Radar..........

..........Sorry..........I dropped off it a bit. 

I lost the energy to blog........ Just for a short while........

I have just been a bit thoughtful these past couple of weeks. I view my mind as being a room full of heaving bookcases. Some of the books are factual.....some are thoughts.........and others are memories.

Do you ever have days where you feel like browsing through all your cook books, or crafty books or piles of magazines that have accumulated? You get them all out.....sit on the floor, just opening each one, flicking through it, making notes, tearing out pages etc...

You look down and there is a HUGE pile splayed everywhere on the floor. You have spent the whole morning flicking.....and reading....and searching.....then you don't have the energy to put them all back from where they came from (in my world, usually all over the house). So, they stay there for a while, in the way. They get tripped over, and make the place messy. So your solution? Just to scoop them up and shove them to one side. They still don't get put back.

Well........that's me at the moment. That's the room in my head. Books from every subject field are all off the shelf and strewn all over the floor. I have spent the last few months getting books down from here and there. Having a flick through, but not actually putting them back. I have had no order in there for a bit and it was getting rather chaotic. So I needed to just spend a couple of weeks, sorting the books out, having a quiet read, and putting them back where they belong again. Order restored.

Okay, so I have probably completely confused you. Maybe a strange analogy, but it's how I view things in my head. Sorry.....have I come across as a complete loon?

Creating order has meant not so much enthusiasm for crafty stuff. Well, I have had a little play, but my enthusiasm has not stretched to finishing things. Maybe next week, if I can get my act together.

The days are getting cooler...........the skies greyer..........the evenings are drawing in quicker. I do love this time for its snuggliness, but I feel that there is always a slight sense of apprehension, a mild sort of panic. The last 4 months of the year are majorly hectic in my little world. However hard I try to be organised, it is always last minute panics and stresses. Also, I think it is hard to look forward to something knowing that there will be an empty place this year. It will be hard.

I am setting myself the task over the next few weeks of writing a list of handmade gifts I want to give for birthdays and christmas, and plan to make a start. Hopefully, this will set me on the right path and keep me orderly. Since giving up work and making more, I feel loathed to buy presents for gifts for family. Some perhaps might appreciate them more than others(!), but it seems in the last couple of years the family has started to like this.

Mr H's family are very creative and arty, so we exchange some handmade bits and it is so much nicer. I HATE how commercial things are now. How it is quantity over anything else or how much you spend on one person. There are a lot of people in both sides of our family, and last year we all made a pact to scale it down, make stuff if we could. Help to ease the pressure that we all seemed to feel. And do you know......I think it was the best christmas in a LONG while. People seemed to appreciate it all the more. Less stress, and appreciating actually what Christmas is all about. It made it feel more special. Yes, I think that's it. Christmas has become so commercial that I felt it was losing it's sparkle. The pressure to get the most perfect table setting, the pressure to get the most gifts, the pressure to do something or go somewhere just to please people. Well, I mean, we never went overboard, but it just felt like it was losing the sparkle......and I love sparkle. Yes, last year was the best. I know, for children, it's about the opening of gifts, but I don't want my bears to become far removed from what it is all about.

Hummm........I appear to have deviated from thought a little.

So.....normality will resume. Books have been filed away, and my head is clear enough to function again! Life's a funny old thing!

We spent this past weekend away. It was my older brother's BIG birthday, so all my family hired a house in Swanage near the village of Corfe Castle for his celebration. It was just a shame it was only for a long weekend. I could have stayed much longer.....in fact I could have never left. The house we stayed in was G-O-R-G-E-O-U-S. The views were stunning. We took every opportunity to sit outside in the garden and drink our cuppas......

Isn't that just the most beautiful view to wake up to every morning? The kitchen boasted the same view, but there was nothing like being outside listening to the bird song, feeling the fresh air on the face and just staring at the beauty before one.

The kitchen was definitely the hub. I would sit at a chair that showed me the above view from one angle and the below view from another.....

What a beauty. This was postcard living. it was VERY hard to drag myself away from that particular spot. Every evening the flood lights lit up the Church. The red brick gave off the most AMAZING GLOW, so it was a double treat to be sat in that spot in the kitchen in the evening to see this.....

We did a walk around it ,just before midnight when the lights go off. It was magical. Very peaceful. Sights like this this leave me speechless. Such a lot of beauty.

Saturday was spent with all the family on the beach.....

and Sunday we took a trip on the Steam Railway......

Which I loved. Ironic, because my dad is a HUGE Railway Buff. He used to take my brothers and I on rides like this all the time when we were kids and we couldn't think of anything more boring. Now, it was one of the things we all didn't want to miss!

The children had been on it before on school excursions, but they still loved it. The nostalgia is lovely. The beauty of the engine. The Wessex Belle above was lovingly restored from scrap. It smelt lovely, it sounded lovely. The beauty of the coaches. Vintage fixtures and fittings. The sound of the old carriage doors closing brought back memories. No such thing these days. The gentle rhythm of the coaches moving to the chuff chuff chuffing of the locomotive. The children said it was like being on Hogwart's Express! Awwwww

It REALLY was a joy. I'm glad the Bears appreciated it more than I did at their age!

After the Steam Train, came the visit to the Castle. If you've read my blog for any length of time, you will know that I ♡LOVE♡ Castle Ruins. There is something just so magical about them. Steeped in history, I find it completely fascinating that people once lived their lives in these magnificant buildings. Never would they ever have thought that hundreds of years later, people would be visiting them and wondering about their lives.

Corfe Castle has to be the MOTHER of all Castle Ruins.

It must has been an AMAZING Castle in its prime. Built in the 10th Century, and recorded in the Doomsday book. The ruins are big and very impressive. I could have stayed there all day. Difficult with three children (two of which had already been there with the school). I just wanted to touch the brick and imagine those whole laid every stone in place. It would have been very grand. Ahhhhhhh I just ❤LOVED❤ it. I REALLY could have stayed there all day...and then some.

Alas, the weekend had to come to an end. It did me the world of good though and it was great to catch up and have a big family get together.

Hopefully, I have caught up a bit with things now. Thank you for taking the time to visit me here. I do appreciate it very much. I love to read your comments. I read each and every one. I know time is such a precious thing, so I always feel humbled that people do pop by and say hello. I do apologise if I don't get round to saying hello to you all. It's this whole time management thing. It's hard to juggle. I am not the most organised person and am quite airy fairy with my head in the clouds most of the time. I hope am forgiven....

Happy Monday to you all.

Washing awaits me. Why is there as much washing going for only a weekend as there is when going away for a whole week? I can never understand that one!

XXX


p.s that rather large book pile was beside my bed. All now put back in their rightful place, so head and home are a little more sorted!