blossom

And wouldn't you know it, while last week I felt sick in my heart and couldn't stop crying, this week I was struck down and felt sick in my body and sick in my head. A winter cold snuck in just when I was feeling my most vulnerable, I was an easy target. So instead of following my days of tears and heartache with walks through the forest, gardening, and other activities that are good for my soul, I went to bed and barely got out for a few days. 

This morning though the sun is bright and shiny and the skies are brilliant and blue. I sat in the sunroom before to drink my morning coffee and had to go and find my sunglasses and strip off some woolly layers. This little glimpse of spring feels precious and has somehow reminded me of some of the good bits of who I am and what I love to do. My head and heart feel better than they have for weeks. 

But I'm still not there yet so I'm going to make this another short one. My head feels so full of muck that it's making it hard to think clearly. It's taken me so long to write these few short paragraphs and I'm not even sure they make any sense.

So a few catch up photos, a few words to explain and then hopefully I'll be back to regular programming next week. Fingers crossed anyway.

Bren has been turning out the most beautiful wooden bowls on his lathe. I love how he incorporates and makes a feature of the wood's natural patterns and markings. Such a gift.

There was one day this week, I can't remember if it was yesterday or the day before, where I had a few hours of feeling slightly better so I rushed out to the greenhouse and started planting seeds into soil. It almost didn't matter what I was planting or if it was even too early in the season, I just had to get my hands dirty and I needed to feel like I was moving forward.

Next autumn I hope I remember to plant more bulbs in pots in the sun room. Just having these little bursts of colour popping up has made such a difference to our late winter states of mind. Call it colour plant therapy if you like.

I could barely do anything while I was so sick this past week but thankfully I could read this 480 page book. May We Be Forgiven is one of the best books I think I've ever read. I absolutely loved this crazy roller coaster ride, it starts with a bang and I was fully engrossed until it came full circle at the end.

I'm so grateful that my speed-reader mum passes her favourite library books over to me.

This week I received a copy of Japanese Knitting - patterns for sweaters, scarves and more from the kind people at Tuttle Publishing and New South Books.

Japanese Knitting includes 23 of the sweetest knitting and crochet patterns you ever did see. Colour work sweaters, cute cardigans that can be worn front-to-back and back-to-front, shawls, hats, slippers, gloves...flicking through its pages makes me hungry to cast on in the same way a cook book makes your tummy rumble. The design and styling is beautiful, the photos make the patterns look fun and easy to wear, hopefully I'll cast one on soon and let you know what they're like to knit...I just can't decide where to start.

In the meantime I'm comfort-knitting socks.

And I'm thrilled to report that we found our first blossom this morning on the ornamental almond outside my studio. One week until calendar spring. Thank goodness. I might just make it after all.

Thank you all for the incredible messages of kindness and empathy and support and love you left on my last post. I'm never sure about posting the difficult stuff. Especially last week when I felt so distraught and defeated. But you guys never fail to say the stuff I need to hear. You are my community and reading through your messages was so heart warming and soul nourishing. I'm so very grateful.

And with that I'm going to sign off for another week. I'm going to have lunch with my boy in the sun, I'm going to hang some washing out to dry and then I'm going to sort through our seeds. I've seen people online pricking out their tomatoes and I haven't even planted mine yet.


Be kind to yourselves and each other my friends.

Lots of love,

Kate x