Snow

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A proper fall of snow really shows how far some of us have come as adults from the wonder of childhood.  The playground echoes to cries of “Stop it, you’ll get soaked,” “Come and stand here or you’ll fall,” “Don’t do that,” and “Ugh, don’t eat it, that’s disgusting!”

I don’t want to talk about it from an adult’s point of view, in resigned tones and pseudo media-speak.  “Traffic chaos, misery for drivers, worst freeze for 20 years, will be worse tomorrow, more forecast overnight, a nightmare journey”…  I want to play in it.

Just stop and think about it.  Really think.

It’s water.  Falling from the sky in soft white lumps.  It changes the whole world, making familiar streets, gardens and fields somehow different.  Stop and look, just for a second.  It’s magic.

You can make footprints in it.  You can follow the footprints of others and find out where they were going – it tells a story.  A single line of tracks across an open field tells of the solitary fox who emerged at dawn from his shelter in the hedge and set off in search of a meal.  Footprints across the front lawn show that he postman took a short cut from next door again.

You can roll in it.  This is even more fun when someone has just told you not to.  You can throw it at your friends, your enemies, your parents, the neighbour’s cat.  You can draw on brick walls with it.  You can make fantastic sculptures with it (even if most of us make do with a lopsided and decidedly lumpy snowman).  Sometimes, as today, it comes with dense white fog which adds a spooky touch to the white world and leaves glittery sparkles on your hair.  If it’s really cold, they will freeze and look like diamonds.  Isn’t that amazing?

When mum isn’t looking, you can eat it and feel it disappear in your mouth leaving a cold nothingness.  You can catch the falling flakes on your tongue.  You can lie on your back and make snow angels, or just lie still and get lost in the confusion of snowflakes as they whirl down towards your face.  You can go sledging, shrieking hysterically as someone pulls you along, screaming with delight as you slide down a hill, and giggling as you fall off and get a face full of cold which always, always finds its way down your neck.

And then, when you can’t feel your toes, your fingers are sore and your nose is red and dripping, you can stumble inside, strip off all your many layers and leave them in a melting heap on the floor and thaw yourself out with hot chocolate and biscuits.  So memories are made.

Even as an adult, nothing stops you doing any of those things except your own image of adulthood.  Even if you have to scrape the car, negotiate the traffic chaos and fog and go to work, if you’re lucky the snow will still be there when you come home.  In the dark, snow somehow manages to glow, and can be even more fun when you think nobody can see you.

My son (at the grand old age of seven and a quarter) says I will never grow up.  He means this as a true compliment.  I’m doing my best to prove him right.  Snowball fight, anyone?

PS. Do you need a guide to snow play?

1.     Be prepared.  Wear warm, waterproof clothes.  The only footwear which really does the job in snow is a pair of wellies.  Beg, borrow or buy them.  Make your children wear them too.  That way, they will be the ones making snow angels on the way home from school while you look on (or even better, join in.)  That way, you will not be the parent who, on seeing my boy lying down in the snow, looked horrified and hurried his daughters past*.  You will be the parent who, like me, knew the child was making memories as well as prints in the snow, and would be warm and dry in his waterproof trousers.

2.     Walk somewhere.  Not somewhere you have to get to quickly.  Not somewhere you don’t want to go to, like the dentist.  Take a gentle walk in the snow and see what you can see.  This morning, in amongst the footprints of dogs and their owners, I saw a single line of fox tracks disappearing across a field.

3.     Appreciate what you have.  Look at the beauty that lumps of frozen water falling from the sky has made all around you.  And be thankful for the warm house you have to go home to.

*  Hurried his children past, while saying to his daughters, “See, that’s what boys are like.”  I feel a whole other blog post coming on based on that remark!


PS. The blog has a new home to live and work in!

Please come and join me at http://liveandworkathome.wordpress.com/

Taking a break

The next few weeks are all about taking stock of what doesn't need to be done.  Work schedule is overloaded, Christmas is coming, and I'm trying to get Organised.

I will be back in the new year, but need to take a break from blogging now.  Sometimes something has to give!

Sometimes the pendulum swings overwhelmingly away from work and towards home.  A visit to family followed by a laundry mountain; a boy who shocks his parents with a sudden developmental stage needing all of both parents' best parenting efforts; a half-finished garden revamp stalled by days of heavy rain.  All of these, plus the onset of the dark days and long nights, conspire to make the work a mere distraction (and blogging an impossible non-essential which seems too much like work).

Oh, the work is still there.  The work is still (mostly) done, but where is the engagement with it, the mental stimulation, the enjoyment?  Overtaken by nagging low-level worry and More Important Matters.  (And often, by less important matters which refuse to be ignored.)

