A Few Notes

I was delighted to have my stationery supplies well restocked by loved ones over Christmas. All my new notebooks are already in heavy rotation. Because, look! They’re all so pretty! Who possibly has the patience and willpower to fill one from beginning to end before starting the first fresh page of another? Not I. After all, I clearly need one notebook for to do lists, one for things to make, one for doodles, one for miscellaneous and one for emergencies. You never know when an urgent note taking matter may arise.

I may not be a person of fulsome new year resolve, but I am a mean miscellaneous note taker. I’ve been filling my paper pads with lists and doodles of Good Things to do this month. So I best be off, so I can crack on and start doing them. I’ll keep you posted.)

Just Keep Walking

Happy new year to you! It’s been welcomed in with plenty of rain, but I’m hopeful for some more cold bright days before too long. Nothing beats a windy walk up a hill, sharing the view with nothing a few disinterested sheep.

And when there’s no one else about, the trees and gates are free for climbing and hopping.

It’s going to be a busy year, but if I can just get out and jump around in the fresh air, I know I’ll keep my head.

The Post-Christmas Blur

It’s been a week of windy walks, general lazing, and lots and lots of tea. Tom and I have spent time with our families, played the annual quota of board games and quizzes, and got very muddy boots several times over. We’ve had long lie-ins, read books, and completely finished off every last christmas candy, no matter the flavour.

Tomorrow is the new year, time for new plans etc. But until then, I plan to finish this old one in my favourite winter haze: lazing by the fire with a book and some bubbly, only stirring to truffle for candy.

A Winter Read

Yearly traditions have a lovely way of just sort of ‘happening’ and some books find their way in to my hands every year. Stillmeadow Seasons is one such book. I always jump straight to the winter chapters and relive the familiar everyday tellings of Gladys Taber’s life in rural 1940s New England. My Grama first read these chapters to me and her voice often pops in to my head, reading scenes of snow so thick you can’t reach the post box, presents chosen from the few shops in the small town, and homemade candy in ribbons of tissue paper. Like me, Taber loves the promise of one particular shape of package under the tree:

Books were the best gift Santa could bring, and all of my Christmas memories are bound up with books. Other presents were wonderful enough, but that flat rectangular package under the tree- ah, there is the closest thing we know of pure happiness and all tied up in a holly ribbon. A bottle of French scent may be lovely for a time, but all the perfumes of Araby may be between the covers of a book, forever fresh.

I hope that your winter days are filled with fun, food, and love. And maybe the odd new book. Merry Christmas.
Xx

Playing Christmas Catch-Up

Looking up at gold christmas bauble in tree — Hidden bauble on Chawton Lane

So apparently it is already mid-December, which has completely taken me by surprise. Advent has been a slow-burner this year, but I’m relishing each day all the more since I’ve realised the holidays are just around the corner! Last weekend was filled with good winter things: carol singing, Mum’s home baking, and a walk to find a tree. We didn’t get the tree; can you believe two places were sold out? So the tree will happen Thursday. And the wait is only adding to my general festive glee. Must go now, the mince pies are calling.