Friends for dinner, sorting my books, being in the study. 

This is the first house I have lived in with a study/library. (I've lived in 23 houses.)

I do have a lot of books and sorting them was an easy task this time round as it just involved cleaning, re-arranging a bit and discarding a few i no longer want to keep. (See previous posts here and here).

There is such a comfort in books. In some ways they reflect who I was but there is now built in space for the new, for who I am becoming, and a new feature is space for a few special things - vases and photographs which were until now inside cupboards. There was a time when the books in here were three deep on these shelves!

One of the comforts, which I have mentioned before, is knowing that when I take a book down the information I want will be in the same position on the same page and nothing will pop up in front of what I am reading! Neither will it close itself if I walk away for half an hour. Just saying..

Do your books bring you comfort and joy?

(Ticked off bills, greetings cards, wrapping paper, chequebooks, business cards, recipes and - big one - study notes. Yay!)

Tired but happy.

If you are near enough don't miss Cowal Open Studios  - on NOW. (I'm not taking part this year.)

 
Getting wrapped up in warm and waterproof clothes and walking in the wind and the rain, putting on a thick jacket and breakfasting outside (or in the greenhouse if it's wet), having a winter picnic, an autumn paddle (thank you Cath), a campfire - hygge is not just candlelight and sitting by the woodburner, though I plan to have plenty of that too.

If you're new to the concept here is a nice introduction, and if you are not yet familiar with Kondoing there is a new 7 minute video to explain the philosophy.

I've completely Kondoed my clothes and books these last three wild and rainy days with the help of lists suggested by Julia, and am powering through papers which is the category I most want to have sorted. I've ticked off coupons and receipts, the one-drawer filing cabinet, warranties and instruction manuals, and important documents....whew.

Exhilerating!

I noticed there was a glitch in comments yesterday - now sorted - if you have the patience to go back, I'd love to know what you thought of the film!

Corny I know, but I defy you not to smile!

..and goodness and beauty.

I loved the film This Beautiful Fantastic (BBC 2 Iplayer) and Sunday's Private Passions with Bella Hardy (BBC Radio 3) also delighted me and made me feel happy and optimistic.

And the fuchsias on the porch steps are rather cheering!

to the ridiculous on this blog!

From ancient artifacts and heavenly gardens to my linen cupboard..

A question. Have any Marie Kondo fans reading this actually completed their 'tidying festival' as per the book? I'm considering trying and would really like to hear from anyone who has actually done it!

Is this a bit mad?

Is this just toooo boring?

I thought you might like to see the stunning garden Jennie created for a wedding on the first of September. These two photographs were taken in July and she managed to keep them looking this good for a further six weeks.

These were for either side of the entrance to the garden.

There were several troughs like this one.

The double border consisted of agapanthus, hakonechloa, white cosmos, and white and lime green nicotiana (very scented in the evening when there were also lots of fairy lights).

There were hay bales with rugs, and a marquee this side of the arch, and the weather on the day though not sunny was dry and warm.

My photos don't really do it justice!

A close up of the pretty mix (matching the bridesmaids' dresses). Smallish petunias, lobelia, helichrysum and the confetti-like euphorbia which although tricky and slow to start is still looking effective in my own garden..

The spirit of things, the essence of things, the pathos of things, the way you can be moved and touched by inanimate objects...isn't it fascinating?

I was reminded of a bowl I saw years ago in the British Museum which stopped me in my tracks and I searched my (not well-catalogued) photographs to find it.

 
I felt such an affinity with, and admiration for, the artist who made this exquisite object, I was astonished at the date!

The hand-made has special qualities which we respond to at a deep level.

Much of the British Museum collections can be viewed online. I put in Quyang, Hebei BRitish Museum and 'my' bowl came up and I browsed and found many other pieces from this period, all of which look so incredibly modern. The wonders of the internet that I can look at this from a remote village in Scotland, and the wonder that I can also share it with you....Love it.

Do you have a favourite museum object that stayed in your memory?

There was also that little hippo (which is even older) from the Sainsbury Centre at UEA - that is online too!

When a clearing task feels a bit too much to cope with i re-read Marie Kondo.

I've always liked that her book is about more than what to do with your stuff. In her second book Spark Joy she elaborates a little on the traditions in Japan.

