It must be those minimalist websites I have been browsing. It suddenly seemed OK to get rid of lots of things I've been hesitating over. Silly, but it seemed I needed permission!
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..with short forays out of doors to add to the nature table..tiny crab apples on the floor of Cornation Wood. It's interesting to see what the birds eat. They don't seem to touch the quince which are quietly rotting on the bush. Like Cathy's waxwings stripping her holly bushes, we have seen redwings and fieldfares from Scandinavia strip the rowan tree of all its berries in a few hours. Have any of you seen waxwings this year?
The little shop-bought narcissus are filling the house with the smell of spring! I wonder if you tried the looking/not looking drawing technique I described yesterday. It is much easier to demmonstrate than describe so I hope it made sense. You may find if you follow it with a more conventional representational drawing that it will be both easier and beeter than you hav dpne before. (I have fixed the link, and the commens on that post are most interesting too.) You may like to try this method of seeing/drawing if you have not tried it before. Set up your table so that the thing you want to draw is at one side of you, and your paper is well to the other side so that you cannot actually see what you are drawing! Make sure your paper is not going to slide around and place your pencil or pen near the middle of the page. Now look only at your holly leaf (or whatever else you want to draw) and take your eye around the edge of it very slowly, drawing your line at exaxtly the same very slow pace as your eye is moving. Your hand is recording exactly what your eye is seeing at the same time as you are seeing it. This will maybe feel very strange if you have not done it before! You may make a false start or two, but once you get into it you will probably become fascinated at the inticacy of the shapes and your left brain (the wordy part) will quieten right down and you will make the shift into right brain..an almost meditative state although you will be concentrating fully on the experience of both seeing and recording. This is a wonderful 'warm up' exercise, rather in the way a pianist might play a few scales before practice. livesimplysimplylive.weebly.com/blog/simplyif-you-buy-only-one-book It produces preliminary sketches which are often very beautiful in themselves. Read more about this method in This excellemt book. Would you like a drawing lesson? Holly leaves are the most exquisite things to draw. See if you can find some and just look at them for a day or two. Look at them side on, or with the tip facing towards you. Look at how complex and irregular they are, how the spines twist and turn, showing the matt underside. Look at how glossy the top surface is. How do you draw the shine on a holly leaf? Sunshine and frost. A perfect day for a short walk. Today's picks - holly and the first hazel catkin. All the Christmassy things are put awy, but I still want winter table decorations and holly fits the bill.. a few red berries would have been nice but I never see any holly with berries here. We planted a female holly in Coronation Wood some years ago, but to no avail. Yet. The words of the The Holly and The Ivy have been in my head all day, so perhaps a last glimpse of Christmas past with these spine tingling voices from King's can be my last Christmas flourish! ..and that is enough. Looking closely at what is around me. My neighbour's rowan tree is festooned with lichen. Beard lichen (usnea subfloridana. I have a lovely book called The Names of Plants which rather unhelpfully says that usnea is 'a name of uncertain meaning'. I know it is considered to be indicative of clean air which is nice to know, but it also has antibacterial and antifungal qualities and has been used in the tretment of wounds.
I have seen it used in Stockholm houses between the inner and outer windows where I suppose it absorbs moisture and keeps the winter windows clear. A little more light each day now, a brighter weather forecast here, and a reason to go out every day to add to the winter nature table..I can feel my spirits llift as I wonder what I will find. I'm having a rather unsettled start to the new year, still reminiscing about the old one. The highlights like the dinner party in Paris on my birthday (how romantic is that?!) and the low points. The death of a dear friend, a man who had goodness through him from head to toe like the letters in a stick of rock. A friend with a little dog in the village with whom I went walks has moved away to the city. She winkled me out of the house in all weathers and I do miss her. With the clearing of the Christmas decoarations I think I must let 2023 go. Perhaps the comfort of looking back is that you know how things workded out, whereas 2024 is the unknown, with uncertainty the only certainty! Letting go of both past and future and being in the present might be wise, and focussing on what is under my nose. I had planned to create a nature table for the solstice but the weather was so wet I hardly went out, so a nature table for January - a winter nature table might get me out of doors and out of my head. How is your year going and have you chosen a word? Do share. There is some truth in the saying what you focus on is what you get. My decision to change my word, despite my reservatios, was a good one. See this post. February posts in 2023 were mostly about romance. This one lists romantic things and your suggestions were a wonderful addition. (To access the archive on your phone click on comments and scroll down,) When someone gives you a panettone on New Year's Day all your good intentions about returning to healthy eating get shunted back a few days.. Do you choose a word for your year? I find it not only fun but helpful. My favoutie word was 'lovingly' which, especially if I was annoyed or frustrated qucickly brought me to a better frame of mind. This year 'romantic' has been a fun word, influencing lots of small decisions. It is a lighthearted one, and lightness of heart is rather precious, don't you think? It has to be a poositive word (what use am I to anyone if I am depressed and anxious and pessimistic?) and it has to be meaningful in ordinary everyday situations. I am thinking of cherish and flourish. Cherish speaks of gratitude and appreciation, of love with an element of tenderness in it. (My husband made me feel cherished which was wonderful.) While cherish pertains to what already exists, flourish is perhaps more forward looking with it's suggestion of growth, and action. Lest you think I leave my house with all the lights blazing (recent Dark Nights post) the camera does lie and the lights were these modest Swedish Christmas ones which I have in each window and a string of lights in the hall whcih I put on as it gets dark. (So easy to make conscientious peope feel guilty they say. It's true!)
