..at your comments on yesterday's post! (Especially Lotta's.)

However I had an idea...

I made my own version with things I already had.

I could have used a much bigger bag (this is the duvet ready to go to the laundry) but since I plan to just write things on bits of paper I decided the small version would do.

I am dealing with money matters right now.

It makes me anxious.

What is the emotional baggage that is keeping me back?

It's the fact that my Dad became bankrupt when I was about 12 years old.

I am going to write that fact on a piece of paper, put in the bag, hang it on a hook and see what it's like to do the necessary financial business without it!

What will you put in your bag? (No need to go into full confessional mode here if you don't want to - though feel free...)

..and stuff it all in a bag, hang it on a hook and walk away for a bit.

I wonder how that would work out?

.. flowers for cutting..

Even tiny pickings are lovely. I had to creep into corners to find these little gems.

The dainty blossom from prunus 'Kojo-no-mai 'doesn't provide much for picking but if the weather is poor and I feel I am not seeing much of it's short lived blossoms I sometimes pick a tiny bit to put in a jar on the bedside table.

The bold and handsome foliage of viburnum 'Davidii' is uselful all year - the pink buds are followed by white flowers then blue berries and a spray looks very fine in a jar on its own.

I have daffodils for quite a long time. Topolino and Tete A Tete, then February Gold, then Jenny, then Thalia (still to come) with some others I don't know the names of which were here when I came.

A simple pleasure.

Norfolk grown tulips...what colour did you choose?

in the studio

putting on my painting jacket

and starting on a new large canvas.

It's going very slowly.
But it's going..

At times of stress or shock self care can be as simple as reading a book to take your mind off things for a spell. I find the domestic things can be a great comfort. Thus Italian spinach and ricotta rolls....

I've had this book for years and only used it once.  I don't bake often but decided that when I did it had to be something special, something worth the effort and I love the idea of Italian cafe culture - the whole image of small amounts of really good quality food, time out, a glass of wine or decent coffee (bacari in Venice) - savouring it, which is why this book survived various culls.

So, cleaned my small kitchen, made it pretty, made space to work, prepared the ingredients.

450 grams of spinach?  This is 200 grams which was what I had and which turned out to be way to much! You have to keep your wits about you with a new recipe book..

(Bought pastry because my last attempt at pastry making was a disaster.)

Some for now - it was warm enough to eat outside - and some to freeze.

a couple of Maori words to my New Zealand book.

Kia kaha means I beleive be strong, keep going.

I am also reminding myself that the negative words don't negate all the positive words - they still stand.


Snow on and off all day meant staying at home, with coffee and a book. I am enjoying William Maxwell's writing in The Chateau.  Perceptive, reminding me rather of Henry James. he evokes post war France in a way that has me reading a few pages, then doing something else (emptying a drawer of the freezer. baking Italian pastries) while thinking about the book, then going back to read some more.

have to be added to my little New Zealand souvenir book.

Shock. Disbelief. Dismay. Grief.

Still blowing a wintry gale here! Cleaning the bathroom this morning I took down the snow picture and the red comb and towels and put up my all-time favourite card with some zingy towels and yellow bits and pieces..

Will you be making a little change somewhere in anticipation of the new season?

I did the cleaning with a little extra care and attention, mindful of all your interesting writings on yesterday's post...cherishing the space. Feeling gratitude.

..for being so generous in sharing your ideas here and making this blog a conversation instead of a monologue!

With your help I have come up with an idea for my tiny book. Several of you mentioned how the photographs from my New Zealand adventure made you feel.  (Happy mostly! Me too!).

As I look over and organise and edit my photographs of the trip I will pause and consider what feelings arise from each one and put the word(s) on a page in the tiny book.

A couple of photographs in particular interest me, and puzzle me a bit because I can't quite put my finger on the feeling that arose when I was there and that I remember as I look at the photographs..

 
On the way back from Abel Tasman we stopped at this vineyard for a drink. Something about this interior attracted me - I could have spent hours there. It was very simply furnished and decorated - nothing showy, but done to a nice standard and with care. I loved how cool it was and the way the sunlight came in. I loved the grand piano and the one large painting. I loved how very clean it was. It looked and felt totally right. I would not have changed a thing. it felt cherished. And I still find it hard to say how that made me feel.  Content. Completely at ease, at home. It was as if I too was cherished just being in that space.

Have you ever been in a space that has made you feel like this? Sometimes an old fashioned library gave me this feeling, or the simple country church in Lincolnshire which we chanced upon once. I got it last night in the candlelight (see yesterday's post).

A feeling that all is well with the world.

What if we tuned out the outer (media) world more often and created this feeling for ourselves in our homes?

..and liking it.