In the final chapter called Preparing For The Next Stage Of Your Life she describes mono no aware, translated as 'pathos of things' as the deep emotion that is evoked when we are touched by nature, art. or the lives of others with an awareness of their transience. It also refers to the essence of things and our ability to feel that essence.

I found this piece of Japanese fabric in the linen cupboard. Just the thing for the change of season as I put away the summery things.

The kitchen smells of quince.

While the chimney was being swept I found myself starting to clear the linen cupboard (thinking of you Mary and being careful of my back!). A day later the job is nearly done. How did I come to have so much surplus linen? Who needs 19 tea towels? I think I find fabric almost as hard to part with as books..

And why do I invest so much emotion in an old faded towel?

Marie kondo says that Japanese people have treated material things with reverence since ancient times and that there are three facets to the spirit that dwells in material things: the spirit of the materials from which it is made, the spirit of the  person who made them and the spirit of the person who uses them.

I find this fascinating.

And I'm keeping that one.

But parting with this lot!

From extravagant jug-fulls to tiny blossomes under the lamp, I love flowers in the house.

Spotted in Waterstone's bookshop -

From the above -

When anger stalks the internet
looking for a hook;
It's time to disconnect
and go and read a book.

NB  I hope you are not having difficulty leaving comments. i have not changed any settings but changes have been made to my site, including a pop-up Powered by Weebly  which I don't like as I try to keep my pages simple and uncluttered.

Trying to resolve....

It is allowed you know!

Even if you've invested lots of money, time and energy into something.

The point is did it bring you any joy? Hold your interest? Open up new worlds to you? Did you acquire new practical skills, new life skills?  Did you make new friends? Did it bring new experiences? Did it challenge you and did you meet those challenges?

Did you learn anything? About your subject, it's history, the other people who do it? Did it enrich your life in any way? Did it enrich anyone else's life? Teachers, suppliers, exhibition organisers, viewers, purchasers, charities. Did you enjoy it wholeheartedly?

Even if you said Yes to all these marvelous life-affirming things it doesn't mean you have to do it forever.

So, do you still want to do it?

An honourable No means you can stop without guilt or regret, but with huge gratitude and a happy heart.


I'd love to know what you think...

I never tire of looking at the dreamy  images on this website. Perhaps you will enjoy it too.

It inspired me to pick some flowers for the very tidy and empty studio.

Do try an extravagant flower arrangement. Easy if you have plenty to pick but if you usually buy a bunch of  flowers from a market or the supermarket, you could buy two bunches or if you usually buy two buy four. Supplement it with branches if you can, the taller the better and use your biggest vase or jug.

The studio is a different place from just a few weeks ago.

I'd forgotten quite how bad it was! I do like before and after photographs.

Specifically papers. Personal papers you don't want to keep.

It's hard for most of us, and we're all different, but here's what's working for me.

I am easily overwhelmed but I want the job done. They weigh on me these thoughts from my past. They served their purpose, but that was then and this is now and they don't spark joy they just give me an uneasy feeling every time I look at them.  I motivate myself by looking at blogs and videos (there are millions of them, including mine!) I remind myself that I have rarely if ever regretted getting rid of stuff. I look around at the areas I have cleared and feel the calm spaciousness. I also remind myself that it is highly unlikely that anyone else would ever want to, or have the time to, wade through them. I won't be leaving them to my old university either :-)

I consider just burning the lot, but I am too curious about what I've written....

Sometimes I start with a quick first pass getting rid of the obvious throw-aways. That reduces the pile. Good. Then I might do one of several things. I tell myself I will stop as soon as I feel overwhelmed (I've just done that with a drawer of cards which have been sent to me - very emotional.) I will go back to it another time.

Or I commit to dealing  with the first 2/5/10 sheets, read them, decide keep or shred and put them in the keep folder or shred them straight away. I know I may go through the keep folder again at some point but as the aim is to reduce the pile I try not to put 'maybe' ones in there. I get some momentum going and begin to enjoy it.

Or I set a timer for 15 minutes and tell myself I am allowed to stop when it goes, or keep going if I feel like it. I often do keep going - it's the starting that's the hardest.

