Day 21 - Solstice Sunset. #DecemberReflections 2016

Sunset today was around 4.15pm. I was in meetings all afternoon. One of these involved much sadness and it was a difficult day in many ways, it did allow some emotional relief.

When I came out just after 4.30pm and saw this tree in the town centre and the little star(or satellite) in the sky just above the buildings, I felt a letting go beginning. A slight glimmer of something coming, just in sight but still very far away.

Later in the evening I wasn't feeling that light beginning, due to being very tired and feeling unwell. I snapped at Mr Stayingawake and felt very resentful towards my work which seems to sap my energy and health.

It is very important that I find a different way forward and savour the lengthening days now. It has been very dark for much of 2016, but I'm not intending to stay in the dark without a fight.

There is the danger that the fear I always feel about the future, and my regrets for past mistakes, will mean I allow this season of my life to continue in the same way. I'm going to need to gather my strength and resolve over these resting days of the Christmas period.

Here is some music from the amazing Sinead O'Connor to help anyone needing to gather some strength today.

Day 20 Snuggle. #DecemberReflections 2016

One advantage of my commute to work, is what I see of nature during my drive. Lately I am so often rushing in the mornings and would much rather stay snuggled in my warm bed until I really have to get up.

Today the beautiful sunrise gave me a warm snuggle.

On the very last minute to get to a first appointment this morning, my sat nav took me up into the hills instead of to my destination. Whilst being aware of the fact that I was going to be late (yet again), I decided to stop and walk a little distance to look at the sunrise and take a photo.

In 2017, getting up an hour earlier is in my plan for taking better care of myself.

Sunrise 20th December 2016

Day 18 - Reflection. #DecemberReflections 2016

I had such a lovely day yesterday, we are both exhausted but made the best of our day out together.

We were supposed to be Christmas shopping, however the crowds and the shops are not really our thing.

I love this city, it's one of my favourites, and so just enjoyed soaking up some of the excitement and looking at the archetecture as we walked around in a daze.

I wrote in my journal in response to today's prompt, that "I need more life and less work in 2017."

How to achieve this is the question and how soon can I make a change?

 In the meantime, I'm looking forward to nearly two weeks off work over Christmas and New Year.

Time to reflect.

Day 14 - Texture. #DecemberReflections 2016

As the year(and this day) draws to a close, I am thinking about the safety and warmth of my home and savouring the time I have there in the evenings.

At Christmas I tend to pay more attention to my home and enjoy buying gifts for the house such as flowers, or maybe just gifting it some time - I start to notice the things that need replacing or a spruce up at this time of year.

Most of the time more recently, this old house has just become a place to sleep, and that makes me feel sad sometimes.

It really does needs some love, as I am so thankful for my safe space and love to share it with others.

Day 12 - Precious. #DecemberReflections2016

2016 might just be the year I learn this lesson, in time to take it forward into my future.

Day 10: I made this! - December Reflections 2016

Did I make this?

Well, not really.

However every year I decorate the tree with decorations from over the years to create a Christmas Tree full of memories.

 I made the memories and create a story as I decorate the tree every year. This started when my son was small and we would buy a new decoration every year, some of the early ones were made by my son(now 29) when he was in nursery.The egg shell decoration belonged to my Grandmother. Somewhere there is the newest decoration bought for our Grandaighter's first Christmas. Then there is the turtle bought when we visited New Orleans. There is the Robin, always a favourite with my son and it was his job to put it onto the tree. Recently poor Robin was savaged by one of the cats but survived to take his place the following year looking a little bit tattier than he used to do.

More often lately I decorate the tree alone, and it is an effort some years to do so. However once I get out all of the little items and connect with their memory, and by the time the decoration is complete, I feel a little bit like Christmas can begin.

I've always found Christmas too overwelming since being a small child when I used to hide behind the sofa and cry. I try hard to make Christmas a kind and warm time for my loved ones, amd to banish the Grinch in me......but I am in no way near being Mother Christmas! But my tree is very special and I "make" it every year.

DAY 8: On The Ground - December Reflections 2016

Mr Stayingawake has been busy making edible gifts for all and sundry. I had been feeling a little disgruntled and have been complaining about all the things he is not doing about the house; and to help me prepare the house for Christmas, whilst I am out working long hours and travelling.

