High Lands

 I didn't post my photos of half-term in Scotland with Catherine and then Jacqueline, my oldest and my newest friends. I was still warming up for a while and then the world broke. But here are some remembered moments of high places and wide places in case you need to look at something different this weekend. And chickens! (And thank you - Prince Charming is much better and back at work. We are very grateful x)

January's solitary swim

But at least it wasn't lonely. There were lots of women on the old slipway this morning, and it was good to get back in the water. Tomorrow marks the start of Week 6 in the Great Ankle Recuperation, and my physio said I could go back to the bumpy rocks and slippy seaweed and waves. She also said that if I could run and jump this week then I could go back to the hills. Which will be a miraculous recovery, as I could do neither of those before!

But in the end, this only swim I've managed this month wasn't rocky or slippy or even wavy, despite this weekend's storms. The tide was high and we were straight in. "Is it not cold?" everybody always asks. Honestly, even in summer it feels cold over your feet but once you're all in, you're thinking about so many other things. In summer you really don't notice the cold once you're in, and in winter - cold isn't what I feel. I feel pain! All over burn! And so you keep moving and keep breathing and you're part of everything around you and it's real and your mind can't do much because your body is intent on living.

And back home this is my view from the green sofa where I can be found in the quiet times, just watching the winter in the sky with my mind not doing much. Everything feels white this winter, all white and wide and empty (and sadly devoid of snow). But empty in that good way - isn't there a good empty? When there aren't too many expectations, too much rush, too huge a crisis. I'm enjoying a season of empty. I'm sure there'll be more of the rest soon enough! So in the meantime: intent on living x

First weekend in February

This week not only could we not really remember a pre-Pandemic world but we also started to struggle with memories of antediluvian life! We are obviously more than used to rain here in the Frozen North, but five solid, torrential, stormy days? That's rough even by our standards! But today, today the clouds scattered and we had a reprieve full of big blue sky. Just what we needed, now that January seems finally to have left us for another circuit of the year. 

The hurricane tree is still very bare, and I can't even see buds, but I did find snowdrops looking very confident in their overgrown corner of the drive. The maple tree too is leafless and budless, as far as I can tell. But the air whispers portents of longer days and fuller branches. I'm happy to be here, even in this chapter of our histories, as the air also whispers portents of a slow but steady end to These Strange Times, I hope. And isn't faith being sure of what you hope for and certain of what you do not see?

So, this month I am doing this: 

Reading - absolutely nothing at the minute. I've hit a concentration hiatus. All recommendations welcome! I did read some Michael Longley poetry last night. His wife taught me The Waste Land at Queen's. She was wonderful!

Making - Cushla's Comfort is finished, bar a great big blocking manoeuvre tomorrow followed by some pompom attachment! Then I will have to work out how to get it to Downpatrick under the current restrictions. Maybe February will be the month I finish the skirt I started making LAST February... And then I'll discover that it doesn't fit my Lockdown body any more!

Doing - Trying to keep swimming, but my goodness, it was painful this morning. I only swam twice in January what with all sorts of body things, and I am now woefully de-acclimatised! Trying too to keep the boys working well through their home-schooling. Trying to keep God somewhere in the middle of it all. Trying to remember that I am a daughter as well as a mother, and a sister as well. 

Belfast 4 Corners Festival has been on this week - digitally, like so many other resourceful events. So something I have been doing is going to 10pm Night Prayers with Jim Deeds. a wonderfully reflective character on the creative spiritual scene in and around Belfast. The Festival's theme this year has been "Breathe", and for fifteen minutes every night we have been doing just that. Breathing in and breathing out. Breathing in God, and breathing out hope. It's been lovely. Try it x 

 

Snowswimming

 We finally got snow. Proper snow. Snow enough to make snowmen, throw snowballs and scrunch with satisfaction through bouncy, snowy grass. And so, there was snowswimming! I went on the first morning when the snow was still quite light, but still!

Second weekend in December is the third weekend in Advent

I forgot that last weekend was Hurricane Tree update weekend. It was completely bare at the start of November so it's still waving gloriously naked branches to the thrill of the cold air, and will be doing just that for quite some merry time. We've been doing much the same thing in our swimming group, and will be doing just that for quite some merry time! My house has to go into sELF isolation for two weeks over Christmas and the New Year before a little hospital thing I have to do, so that could be the end of my winter sea adventures - not sure my courage will survive so much de-acclimatisation!

So what I'm doing does still involve as much swimming as I can fit in. Yes, it's really cold now! But the exhilaration is more than worth it. The loving acceptance of this group is pretty huge too. That has quite unexpectedly become as important as the swimming. 

What I'm also doing is being utterly absorbed in the world of sons. Their difficulties at school are myriad this year, and thankfully they are coping valiantly, most of the time. I'm finding that my coping strategies are as simple as they are difficult. Remembering to breathe very deeply at difficult times, making myself get outside to walk, and praying. Also, deliberately finding things in which to rejoice and for which to be thankful. 

I was "chatting" virtually to two very good friends last week about how you can get through most days by just doing the next thing. But, and this is my tenuous link to today's Gaudete Sunday, life is so much better if I can make the next thing, the simplest possible next thing, as beautiful and enjoyable and joyful as I can. And we've had a gorgeous weekend, with lots of simple joys. Gingerbread and candles have dominated today!

So that's what I'm doing in December: swimming for the next two weeks, finding joy in the small things, and praying as thankfully as this small human mind can. Waving my bare branches with as much exhilaration as I can!

Here's the maple that was still so gloriously clothed in at the start of November. What I'm reading, just to keep my little archive is Ali Smith's Winter (have just finished Autumn), the annual Christmas Mystery, a wee Agatha Christie sneeky short story from Mattman's Midwinter Murders anthology when he's not looking, and I'll be escaping into Winter Solstice anytime soon! Getting to the end of the Psalms. I'll miss them.