I've been 'Kondoing' since I first came across Marie Kondo's book in 2014. i knew that her tender animism towards objects combined with a kind of ruthlessness or clarity of purpose was for me and it's worked well for me. The loft and the basement are clear. Yay! The bags of shredded paper go into the compost bins. A friend who took a welding course when she was seventy and has been making sculptures ever since, took away a box of old tools from the shed yesterday. An art teacher is taking a big bag of surplus paper and materials. The old lanterns have gone to the charity shop since I bought the lovely new ones, and a feeling of lightness is coming over me, and a spark of - is it excitement? - is stirring somewhere deep within...

Find out what works for you and go for it!

I have been shredding more notes.

Tonight I sat at my desk reading Colette's Earthly Paradise in the light of the lamp, drinking coffee from a favourite cup and eating a Tesco's Finest Spicy Dark Chocolate Ginger biscuit, and I chanced upon the wonderfully funny piece where, as an old lady she is being interviewed by a very young journalist who, seeking perhaps the secret of her success asks about her notes...

What notes? When I am gone they won't find a single one. Oh, I tried! But everything I made a note of became as sad as a dead frog's skin, as sad as a plan for a novel. Trusting to the advice of writers who did make notes, I made some notes on a sheet of paper then lost the paper. So i bought a notebook, one of the new spiral ones, and I lost the notebook, after which I felt that I was free, forgetful, and prepared to accept the consequences of that forgetfulness.

This is how the inside of the desk drawer now looks. It makes me so happy!

To quote Colette again (I think she is my all time favourite writer)....

..I am so happy I am almost ready to start feeling guilty about it.

Don't you just hate it when you make a resolution and the very first day something stops you from doing it?

I was too unwell to have breakfast outside today. I was too unwell to have breakfast.

Nothing too serious - but flu-like symptoms and my body just saying Stop. And Sleep.

So I did.

Getting better, but taking a little blog break just the same and leaving you with a question...

Do you find it hard to stop even when you know you should? Even when it is what you'd tell anyone else who was unwell to do?

In A Year To Clear which i am still enjoying Stephanie Bennett Vogt asks the question How do you make things hard for yourself? It was interesting to contemplate that today and even more interesting to ask Why?

.
I plan to have breakfast outside every day it isn't raining till the start of winter.

I  had just finished when there was a light shower..I grabbed my notes before the ink ran on my list of tulips..

.
I've copied the dates of the most notable meteor showers from the stargazing website onto my calendar. I managed to miss the Perseids in mid August - the only one I usually look our for, and the most spectacular.  I have memories of sitting out in the dark garden  with the girls and their friends wrapped in blankets (with hot chocolate of course) counting the shooting stars.

Magical.

Now is a good time for bargains in garden things and I was quite thrilled with these lanterns in the local supermarket for an amazing £2.50 each.

I bought five thinking they will look good on the steps and the porch but tried them out on the dining room table last night. They are a simple design and well made of white enamel.

I went back today and bought the last three! Won't they look lovely down the middle of the outside table?

I am hoping for a few evenings warm enough to have, if not supper, at least a  glass of wine outside. Or a hot chocolate...and some stargazing?

The cosmos are still flowering! I deadhead them frequently and they just keep producing and being visited by the bees and the odd peacock butterfly.

I've never grown anything as tall in my three black pots before and I like the way it has screened the seating area and made it into a sort of separate room/

It has rained heavily all day today but yesterday, wearing a thick jacket, I breakfasted outside - french toast (eggy bread) with strawberries. cherries. pomegranite seeds and yoghurt. Yum. I enjoyed it so much I went in and greedilly made another serving.

What is still flowering near you?

There's something about sitting for an hour and a half

on your favourite rock on a warm day

with a picnic and an eight year old

that makes you feel all is well, and life is worth living.

Stones to slide down the rock face. Listen to the sound as they hit the water - plop boom vloop schlop plip high pitched low pitched, big splash tiny splash heavy light hard soft sticks long thin wide narrow float sink tide in tide out which is it skimming building balancing wet dry creatures ducks arrowheads cavemen ammonites fossils food drink smell wind sun  seeing the world in a grain of sand I've drunk all my water I'm thirsty can we go home now

ok

Thank you for the warmth, wisdom and virtual hugs in yesterday's comments.

You lift me up.

On a hard day
when Grief is my companion
I let him hold me.