Author: wherethejourneytakesme

I live in a small old mill town nestled into the Pennine hills in Yorkshire with my long-suffering husband of thirty some years. I have two beautiful daughters who have flown the nest (most of the time!). I paint and draw (a little) when time allows, make and bake sometimes but not often enough and garden and grow things as much as possible. I recycle and up-cycle, hate waste and I couldnā€™t live without my time planner and lists.
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beaching ~ the rhythm of the waves

I have been embracing my time here and the slow quiet days listening to the rhythmic sound of the breaking waves; it has been something akin to a retreat, which in hindsight we both needed. Our days have been interspersed with hard physical work too in the garden (but only as hard as my back allows, though it has stood up to the constant bending and stetching quite well – there is hope on the horizon it may be going in a positive direction).

It is only when I am away from a situation that I can appreciate the fact that my life has become far removed from any natural daily rhythm and I often feel that I have just got through a day rather than enjoyed it and in turn this becomes quite unsettling and I feel rather out of step with the world.

Changes, I think, need to be made.

Away from the hussle and bustle and demands of daily life back at home I have been able to spend time just thinking. Seeing life from a different angle and pondering on what changes might prove useful. Having time just to sit and be is as hard as it is rewarding.

During our time here there has been plenty of nurturing food – homemade soups, bean stew and lentil curry – we are still enjoying warming foods and not quite ready yet for the start of the salad season. So even though an odd biscuit may have slipped into my hand at elevenses, generally our diet has been good but I am still niggled with one or two health problems – sleep (too much at the wrong times) and a lack of vitality. In other words I seem to be lacking well-being rather than having any major illness.

During our downtime I have been listening to podcasts, mainly interviews with leading UK consultants and GP’s who are passionately trying to convey their take on well-being which is now backed up by science. It is heartening to know there are so many small changes we can make for ourselves to keep healthier, and equally disheartening that many GP’s still just want to offer the quick fix pill that will only relieve the symptoms and not investigate the cause.

Anyway, I have learnt a lot and as I am fast approaching seventy which I see as a kind of threshold when the illnesses of older age can take hold and from which there is no return, I want to do all I can to delay such health problems from creeping in. There is no doubt that once you hit 65 many of our bodily functions struggle more – we lose muscle tone and muscle, our energy seems to deplete rapidly, bending stretching and balance becomes more difficult and we may start to suffer with hearing and vision impairment, high blood pressue and so much more.

I am already planning on implementing some of the suggestions from the podcasts which I will share with you as I go along. Some may prove beneficial others not so.

Today we will have the pleasure of a visit from the ‘tree people’ contracted to Scottish Power who take care of the power lines and make sure that no tree branches are in the way. Such a visit will always guarantee a rise in my blood pressure as it is never an easy time with them; rather than dealing with professional tree surgeons we find that they just prefer to get out their chain saws and get on with the job cutting off limbs here and there as they think best and leave you with a very misshapen tree and a pile of shredding! We always have the ‘is it really necessary’ conversation to try and preserve what we can but in the end these people want to hack off as much as possible so they don’t have to have so many return visits.

Having a piece of woodland is not as wonderful as I once thought.

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beaching ~ guess where I am?

Sun, sea, sand….it can only be one place. Yes, we have arrived and it is glorious…so good it reminds me of why we bought the cottage and why many moons ago we planned to retire here.

The two guys who now cut our grass, and are doing a good job of it, had been yesterday and so the place looked quite tidy though on further inspection every border needs a good sort out. We woke early with the sun this morning and after a leisurely breakfast and a few household jobs we were straight out into the garden. It feels so good to be outside.

The only border I managed to weed on our last visit is not too bad and the hydrangea has not suffered from the cold.

DH has been collecting up the endless goosegrass that has sprung up everywhere and removing the dead leaves of the ostrich, royal and harts tongue ferns.

Not the evergreen Japanese tassel fern (Polystichum polyblepharum) in the fernery though, which has gone a bit rampant and taken over my little bench seat by the cherry tree.

This is a job for another day…in fact it can take a couple of days as I usually cut this down to ground level each year or two so that fresh new growth springs up.

The hosta I planted at the back of the pond has formed a nice clump which can now be divided.

The large overgrown pink rhododendron that I cut back almost to ground level two years ago is growing well (you can just see it emerging at the back right of the picture) – I am not expecting any flowers this year but at least I didn’t kill it and it is looking healthy.

I concentrated on pruning down the rosa rugosa hedge running beside the lane (the one that our new neighbour decided to cut hack the front half to the ground last year).

There was a lot of dead wood that had to be cut away and I reduced the height considerably from 6′ down to about half. Once I throw a bucketful of manure around the roots it should sprout new growth and thicken up quite nicely and I bet by the end of the summer it will be looking much healthier.

Thankfully it is difficult to kill and where it had been hacked to the ground there are new shoots appearing and if I can prevent them from being damaged by his strimmer then we might have a chance of resurecting the hedge and regaining our privacy.

After a morning of working, many cups of tea and a few idle moments sitting in the sunshine we down tools and made lunch. Afterwards we had a stroll to the village and called in at one of the local pubs down by the harbour for a hot chocolate.

So overall a very pleasant day and now we are retiring to eat a mushroom lasagne and then perhaps watch a DVD or read (no TV here).

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dear diary ~ progress with the preparations

Well I certainly feel much lighter today with my new shorter hair cut but no less tired. I am not sure if it is a tiredness of the body or the mind but I expect it amounts to the same thing in the end.

