Beautiful reflection of the end of the year. Reading this was medicine. I didn't manage to get a second to put pen to paper this Christmas. In fact I think I am still recovering!!😂 Flu was the last ingredient I needed at New Year! Thank you for writing so beautifully
Dear Susie! I was saving your (this) post to read when the festivities were over....and well, they have been 'done and dusted' for over a week and I have only just remembered your last post of 2025! And so, here I am writing a warm wish for a happy and especially healthy New Year, a little late! (Better late than never, right?)
Your walk with young Seth had me tearing up. My youngest is now 30 and yet in my mind's eye it was only yesterday that we were sliding down the snowy hill in the park behind my home! Oh my! We are so busy living life that we don't see time fly- just as those two herons disappeared so swiftly into the mist on your walk home.
Thank you Susie for sharing your beautiful writing. I am forever grateful for finding you here. Hugs from Canada.
Ahh dear Jeannine, late wishes are the best wishes! I send mine to you also. The new year has begun with such a blast of cold air I have lost all sense of everything, time especially!
It's a huge shock to suddenly turn and see our children, all grown up, saying grown up things when we can still feel their tiny hands in ours as they climb onto our knees... time does fly, too fast, far too fast, there are days when I would do much to feel that soft skin against mine again, oh I sigh Jeannine, deep wistful sighs...
I am thankful for you my dear friend from Canada and your lovely comments, for herons rising from the mist, even for freezing weather, I am thankful also for being alive and capable of loving and longing.
Je te souhaite une belle et très bonne année ma chère, de la bonne santé et plein de joie!
Beautiful writing as always, Susie. Parts slip into such wonderful poetic prose. You've such a gift for bringing us into your moments, Susie. It's a wonder.
Bless you for taking precious moments of your time to read dear Síodhna, sometimes the moments that we move through are poems before a word is even thought of… wonder is everything really isn’t it? xx
Seth’s stride grows longer , and time may take him farther away as he sets out to write his own story, deciding who he wants the main character to be. But your love of home and hill , even your once stolen woodland, are a part of who you are, you have set down roots; blood and bone . Passed down to Seth and Rosie. And possibly into the next generation to come.
Nothing can compete with time. In Tolkien’s book, The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins plays “the riddle game” with Gollum in his cave. Bilbo’s very life depended on the correct answers. The first one who cannot answer correctly, loses…
Gollum asks; Riddle 5:
“This thing all things devours;
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;
Gnaws iron, bites steel;
Grinds hard stones to meal;
Slays king, ruins town,
And beats mountain down”
Bilbo eventually has the correct answer in the last possible moment;
time.
So come, dry your tears ,my dear one . Makes no sense to even give it brain space to solve the inevitable equation.
What a beautiful, beautiful gift you have already given. And continue to give.
Though we live far a part, we arrive together at the doorstep of the new year . May all you dream of and wish for , come true. Hugs to you, Susie!
Lor you are always a balm dear one and I am late with my gratitude and wishes to you for a New Year that shines in all the right places as we sidestep the rubble of the last no matter how insurmountable they seem!
Bilbo found the answers in the nick of time and so will I. Love is a bond bound tightly between both my children and I, it will take more than a chance comment or a departure to sever the ropes!
I am trying to remember the five riddles Gollum asked Bilbo, one and two were mountain and wind, three and four I don't recall... and five was time; both a wretched thing and a beautiful thing.
I think I need to adopt Mr Albert Einstein's attitude when he wrote "Time is an illusion.” in order that I may not trip up on it quite so often!
Now, don't you worry Lor, my tears are dried, the inevitable accepted and logged to avoid further unnecessary upset to the heart while I wait with curious eagerness for the next generation... a page has turned but more will follow.
Sending hugs across ocean and mountains, they should arrive in the wind just as you are rising! xxx
Winds gusting to 50 this morning on my hike, pretty sure a tree tried to reach out and hug me. Maybe I should have worn my ski helmet, didn’t realize your hugs would have such gale force!
“I turn away to hide the grief of realisation, the utter heart-splitting piercing pain. I knew this day would come. When his world would expand, that it would be he, not me turning to stand and wait, but I never imagined that he or it would grow so fast, that it would be me trotting to keep up in his world.”
