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All night the rain fell, drumming it's urgent song on my tin roof.
In the morning, the first proper snow was covering the hills. (The snowiest mountains were covered in cloud so not the best photo sorry.)
On my long list of jobs today was picking a paint colour for my art room cupboard.
I think I'm going to be bold.
The large image transfer is almost finished.
So, only about two hundred more things to do!
I'm still here. I've been thinking of you often.
I've been busy making lists and arranging things because the photographer from the mag is finally coming. So many more art ideas to make, doors and skirting boards to paint . . .
I've finally sorted the lounge room out. Now for the rest of the house!
It probably doesn't make the world news anymore, but yesterday we had two sizeable earthquakes here. The second one was the exact same size as the February quake that killed so many and flattened the city. I had a restless night, woken when I did sleep, by another aftershock.
When I got up this morning I felt like something comforting and so I decided to make the river cottage soda bread.
Warm bread, lots of butter, and strawberry jam did seem to help. I had a lovely, quiet, peaceful day at home, reading.
And then as dusk fell, a low lying mist drifted in and mingled with the sunset. Life is so unexpected, so strangely contradictory isn't it?
The scarf is finally finished! It took me about a hundred years to decide what material to back it with. In the end I just used some soft brown linen that I already had. The only problem is that it's a little bit stiff!
I wanted to edge the scarf with little white pom poms, but when I went to the fabric shop they couldn't find the ones I wanted. So I looked at the black ones and thought, "Why not?"
It's ready just as the cold weather starts in earnest. Lucky I started it in summer!
A moment of light as the sun briefly appears,
reflecting the sky's colours onto my deck. It seems to be winter all of a sudden.
Even the sheep look chilly.
But then, a flash of colour catches my eye. I lean down and there it is. A blue promise of spring, right at my feet.
This is what I contemplate every morning while coming to terms with being awake.
They have become my mountains, my companions, my solace.
They change colour and texture by the hour. Sometimes bright and brilliant, sometimes full of velvety shadows. Always beautiful. I went outside tonight to admire the world and all of it seemed to embrace me.
A complete rainbow covered the sky and I put my arms out and my head back and sent it all as much love as I possibly could. Isn't our planet beautiful?
I love living in the country. You never know what you'll see on the way home.
Sometimes there is just one thing in your day that seems holy.
One thing that calls you, one thing that becomes a door to a deeper place.
Today, this was mine.
This is my Maureen. Five years ago today, on the first day of winter, I somehow had to find a way to farewell her. I remember how much trouble I had walking past her coffin, without greeting her, as they opened the doors of the hearse. I felt I should run over, hug the box that now held her, tell her I loved her still. Tell her that it didn't matter that her body had failed her, because she would always be alive to me.
She was love and light and joy. She was one of life's beautiful people. She still is. And wherever she might be now, I want her to know my feelings have not changed.
