A new beginning…

For the last 10 years, a whole decade (!), my every decision has been centred on my children. Time is now romping away, and as my children are growing in their independence, I find myself having to remember how to be independent too. Somewhere along the way, I seem to have lost the ability to be me.

This September my youngest of three girls finally started school. All of a sudden my life has moved into a new phase and my head is a swirling mass of thoughts and emotion. I love being a full time mum to my children but I feel a huge sense of relief that I will now have a little more room to be me. I feel a bit guilty that I appear so pleased to be ‘rid’ of my children, but the reality is I know they will benefit from seeing me with a wider range of interests and achievements. Besides, I plan to continue as a full time mum so there really won’t be a massive change for them. I will still be taking them to school, doing their washing, helping with homework, cooking their dinner and acting as chief chauffeur and mediator of conflict resolution. But, I also want a beautiful home full of handmade and homecooked goodies and I want a lush and productive garden. I want to be fit and healthy and I want to run my own business and earn money in a way that leaves me free to offer them all the love and support they need, whenever they need it.

However, I don’t intend this blog to be a gushing stream of parenting related traumas! I want to share and record all the things that make me me, not the parent stuff – I get plenty of that in the day job. I am sooo excited about the possibilities now open to me, but I am also overwhelmed with my decade long bucket list. Watch this space to find out what I do next!

Frazzled

I haven't given up on blogging already I just haven't had any good stuff to report. In fact I am frazzled. We seem to have picked up a cold virus in our house causing a variety of complications. The middle fluffer had her 2nd chest infection in as many months, mr fluffcake developed tonsilitis and I now have an ear infection. Its horrid. I am semi deaf. The worst thing is I can only hear stuff via the inside of my head. Eating causes a hideous din whilst normal conversation is completely confusing. I hope it clears up soon because there are too many things I need to be getting on with.

Gardening blitz by chain reaction

I love my garden but am a bit of a perfectionist, which is kind of a paradox as my garden is quite rambling and far from perfect. My lob it in and leave it methods can also be a bit haphazard and often as soon as things get going I realise it's in the wrong place, hoik it out and lob it in somewhere else. Drives Mr Fluffcake mad. There are so many things that want doing I often don't know where to start and then when I do it sparks a chain reaction that is impossible to halt mid-flow. This weekend saw such a blitz but this time it really did halt mid-flow...

I have a clump of red hot pokers beneath a smoke bush and they just don't work. I have the perfect spot for them to go... except for the large clump of bergenia which currently resides there. But it's ok, because I also have a couple of places that would benefit from some bergenia so I could move them... except for all the weeds and brambles in the way. So:
Step 1 is to clear weeds - successfully completely
Step 2 move bergenia... almost completed until I went to move a heap of leaves that had collected and let out very loud banshee like yelp. Reason - I had uncovered a hibernating hedgehog!

Promptly go into panic mode about what to do to make sure it doesn't wake up. I desperately tried to tuck him back in with his leafy blanket. Then worried it wouldn't be warm enough without the protection of the elephant ears so collected up a whole load more leaves to lob on top. Meanwhile my bergenia is slowly drying out so I hastily lob it, practically overarm, into its new home. It has not really been planted so much as deposited.

Not my most successful garden blitz. The hedgehog heap looks suspiciously deflated, but I'm too scared to rummage and find out for sure if I really have prematurely woken up the hedgehog. The bergenia has gone from looking very lush and covered in flowers to looking very sorry for itself and with the frosts this week probably won't survive. The blasted red hot pokers are still squished in under the smoke bush.

P.S. It's St Davids Day...

... and my first daffodil came out :o)

February Garden Highlights

February has been a bit of a dull month in our garden. The weather has been rubbish and our heavy clay has been freezing cold and sodden. Mostly, all I have achieved is a small amount of weeding and stuck in a few nerines which I was given by my mother-in-law. Not sure they will like our soil, but I dug plenty of compost in and made sure to plant them only just below the surface so am really hoping they will survive. I'm not really that great as a gardener. That is pretty much as much love and attention as they will ever receive and if they can't survive on their own well, quite frankly its tough luck. Anything that thrives on neglect will do very nicely, everything else will slowly wither... and then I'll forget what it is I planted in that spot, and that will be the end of that. Anyway, here's the highlights:

Trip to a magical wood

Yesterday we went to the most magical piece of woodland you could possibly imagine. Puzzlewood is in the Forest of Dean and has grown up on some weird geological features which I think they called scowles. Once underground limestone caves and now exposed to form something quite incredible. We experienced the full freakiness of British weather by being battered by hailstorms as we tried to enjoy a brisk al fresco sarnie (timing, as ever, is impeccable), followed by dazzling sunshine. And now, as if by magic... photos:

That seems to have worked. Good. I shall now try not to get quite so distracted by the blog reader thing and discipline myself to write my own post before reading everyone elses and a) running out of time, and; b) forgetting what I wanted to tell you about.

January Knitting Catchup

I rather ambitously started quite a few different knitting projects last autumn, with the intention of making Christmas presents for everyone. Unfortunately, I completely failed to actually finish any. When I say that, I mean I finished the actual knitting for at least 2 items, then couldn't be arsed to do the sewing up. D- must try harder. So I have started this year with a determined effort to put in the finishing touches before its too late... my children, for example, are growing faster than I can complete projects. And so, hurrah at last, I finished Big Monsters hat and it fits.... Little Peeps cardigan however is a bit of a stretch. Nevermind, next on the list is a small bear for the Robo and a tank top for myself. I am trying not to think about the fact the bear will require lots of fiddly making up, which I am evidently not fond of, and my tank with lots of picking up stitches - which I am not very good at.

The thing to do now would be to post some pictures, but I don't know how to do that yet. Will work on figuring it out this week.