, even if its only deadheading and watering. Such bliss in the twilight. We still have to get to grips with the section under the windows of the house, which will need digging over several times because it is so full of ground elder and nettles, but we'll get there. I already have ideas for planting there too - a lacy hydrangea perhaps, and definitely a red japanese quince, which flowers in winter and always reminds me that spring will eventually come! Pat wants to cultivate echinacea there. And of course, lots more hollyhocks!

Savour the moment...

A storm is coming. Thunder has been rumbling around the house and in over the fields for fifteen or twenty minutes. The woods have gone still, the pheasants holding their breath.

I go out into the back garden to feel the cool air on my skin. To feel the anticipation in the atmosphere. I want to see, really see, this moment before the storm. I want to taste the impending doom.

The sky is the colour of a starling's wing. The ash trees around the pond shiver, shake themselves down like Labradors. A sudden gust of wind comes up from the west, through the oaks that line the track to the farm, rippling the ivy on their trunks. The bullrushes sway. A single dead leaf flips along, side over side, on the grass. The cows in the far field stand with their heads bowed, ears down, oppressed. The chickens are panicking, the cockerels screeching.

Darkness gathers. The pace of the thunder quickens. Now comes the deluge. I run inside, cold drops slapping on the back of my neck, aware of the pressure under my sternum. Not just the drop in barometric pressure, but the excitement too. I hide in the shadows, watch for the lightning flashes, count the miles it takes for the thunder to arrive until the deafening crackles are overhead.

The gutter over my window must be blocked. Rainwater streams in over the windowsill until I come out of my trance to realise the depth of the puddle building up, and pull the window shut. The ducks are quacking frantically on the pond. Good weather for ducks.