And what I'm making is still Cushla's Comfort Blanket, though it definitely at least feels like a blanket now. I'll miss it too when it's done! I gave up on the baubles for work colleagues - I'm leaving a box of oranges with a chocolate orange on the staff table instead! And I finally made the two zipped pouches - hoorah! They are all bagged up ready for my Santa run this week. I'm going to deliver everything I need to this week so that we can have our hibernation with all jobs done. 

 I do hope you've all seen our Emmanuel God and his hope, peace and joy in this Advent. And I wish you all great love as our journey to Bethlehem gets closer to its destination. Exciting! And just because our Advent season seems to be all about the videos this year, here's one I was asked to do for church!

First weekend in November

The hurricane tree lost its last leaves sometime in the middle of the week. I had been watching them carefully, but then they were suddenly all gone even before Storm Aidan blasted through this weekend. The skies are steely, the days are getting dark, and it's now November so, while it's not really cold enough yet, I suppose I'll have to start getting ready for Winter!

What I'm still reading then this Winter: Psalms right up to Old Year's Night, and I'm in Psalm 119 now. I didn't know that it's an acrostic poem - every one of those intriguingly titled sections represents a letter in the Hebrew alphabet, and in the original every line of each section starts with that letter.  Also still reading Kierkegaard's Lilies and I should really read the last essays in my William Morris book. I think I'm not going to try to read anything else, except maybe Ali Smith's Autumn and Winter. Oh and I find I'm already looking forward to Rosamond Pilcher's Winter Solstice (I do love that Scottish house with its big Belfast sink). But mostly I'm finding it hard to settle my mind to reading. It was the same at the start of Lockdown - I just couldn't still myself. I feel some of the same unsettled fragility just now.

What I'll be making this Winter: up to Christmas it will be all about Cushla's Comfort blanket. PC helped me do some hard ratio sums today based on the seven out of 26 balls of yarn used thus far and I think it might turn out alright in the end. Still spending Wednesday Hookery zooms on my shawl. Still hoping to make the Harris Tweed Christmas presents pouches before Christmas! And would I be able to make ten crochet bauble covers for the ten teachers in my school department? We'll see...

What I'm doing: the course - first assignment submitted last week - and swimming. I was in the Lough this morning so that definitely feels like winter swimming if I got to November! Will I still be swimming in the first weekend in December? Oh, what an exciting question!

Here's the maple tree right outside our living room window. It's gloriously vibrantly defiantly red, during the day when we can see it glow. So it's my next leaf counting project.

 

OWS

So apparently OWS doesn't stand for the little noises I have started making when I walk down the slipway over the last week. It stands for open-water swimming and it is a huge phenomenon here since Lockdown. I like swimming, with my feeble breast stroke, and I do prefer swimming in the sea, though I have only ever done that in summer and have usually had a wetsuit on in Irish waters.
 

Swimming was the only thing I started to miss a lot in Lockdown, so as soon as we were allowed to travel beyond our locality I would always take my swimming stuff. I had a few swims in the sea up on our north coast and one in the spectacular Blue Lough in our Mourne Mountains, but in August as lady from church invited me along to her swimming group, and I have been swimming with them as much as work allows ever since.

The main group is actually huge, and they swim in all sorts of places in our county, but I just swim with the local ladies who swim from an old slipway just beyond the park at the bottom of our hill. I park there and walk along with my little rucksack, my insulated mug of tea, and my very reassuring float. 

Everyone has asked from the start if it's cold. Honestly, the water has only started to feel cold this last week. Up until now, even if it wasn't a beautifully sunny day like this one at the start of the month, the water was very comfortable. This is Belfast Lough, on the east coast of Northern Ireland, at the end of a gloriously sunny Spring and Summer. I had swim shoes already, because I hate the feel of silt and plant life, but the recommended gloves help too. I suppose you're protecting the extremities. Since October folk are swimming with their hats on as well, but not wetsuits. This group swims in skins! So yes, now it's cold!

If it's not too rough, and if I know the tide is coming in, I'm confident to swim out to the big metal pole. When the tide is high the water gets deep quite quickly, but on low days we can mostly walk out to here. I'm a very careful swimmer, always needing to know I have the strength to get back!

And that's it. There is only one hard part - the getting out of bed for the early swims to catch the tide. After that, when you're all booked in to check that the number is below social distancing requirements for space available on the slipway to get changed, it becomes automatic. When people visit and we go to the beach I've always said that once you start walking towards the water you don't stop. So that's what I do, I just walk in until the water comes to my waist and then I swim. No hesitation, no thinking, just swimming. If the Lough is very calm, and again if I know the tide is coming in, I will swim back along the wall with the stronger swimmers. I've only braved it to the end and back once!

I have lived along this shoreline my whole life. I bussed along it to school. I walked this park with an aunt who lived in the area long before I moved here from the city. I ambled through it with two boyfriends, and with the one I married. I have beach-combed here with small sons, cycled here with bigger sons, and sat here often when I was getting over the very little very successful cancer procedure I had last year. It is a wonderful thing to me that at a time when the world seems so constrained and constricted I can do something new, meet people new and get a wholly new physical perspective on a landscape I thought I knew intimately. I know that these are difficult times with unprecedented challenges for our lifetimes, but I do firmly believe that we can make the most of them for ourselves and our families. This may well have the potential to be a terrible winter of our discontent, but I am thankful that God can still come in to our houses and our lives, and stay with us with no distance, no sanitising, no mask. Thus far has the Lord helped us x

(Thanks to PC for coming with me one afternoon when the sun was shining and there were no organised after-school swims! He took the photos and kept an eye on me - cold water swimming is not one of his many, many, many interests!)