Then I saw all of these on the ground in our hallway, and been stopped in my tracks thinking about his lovely nature and how lucky I am to have him in my life. I have all of this love at my feet and don't always appreciate what's right in front of me. This year has not been the easiest and I don't quite feel like myself again yet, but under my feet is solid ground and it helps to remember that.

DAY 6: In the Air - December Reflections 2016

On the evening of the 6th December 2016, I come out of a house at the end of a long working day, and look up and about at the lights in the town where I work.

It's December and I'm thinking of Christmas, but when I look around at the houses in this area of the town, the illuminated symbols on many of the windows are to mark an Islamic December festival, the  birthday of the Prophet. I enjoy working in a town that has such a diverse population and learn so much from the people I meet here. In my home town the population is much less diverse and consequently in my view, more fearful of difference.

2016 has been a year of great difficulty politically both in the UK and in the USA. As I look about I can feel the excitement and bustle that always seems to be around in the early evening as people travel home from work and return to  their families. In the air is the feeling of life going on all around, behind all of the windows are the people going about their lives. No matter what occurs around us, we continue to make our lives, to repeat our routines and rituals; and to celebrate our festivals. We make meaning out of the chaos.

DAY 5: Best Book of 2016 - December Reflections

Having trouble deciding on the best book of 2016.

This was the year, I devoured easy to read novels when I was recovering from a bit of an emotional collapse (that sounds a bit more accurate than a "mental breakdown"). At first I could not concentrate on anything, not even watch the TV or listen to music. I started to walk every other day and to push myself to get better so I could return to work. When I went back to work they were very kind, and allowed me to coast for a few months. When I came home from work every night, I just went to bed and read, or just slept trying to keep as much energy for work as possible. Those first few months back at work were an uphill climb and when I look back I realise how poorly I was. At the time I didn't think I was ill of course, depression lies to you and tells you that you "should be better" or "should be stronger", and that you are "a pretty dismal person all round."

I devoured book after book at such a pace at that time, if I finished a book and there wasn't another one waiting I felt panic rising and had to rush out and buy one. I found it hard to read non-fiction, or anything that took too much thinking about at first. 

These three were particularly good reads with "The Girl on the Train" leading the way for keeping me guessing. It reminded me of when I lived in London in my early twenties and getting the underground train home and passing all the back gardens of houses.

Kate Morton's "The Lake House" was a great story too, with interesting family links from the past to the future, and I was so excited to get to the final few pages to find the prediction I had begun to form regarding the fate of the missing baby was accurate. The good thing about this one, was that it did keep you guessing too, and led you down different paths during the course of the story. Not too predictable.

"The Forgetting Time" by Sharon Guskin, is awarded the bronze this year. It only just made the list and I am sure there are plenty others that could have made it, but I forget......

Seriously, this was a great topic for a novel, reincarnation - prompting the reader to ponder upon life and death; science and faith. I thought that the writing lacked a bit of something in places - perhaps more plot than character, meaning that I did not quite connect with them; but it is Sharon Guskin's first novel.

Best Book of 2016 is still open so anything could happen. I'm trying to read "Go Set a Watchman" by Harper Lee, after last year when I ordered it online, it came with the wrong book printed inside the cover! I've still got it somewhere but didn't attempt to read it as the print was tiny. What happened there I wonder?

So Scout isn't Scout anymore, and I am wondering where the story is going just now....I'm on page 88 and while I am enjoying it when I pick it up, it's not screaming at me everynight "Read me! Read me now!" Oh and while I'm mentioning Harper Lee, what on earth is going on here?

Then I suspect that this I'm currently listening to on Audiobook could maybe take first place.....just starting chapter two......

Please whatever you do, don't leave me any of your best books from 2016 in the comments.....

DAY 4: Circles - December Reflections 2016

The circle of Skype.

The circle of life.

Families. Life. Progress. Technology. Life. Change. Circles. Give and take. Forwards and back.

I love the Skype circle when you make a call and it starts to ring.

Today, the 4th day of Advent, we were able to Skype our Grandchildren and Daughter(my Step-daughter) for the first time since January/February time.