I have been scrolling throughlast yeat's blog posts and am positively bursting with gratitude! I'm not quite ready to leaave Romantic 2023 behind yet...more tomorrow... Thank you for all the kind wishes for 2024. ...comfort and joy and every happiness in the coming year. My heartfelt thanks to you for reading my blog.
I was very glad I did the shopping yesterday. Assuming you don't have to go to work that day, what is your favourite way to spend a snowy day? I stoked up the fire and had breakfast by candlelight, fed the birds, took a little bare foot walk around the garden, listened to The Snow Child on Audible. I had some soup and some Christmas chhocolates and looked at my Christmas book and thought about my word for 2024... I had a thoroughly lazy and self indulgent day. It was lovely. :-) When I got off the bus, which drops me right by my house, I had my phone in my hand to use the torch (no street lights here which I rather like). There are no bus stops either, the drivers drop you where you request. I loved how the house was welcoming me so I put down my bags of shopping and took few quick shots.... It's very cold and starry and they say it may snow! Thank you so much for the good wishes and for the poems - that was lovely! I hope you all had a happy time at Christmas. I spent time with family and although we have had some foul weather I had a beautiful journey home on the single bright and calm day in a week. My friend drove us out of the city to the west past fine terraces of Victorian and Edwardian houses, the golden stone looking amazing in the low sunshine. Along the western shores of Loch Lomond detouring for a look at the pretty village of Luss. Through the Arrochar Alps and over the Rest and Be Thankful pass, on to Loch Fyne and Loch Eck, over the Larach to Loch Long and home for a leissurely lunch. My daughter had kindly put some heating on and it took no time to get a good blaze going in the stove and to light lots of candles. So blessed. I hope you are sheltered from the storms. food and drink appreciation love inspiration gratitude happiness
joy beauty creativity gifts Most of us can have most of these at Chrismas, but only if we have the most important thing of all - peace They get too much for Christmas, said Gran. It's really shocking. In my young day you got a few nuts in your stocking, an orange and an apple and a hanky from your aunt and you were grateful for it unlike modern kids who aren't. So we put apples in her stocking as many as we could fit and was she grateful for it? No she wasn't, not a bit. From a little book which makes us chuckle each Christmas - Funny Poems For Christmas compiled by Paul Cookson
..coming along? My little sustainable save-the -planet growing Christmas tree is rather bald on top and a bit sad looking! So I cut some pine branches and wired them on. I will give the tree some extra TLC during the year and see if it will grow more needles on top for next Christmas. Meanwhile it looks quite pretty. When it is dark. Have you got your decorations up? Your cards posted? Your presents wrapped? The menu planned? Mid-winter would be so dull without Christmas! ..and on with more down to earth matters.
Do you have a place you feel to be your second home? Not in the literal sense of owning property there, but in the sense of feeling at home, feeling you belong. York was my home for many happy years and revisiting it can be rather bittersweet, but the beauty of it and the layers of history so visible on it's every surface always enchant me.. I am not naive about it's problems. Like most cities it has homelessness and pollution, over commercilisation, rowdy hen nights and stag parties and crowds, but as in many English cathedral cities there is a sense of continuity and tradition that appeals to me on a deep level. Centuries of it, and York Minster has seen it all. Gullygate, Petergate, Goodramgate, Fossgate, Walngate, Micklegate and Whip Ma Whop Ma Gate - all these smaller streets have wonderful independent shops run by knowledgeable and enthusiastic creative people. Children's bokshops, delis like The Hairy Fig , Greek cafes, bakers, clothes shops, card shops - if I didn't have to carry things home on public transport I would probably have spent a lot more money!
..looked magnificent under the stars. I could imagine that this is how every emperor would like to look. For me the start of the real Christmas.. When the main lights go out (about 14minutes in) and the procession starts, the magic begins. |
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May 2024
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