I've had summer, spring and winter, in that order over the last three weeks.

A hearty lunch on the porch today (am eating up the mystery packages in the freezer!). The sun was hot on my face and I didn't need the big scarf and used it as a cushion. The spinach blew away in a sudden cold gust of wind.

I took these to show you just how really tiny the book is....

I filled the first page with kisses. :-)

..and some souvenirs.

The favourite sandals I took with me to New Zealand literally fell apart when I got there - they looked fine on top but great lumps of sole fell off around the flat and we wondered what all these bits were...I found a lovely pair of shoes in a sale in the nice (air conditioned) department store Ballantynes.  I just know I'm going to love these.

I could have spent a lot in the beautiful Art Gallery shop but just bought this little bit of silly decoration because the colours are so lovely..

And I could not resist this tiny tiny notebook though I don't know what I am going to put in it.

Any ideas?

I am reading one chapter a month of Jordan Peterson's best selling book 12 Rules for Life (see previous posts here and here).

Peterson has become a controversial figure but I am ignoring the media hysteria and the political name-calling and focussing only on what he has to say in the book, which intrigues me as his rules are somewhat unusual!

I considered Rule One was a reasonable rule to follow, but what about Rule Two - Treat yourself as you would treat someone you were responsible for helping?

It seems we are likely to look after our pets more carefully than we look after ourselves and Peterson asks why this should be so. Chapter Two is long and interesting, and I read it several times (cutting out the pages to save weight and take them with me to New Zealand). He looks to our conditioning by some of the oldest stories - original sin and other stories from the bible which has after all provided the best known 10 Rules for Life in the Christian world for a very  long time  - to try to understand why we should feel so unworthy of proper self care, (sinners that we all are!). I am interested  too in the way he describes navigating a path between order and chaos in our lives as the way to give them meaning. We value ourselves more if our lives have meaning he says. He also says we each have the spark of the divine in us. 'So, we may not exactly be God, but we're not nothing either' .

I think self-care is often looked on as selfish. I am not talking about pampering and indulgent treats here, I am talking about serious mental and physical health issues (we all know which are ours).  I grew up with the idea that truly good people put themselves last, but not to care for ourselves is selfish if it increases the likelihood of others having to look after us - partners, family or the state - a burden I wouldn't want to impose. I may not be able to avoid that, but I am able to reduce the chance of it by taking responsibility for my own health and wellbeing - a lovely project I have decided!

So, yes, I am happy to adopt Rule Two.

The title of Chapter Two  Why Don't You Just Take Your Damn Pills made me laugh out loud. The man does I think have a sense of humour.

Do you think this 'rule' is useful guidance on how to live your life?

Gales and rain and snow on the tops, but also the first little pickings from the garden...

I find writing here about my trip is a wonderful way for me to record and process some of the experiences I had, so I am still on about New Zealand!

.
Murals abound in Christchurch. You can do a walking tour of them and I rather wish I had done it. I didn't look at the website Watchthisspace until after I came home - there are some interesting interviews with artists about official urban art and illegal art, the careers of the artists and the 'gentrification' when developers make use of the murals as a selling point for new urban dwellings....(the dynamics of rebels being subsumed by the Establishment has always intrigued me).

I just had to cross the road to see the rest - it says I always knew you would come back.

My artist friend, living in Christchurch, has been making art based on her experiences walking around the city. See at Lynne Cameron Artworks.

Meanwhile back home, although snow is forecast, Spring is coming,,,,

Is it coming your way too?

Travel shows us other worlds.

As a child growing up in dirty old Glasgow our annual holiday in Millport on the Isle of Cumbrae in the Clyde Estuary was a taste of heaven. Clean beaches, farms, wild flowers, fresh air, bicycles and freedom and the realisation that some people lived like that all the time! 

Holidays for me are about seeing different things, new places and how other people live. I always come back re-invigorated. They are not an esccape for me because I love my home and where I live and don't need to escape from it, but I do need to look around and refresh my eyes and my ideas.

What do you look for in a holiday? And do you have happy memories of childhood holidays?

Lots of photographs but there was lots to like....

Visitor friendly, clean, with beautiful parks and river landscaping, stylish shops and cafes, and  great art galleries, but you can't talk about Christchurch without mentioning the devastating earthquake of 2011.

The sounds of the city are cicadas in wonderful old trees, the old fashioned bell of the trams which do city tours and construction site  noises from the extensive work going on to rebuild after the violent  destruction of so much of the city eight years ago on 22nd of February.

A chair to represent each of the 185 people who died in the earthquake. Dining chairs, a rocking chair, armchairs, a wheelchair, a stool, a high chair, an exercise chair, a beanbag, a baby car seat....on a piece of waste ground with a small notice board and a few poems about grief pinned up. The installation is by artist Peter Majendie.