How to restore the balance?  Well, sometimes the balance simply needs to tip towards home for a while.  There is no 'restoring the balance' because that is the only way we can be.  But when we are ready to burrow into the mountain of Things to Do and truly engage with the work, there is only one way: focus on one thing at a time.

I know, it's been said before.  Many times.  But still we (or at least I) need reminding.  Today is a Client A day, and I will do Client A's work until it is done.  Tomorrow Client B's work will be waiting.  A conscious decision to finish what needs to be done in the hours available results in great things.  (And guilt-free time off afterwards!)

Sooner than you think

It comes sooner than you think.

Aged only just seven, his mornings are taken up with learning spellings and arguing about teeth cleaning, and before you know it he's disappeared through the school gates without looking back. 

On the way home from school he's miles ahead, racing his friends on their scooters.  At the doorstep he doesn't even stop for a snack before saying, "Can I call for so-and-so?" and dashing to knock on a friend's door a couple of houses away.

Reluctantly he comes home to be fed, then plays a while before bed.

Is it any wonder I cherish bedtime, with its ritual story reading and snuggling?  Long may it last.

Shawls

What do shawls make you think of?  Victorian ladies?  Grannies?  Little House on the Prairie?

Um.  I like shawls.  (In fact, I like the Victorians, grannies and Little House on the Prairie too.  I wonder what that says about me?)

I like knitting shawls.  They can be as complicated or as simple as you like.  You can knit them in any thickness of yarn.  And most important of all, they can't come out the wrong size!  Too big, and they can become a blanket or throw.  Too small, and you have a teeny scarf.  (Or you just keep knitting until it gets bigger.)

I like wearing shawls.  I realise this may be controversial if you aren't a knitter.  (And I am sure the husband has strong opinions on my wearing shawls, but he wisely keeps these to himself, for which I am grateful.)  Sitting at my desk during the day, I get colder and colder.  A shawl (or two or three) over my shoulders makes all the difference and doesn't add the bulk of several woolly jumpers.  Under a coat, a scarf annoys me.  It dangles too far down and gets caught in things.  A shawl does the same job, and can be wrapped around your neck just as easily, but doesn't do irritating things.  Plus it's more interesting than a scarf.

I like draping shawls.  I'm pretty sure the husband has opinions on this one too.  They hang beautifully on the back of a chair, adding a bit of handmade loveliness to a room and, as a bonus, are easy to grab when I inevitably get chilly.

I also like fondling shawls I have made, lovingly, congratulating myself on how skillfully I have made such a wonderful thing.  But don't tell anyone.  That may make me sound weird.

To Do lists

I just spent a few minutes listing all the things I need to do next week, and all the things I want to do, and those happy few which fall into both categories.

Now I'm tired just thinking about it.

And having written that list I still haven't started on any of the things which need to be done today.

Because my mind is already in next week.  (Apart from the large portion of it which is already in the weekend.)

Mostly I want to play today, and not write meaningful prose.  But that's what I am being paid to do today, so I'd better get on with it.

I like ticking things off a To Do list, but sometimes making a long one backfires slightly.

Highways and Byways

How far does 'home' extend?  As far as the front door? The garden gate?  Further than that, I think.

We've lived in this village for nearly six years and I thought I knew it well.  After all, it's not very big.  I walk the main street twice a day to take the boy to school and back, I drive the other large-ish road regularly on my way to the nearest town, and I know most of the side streets.  This week, however, I've spent an hour or so each morning walking paths and minor roads that aren't on my usual routes.  I did have a cursory look at a map on Monday, but mostly I've just been following my nose.

Being slightly geographically challenged, I've thoroughly enjoyed the several 'aha' moments as I've emerged from a new-to-me footpath onto a familiar street, or spotted another footpath I didn't know existed, or realised that if I walk down here I'll end up there.  I swear there's an audible click as the jigsaw pieces fall into place in my head and my mental picture of my home surroundings becomes clearer and more solid.

I've heard birds singing, smelled pine trees and soil, seen fantastic views over rolling fields (and I thought Suffolk was flat!) and encountered squirrels, pheasants and friendly dog-walkers.  I've been stung by nettles and slipped in the mud and altogether properly experienced this place we live in.

These excursions have prompted me to ponder lots of questions: did all of these little patches of orchard once join up, and if so how big was the whole orchard once?  Is there a map I can find to tell me?  What's a haulage lorry from Scunthorpe doing in the back end of nowhere in Suffolk?  Why is there an elderly man sitting out of sight behind the village hall in an equally elderly Jaguar with the engine running and the window open, smoking a pipe?  Is he perhaps the lift home for the man with the incredibly bushy moustache and the battered tennis racket who is whacking balls around the playing field for his two collies to chase?  And most of all, why have I not done this before now?

A tree's roots extend far beyond its trunk.  A person's roots need to extend beyond the front door.