Not still Advent, but in fact Lent!

My goodness, doesn't time fly when you're doing Christmas, New Year, back to school, school exams for Sun 1, looking at new schools for Sun 2, hibernating, stretching and breathing on occasional bright days when the real sun shines blue, organising the gamut of everyone's appointments for approaching half-term!


Time flies. I embraced hibernation between Christmas and the end of January. There was little else to do with everyone so busy! It was a revelation, though, to stop fussing about what needed done, about what wasn't being done, and just reconcile myself to a month in the house surrounded by one revising boy, one Victorian project researching boy, and one very work-stressed daddy! There were cakes as well as revision timetables, it was warm and dry inside, and the weeks whispered past into daylight.


Prince Charming cleared the garage and declared it a boat shed. He and the boys and our farmer neighbour and a school colleague have been sawing and filing and surveying and drinking tea for many cold weeks now, and apparently the bits are ready to be assembled. This has been most exciting!


I cleared my head and declared a Year of Ants and Elephants. I'm still not entirely sure what this means, but it came from friends with whom I was discussing my myriad of unfinished crochet projects. We were weighing the relative merits of clearing big things or small things first. In their house they call this squashing the ants before you can squash the elephant- or something to that effect! Maybe you know of this concept already? Anyway, I am determining to squash an ant or an elephant every month: January saw the completion of my Africa Blanket, and this month I really must finish the tank-top that was started two Springs ago! In fact, the trousers with which I envisaged wearing said tank-top are long past their best!


I also hit on a reading project. Last year a friend made it to the end of 52 books in 52 weeks- impressive. Knowing from past experience that I wouldn't make it past this point in the year, I  thought I would try to read an Alphabet of Authors instead. So in January I read Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, made all the more poignant by Alan Rickman's death mid-way, and Saul Bellow's Him With His Foot In His Mouth.  I am coming to an end of Chris Cleave' The Other Hand, and have Vanessa Diffenbaugh's Language of Flowers lined up and ready to bloom.


The reason why I have not blogged any of this is partly because I have no camera bar the one on a tablet, and partly because I never find the time. Jo's preparation for the transfer test has been replaced by Interesting Homeworks and Days in School. So once a week for more than a month now I have been racing about with him making and sourcing Victorian costume (visit to Folk Park), snow items (Book Day: the Snow merchant), baking and decorating many, many, many buns (P7 Fun Day), and reading all about the Irish Famine, the Victorian Workhouse, Victorian toys....


Conscious all the while that time flies, and that my high octane suns are becoming their own men, circling their own orbits now, and providing sources of energy in other places as well as in mine. Thank goodness for books and crochet!


Wishing you all a gentle end to your winter, or summer! I'm hoping to post some photos and some book reviews and some tales of life outside the Meadowplace, but in the meantime, Happy February x