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DAY 3: Best Photo of the Year - December Reflections 2016

“Thirty-nine years of my life had passed before I understood that clouds were not my enemy; that they were beautiful, and that I needed them. I suppose this, for me, marked the beginning of wisdom. Life is short.” - David Limarni 

DAY 2: Light - December Reflections 2016

"How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world."

William Shakespeare

DAY 1: On The Table - December Reflections 2016

Thinking about myself in the world, as a consumer and as a creator; and about the give and take of life.

 "I've always thought with relationships, that it's more about what you bring to the table than what you're going to get from it. It's very nice if you sit down and the cake appears. But if you go to the table expecting cake, then it's not so good."  

- Angelica Huston  

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"Be yourself. Stand confidently in the knowledge of what you are bringing to the table and then allow the mysterious, all-knowing and conquering energy of Love to do what it does best for you!"

- Kemmy Nola

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"I will bring to you the best gift I can offer, i will sing to you the best things on my mind."

It's the first Sunday of Advent already. Hello.

Hello.

I've missed you.

It's not been a great year.

But I'm grateful and thankful for so much. You included. This place included.

It feels vulnerable showing myself here again, but....

I'm looking forward to this......

I really love this time of year.

 Advent is an important time, and can teach us so much as we cycle around again to revisit lessons and learnings, and to make new sense of it all. Or should that read "to make no sense of it all."

I don't follow a particular religion, and I like to question much. For the younger me, things were rarely black and white. At times I admit I became lost in the grey areas and sometimes this provided excuses for myself and for other's behaviours. In past times I've been something of a rebel and when I look back I notice I have often sacrificed relationships for principles. I have not been someone who has lived my values consistenly either.

It is important to note that I am still forgiving myself and still learning not to judge myself too harshly. When I say that for much of my life I have been merely surviving and rarely thriving, I do not wish to continue to see myself as a victim or to make excuses for my choices. 

My mind is open to new learning and to new ways of living my life. I am feeling very joyful to be back here blogging again from the heart. I refuse to continue to be afraid. I am glad to be alive and living my life, I am very privileged and am so very thankful. 

This idea also appeals to me and so, although I am not a practicing Christian, I will be taking part......

It reminds me of this, which I participated in a few times over the years. Sometimes it just becomes part of your life and you don't record it, but sometimes it helps to do it mindfully and reflectively. Like recording gratitudes, it's very grounding and helps you to centre yourself after a time of hustle and bustle. I've totally been living in the moment since March and that's been good and necessary. Now I want to slow down again, take stock, give thanks, and take a bit of time to gaze at my navel.

I hope that you are looking forward to Advent and to the Christmas Season. If you're not, if you're feeling alone or afraid...please know that I am here and so are so many other lovely kind souls. Please reach out, or allow yourself to be reached out to. In some small way.

Getting lost in May.

So it's May.

I'm reading a little. 

"For in defining genius as one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration, Edison surely meant in one direction, not in three. It was my Mother's misfortune to be born with the ability to write, to dance and to paint, and then never to have acquired the discipline to make her talent work for, rather than against, her."- Scottie Fitzgerald Smith

I'm finding it hard to focus....but this is my pile of half-read or to-read, there are a few lying about the house and so have not made it onto the pile for the "photo shoot". ;)

"Yet it does concern itself, like the ordinary Bildungsroman, with the young person's creation of a self. But this self is a female self, and a female self coming to maturity in the age of the flapper. For any girl, the process of self-definition is complicated by the world's habit of defining her by how she looks; it is difficult for her to define herself in terms of who she is, rather than whom she is seen to be. For a belle in the year 1918, the problem of the constructed, observed, rather than authentic, self, is particularly acute."

 - Mary Gordon,  Zelda Fitzgerald Collected Writings

I'm also walking a little.

And I've been getting lost a little.

"She crawled into the friendly cave of his ear, The area inside was gray and ghostly classic as she stated about the deep trenches of the cerebellum. There was not  a growth nor a flowery substance to break those smooth convolutions, just the puffy rise of sleek gray matter. "I've got to see the front lines," Alabama said to herself. The lumpy mound rose wet above her head and she set out following the creases. Before long she was lost."

- Zelda Fitzgerald, Save me the Waltz.