I walked there early one morning and was quite overwhelmed. It was close to the anniversary of my husband Barry's death and as I read the poems tears streamed down my face. You were invited to sit on any of the chairs but no-one did. They seemed sacrosanct and the few people around were very respectful, quietly taking a photgraph, as I did, and walking away silently.

I crossed the road to visit the Cardboard Cathedral which was what I had really come to see. I wanted to just sit and compose myself, but found it busy and noisy and felt people were less respectful here than at the memorial across the road - even taking photographs inside the chapel set aside for private prayer.

It is a lovely simple building (see here) but you enter through the shop (of course they have to raise money to restore the old cathedral) and in the quite small space there are 3 large paintings, 8 sculptures and other objects, 2 banners, 25 large phtographs and 2 flower arrangements, and a guided tour was going on.

I found the Art Gallery much more conducive to quiet contemplation, which seeems odd.

Here is one of the poems from the chairs memorial.

Or a Hibiscus Kiss kombucha at the chocolate shop with the spectacular view, or a Blushing Dragon juice at the Malaysian restaurant. And then there are the vineyards...a glass of chilled wine and a platter of local food to share....

Interestingly tipping is not part of the culture in New Zealand, hopefully because people are paid a living wage.

to Abel Tasman National Park where we heard this.

Many of New Zealand's native birds are ground nesting (and some are flightless), and in this National Park they are increasing the numbers by getting rid of introduced predators like possums, rats and weasels.

There are no roads and you can only reach the eco lodge we stayed in by boat -a gorgeous trip dropping people off at several idyllic beaches, a somewhat rougher trip coming back!  The boat drops you on the sand and you walk along the beach to a board walkway and some steps and as soon as we were among the trees we heard the bell bird and the tui. And the loudest cicadas I have ever heard. There were also eels and glow worms in the wetland below our balcony. We took ourselves out at night using the torches on our phones along little paths, listening to many strange noises in the bush (intrepid adventurers that we are!) to spot the glow worms. - I loved this place.

See more about the conservation projects here.

The road north ends at the small resort of Kaiteriteri and from here it is boat or helicopter or by foot on the huge network of hiking trails.

The wetlands from our balcony.

I liked the architecture

Tree ferns everywhere

..and agave, cordyline, eucalypts, hebes.

The outdoor part of the restaurant..

The kind of place where you dress for dinner by putting the laces back in your sandshoes!

Fantastic.

When a dear friend who is living in Christchurch for six months in a beautiful flat with a spare toom invited me to stay in February, it took mere moments for me to change the New Windows label on the savings to New Zealand.

Right decision!

The fact that it is summer in New Zealand in February added to the thrill.

I'm not quite down to earth yet, but give me a few days and I'll sort out my photographs and my head (and my sleep patterns).

Have any of you been to New Zealand? Or followed the sun in February? It is sunny at home too and quite warm, and I have been grounding myself with some gentle gardening.

Thank you for the lovely welcome home messages.

Who says air travel is no longer romantic?

Too excited to sleep I was watching the rosy dawn from 35,000 feet and I read on the flight information screen that I was looking down on Mesopotamia, and the Tigris and the Euphrates...magical names.

I was so enchanted I didn't even think to take a photograph.

I've been in beautiful New Zealand, and in summer!

More soon....


If there are any New Zealanders reading this do say hello in the comments..

A longer than usual blog break in order to 'simply live'!

I've been writing Live Simply Simply Live daily apart from short breaks of a couple of days or a week for almost nine years now, but as February - my writing month - approaches I am planning a longer break of a month.

I do hope you will still be here when I return................... :-)

Imperfect and erratic though it is my effort at getting fitter is paying off. It's harder in winter to lose a few pounds and motivate myself to move, but there is a reason why my swimsuit is hanging on the bedroom mirror.,...

At no particular time and in no specific sequence I have been doing some 5 minute HIT sessions, some 15 minutes yoga/ballet work, some 15 minute Louise Parker sessions, some breathing exercises (30 deep breaths whenever I remember), drinking more water and eating good food but not too much. Results? A tiny bit lighter, a very tiny bit firmer and quite a lot more stamina and energy (given that it is January!) To paraphrase FlyLady even imperfect exercise blesses your body.  It is no fee/no equipment/no specialclothes/no travel/ and minimum time. (It's also no company which could be a good reason for joining a class but that's not so easy if you live out in the sticks.)

It does make me wonder what I might achieve if I really put some effort into it!

It might be worth really trying and finding out...

Someday!


I heard Robyn Stapleton sing this at Glasgow Unversity yesterday, so for Burn's Night here she is.

Enjoy..