Before we head off we are trying now to ‘eat the pantry’ and fridge of course, and yesterday we made an omelette to use up the last of the eggs and filled it with an assortment of left over veggies from the night before – sweetcorn, green beans, courgette, button mushrooms and cold potato – it turned out well and we used the last of the watercress and roasted a few baby potatoes to go with it. I tend to use watercress in place of lettuce because it is nutrient dense. Those tiny leaves and stalks contain good amounts of Vitamins A, C, and K and smaller amounts of vitamin E, thiamine, riboflavin, vitamin B6, folate, pantothenic acid, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, sodium and copper as well as antioxidants and phyto-chemicals. So well worth eating some every day. I have been growing the American landcress in recent years which is quick and easy to grow and just as nutritious.

DH made a good quantity of leek and potato soup for the freezer and is making mushroom soup today. I have a tupperware box in my fridge named ‘Soup Collection’ and we put green bits and other odds and ends of veg in it like the thick broccoli or cauliflower stalks and the very green tougher ends of leeks etc to use up in soups. The red peppers and onions left in the pantry will travel OK as will the grapefruit and oranges and I can eat the two bananas before we go.

There are towels and tea towels left to wash now and dry but they are not ones I will be packing so if they are not dry in time it won’t exactly matter too much. So far today the weather is dry enough to put them out on the line with the duvet cover and sheets. I like to change the bedding before we go away so that we come home to a freshly made bed.

I have been busy planning meals for when we are in the caravan and making a list of things we need to add on to our general packing list. I have a little more paperwork to complete before we go and cards to write and then I can concentrate on the packing.

Fingers crossed it will stay fine enough to get the seed potatoes planted later this afternoon. This wet, cold miserable weather has gone on long enough now and has prevented us from doing much at all in the garden since last week. There are tulips in the borders waiting in the wings ready to burst out into flower once the sun appears and no doubt this will happen as soon as we leave and I will miss the best of them!

I have plants in pots that I want to take up to Scotland with me – a lot of self seeded aquilegia and fennel and I will need to put them somewhere sheltered overnight so they dry off a bit before they go in the car.

One of the lovely things that happened that I forgot to mention was the grandchildren did a surprise indoor Easter Egg hunt for me and DH before they went home. How sweet was that – they left little clues on Post it notes around the house that said things like ‘this way‘ and ‘up here’ for us to find the hidden eggs. We had to pretend they were hard to find and they got so excited when we discovered one. Sweetie, who is only four, could hardly contain herself and once or twice blurted out where an egg was hidden when we got close!

Yesterday I spent a bit of time packing away the Easter decorations – I didn’t have many but similar to the after Christmas period the house suddenly looks rather bare. I washed my windows and all the lovely Easter drawings the children did are now gone so I am pleased I remembered to take a photo. I will probably repeat this activity at Halloween and Christmas if they stay here – it keeps them busy and occupied for a while. I will keep the lovely cards up though for a while longer and then I will probably use them to make recycled ones for next year.

On my last trip to the village I called in at our local, but very poor library and managed to find a book or two to take away with me – probably won’t be taking Peppa Pig – the children enjoyed it (and secretley so did I) but I will skip packing it.

The watercolour book is very informational with lots of practical tips and illustrations and the aim is to try and improve my painting skills – same with the photography book although on first glance it looks a bit technical in places for me.

I think this might have been a bit of a rambling post and like my head at the moment all over the place as we now rush to be ready on time to go away.

Have a lovely weekend everyone and once again I apologise to anyone dropping by expecting to see a ScrapHappy Challenge here – there has been very little crafting going on, hopefully next month will be better.

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dear diary ~ recovery and preparations

The holiday is now over for us and ‘granny’ has gone into recovery mode!

It was cold, wet and miserable outside yesterday and inside our house seems far too quiet now with the children gone. I should have done a hundred and one things to prepare for going away but I felt too wiped out to tackle many of them. I put in a load of washing which had to be dried inside and put a few bits away, then walked to the village to post my sister’s birthday card. After lunch DH and I sat for a while and started watching a film on TV – that was a mistake as even less got done but we both needed the rest and a bit of just me time. The trip to town that we should have done yesterday will now have to be fitted in today between an appointment this morning and a hair appointment late afternoon.

There are a few bits I cannot buy locally in Scotland and the Sainsbury’s in Newton Stewart that we go to on the way is quite small so I shall have to buy them here at our larger branch. It shouldn’t take us more than an hour so we can be in and out quite quickly thank goodness. I shall make an easy tea tonight – either pasta to use up some cheese sauce or baked potatoes with a mushroom filling. I have leek soup to make this morning to use up the leeks and large potatoes before we go and then we can fill a flask to take with us for the journey and put the rest in the freezer for when we get home.

I did manage to look at some paperwork – nothing is urgent but I do like to keep on top of it so it doesn’t mount up. There are always statements to download and file away on the computer but at least I am beginning to beome paper free so that my paper filing drawer doesn’t become full again. Once we are up at the cottage I will continue with the decluttering of my lap top and get rid of old stuff on there.

Already my mind is a whirl of packing requirements, tasks that need to be done at the cottage, birthday cards that need to be sorted, written and posted or handed out before we go and tasks that need to be done here by the time we leave – like planting the seed potatoes. Of course the weather is being obstinate and sending rain rather than sunshine – isn’t it always the case when you are preparing to go away. Still maybe the cold weather now means that we will get better weather in the next two weeks.

For anyone coming over here to view the April ScrapHappy Challenge I will have to disappoint this month as I have not had a moment to do any crafting, but hopefully will be back with a challenge next month.