Z is for the Zig-Zaggy. #AtoZChallenge2016

Zig-Zaggy

More photos from our trip to Brantwood last week. This time showing the reconstruction of Ruskin's Zig-Zaggy, the terraced garden he designed as a representation of Dante's Purgatorial Mount.  If you look carerfully at the thorns around the entrance and along the fence, you will see it is a mixture of a liiving thorny plant and an art instalation which looks like barbed wire but with massive thorns.

Zig-Zaggy Garden at Brantwood - looking upwards - April 2016

A further view of the thorn sculpture.

The thorns are designed to go over the gate that leads up to the garden.

Sadly I didn't get photographs of all of the plants and installations used to represent the seven deadly sins but here are a few of them......

This bush represents the sin of Envy.

I'm sure this one represented the sin of Wrath.

Greed, gluttony and lust just up ahead - the red lips.

A slightly better view of the lips.

Looking back down from the top terrace.

Mr Greenfingers and the rest of the party heading up towards "the earthly paradise."

Sorry now that I didn't get photos of all seven, nor the three virtues in paradise, but here is an interesting site which gives a good introduction to Dante's poem The Divine Comedy.  I found it interesting to read about the theory that all sins arise out of love. Here is an illustration I found online of the Island Of Purgatory.

Source: 8 maps of purgatory

Y is for.....well I'm just going to let Sesame Street do this one for me. #AtoZChallenge2016

Oh yes and Yoga....I really need to get back to Yoga!

X is for..... Xylophone (well actually these are lithophones but we already had L). AtoZChallenge2016

How have I never come across this amazing musical instrument before? As someone who loves rocks and earlier in life had an interest in geology, I can't believe I haven't seen this before.

When we visited Brantwood last week we came across this Lithophone..... like a Xylophone but made of rocks....this four octave instrument was commissioned by Leeds University(you can see a video of the stones being played here). Each of its four octaves features a different local rock type, promoting interest in the landscape and geology of the Lake District as well as musical possibilities.

The Brantwood Musical Stones - April 2016

Brantwood - April 2016

Brantwood - April 2016

There is also a smaller, one octave instrument, the iRock, which uses multi-media music technology to create interactive explanations of the geological properties of the rocks as they are played.

The iRock at Brantwood - April 2016

It's a very exciting and wonderful thing! The iRock at Brantwood - April 2016

There is  a lot to learn! Great place for children to visit and you'd want to bring them back again and again.

I had no idea there were so many just in the Lake District itself....

                     one made of slate at Kendal.....

        and ....the apparently famous musical stones of Skiddaw.....

Then there is this one from Vietnam! Wow! 

W is for.....Wet, Wild and Windy Walks. #AtoZChallenge2016

 Such a cold day yesterday. I believe it was snowing and hailing in some areas of the UK.

I enjoyed a challenging walk against the elements and was rewarded on my return jouney, by the light on the sea, the clouds and the drama of the skies.

What more could a person wish for?

“All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“If I could not walk far and fast, I think I should just explode and perish.”
― Charles Dickens

“Walk some night on a suburban street and pass house after house on both sides of the same street each with the lamplight of the living room, shining golden, and inside the little blue square of the television, each living family riveting its attention on probably one show; nobody talking; silence in the yards; dogs barking at you because you pass on human feet instead of wheels.”

― Geoff Nicholson, The Lost Art of Walking: The History, Science, and Literature of Pedestrianism

“My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was sixty. She's ninety-seven now, and we don't know where the heck she is.”

― Ellen DeGeneres

"My father considered a walk among the mountains as the equivalent of churchgoing."

~Aldous Huxley

I spotted this book, in the bookshop, when we visited Brantwood last week.

It's now on my to read list....and what a fab cover!

V is for...Vase. #AtoZChallenge

Vase

Someone bought me this unusual vase for my birthday back in February. We were looking round an antique/junk shop and it caught our eyes. She thought I would like it because of the leaves/fern pattern. I loved the smooth and shiny, dark green inside and the pattern. What I found really odd was the way the artist had shaped the sides. However I did love it and it looks good in my hallway. A bargain at just a fiver.

 

On the same trip I found a beautiful Peter Rabbit photo album for about the same price, which I bought for our Grandaughter. When we went over to visit I took it over filled with some of the photos that might help her remember.

Today  I just wrote to her, on Peter Bunny notepaper, with a few more photos for her from our trip in February.

How we do miss her and her Mummy. Sigh.