Happy new year lovely Susie, and what a beautiful post to usher us into 2026. This line stole my breath - "two pairs of vast silent wings catch in the air like poems from prehistory". Oh, my heart! wishing you a year filled with winged poems and smiles x
Hello dear Rebecca, I was wondering where you were hiding just yesterday, hoping you'd be back very soon and here you are! Thank you, I love that your breath was stolen by that line, it was a favourite of mine also. I hope the this new set of days have begun beautifully for you, that those that follow will be filled with magic and miracles as yet unknown... xxx
I was struck by the variety of birds that fly or sing around you in that corner of France. It always seemed to me, when visiting La France profonde, that the country has such a variety of birdlife, greater than in Britain.
It is true Jeffrey, here in the Aveyron we are very fortunate to live in a relatively unpolluted area and the wildlife, not only birds, is abundant and myriad in variety. This morning my Merlin bird app counted 12 different birds within one hundred metres of my door… it is a gift I never tire of!
Happy New Year Susie, and thanks for all the joy and wisdom and kindness and just damn excellent writing. I've loved my time on your Hill. Looking forward to the coming year, the spring, the return of the lush landscape and your fine writing so that I can wallow in it all :)
There’ll not be much wallowing done this week! It’s -7c outside and the ground is like concrete, I will be sure to let you know when that time returns!
Huge thanks Jonathan, you've been fabulous inspiration and support to me here in this little but so delightful community we’ve built, I am looking excitedly forward to another year of The Crow! A very Happy New Year to you also, here’s to the magic of words! 💫
PS I tried to read your post this morning and only half loaded, defo a problem this end because when I tried again I got the same thing though I could see others had commented… I will try on a different device later this evening, with wine in hand!
We had a few sprinkles of tiny, tiny snow last night (2 Jan), so I stood outside and watched them fall on my black coat. They only fell for a few minutes, but I had fun looking at them.❄️
I have done the same thing many, many times Louise, such is the childlike excitement of seeing snow I think! I hope you have chance to see a few more… we may see a few flakes next week again but sadly it will quickly turn to rain. There is still time for us both though…🩵❄️xx
As we return again to this place that marks the end of one journey around the sun and the start of another, we are blessed to have found such friends to share the journey, to share melancholy and joy, and hills and rivers and fields and woods, for as long as we can. Much love Susie, wishing you the very best for the start of this fresh new year xo
Much much love right back to you Emily, this feels like the sort of magical journey where dreams are not only made but come true, the sort we don’t dare speak of for fear the spell will be broken — I feel so fortunate to be sharing it with you and the many other beautiful friends we have found along the way and though I write of the melancholy of end days, let’s not forget that there is hope in new days to come always!
Love and light and peace and huge huge hugs to you 💛xxx
Such a lovely post, Susie. It's so hard to find the nest empty and the space that our darling daughters usually fill, quite. The years that my daughter wasn't home for Christmas at all were so tough. Now she is near. I am grateful. The photos are stunning as always, the way you capture light always delights me. I can see you out on your hill chasing after it! Blessings and love, Dear Susie... xoxo
I have yet to spend a Christmas without either of my children being home Pamela, I dread the day like no other and yet I know it is out there waiting for me. I can only imagine the melancholy of Christmas Day without your daughter, thank goodness she is now close enough to you for that not to be the case. Something tells me it may not be with my own children but these things must be dealt with no matter… for this year, the day was wonderful, despite the germs and late lunch, much smiling and laughter could be heard!
Wishing you a very happy and healthy (especially that!) New Year dear one - much much love xxoo
The love you feel is so expansive Susie that it’s as if your heart is a self-generating love machine. The more you love, the more you are capable of loving. An infinite chamber of embodied wonder. Of course you are changing lives! You are even changing and shaping ours over here every time you share. ❤️🫀
I think only one who shares even more widely such love could notice another Kim. “The more you love, the more you are capable of loving.” I believe this to be an absolute truth, like anything and everything we do; the more we practice the better we become and, eventually the more we can share…
If I change and shape lives here, it is unknowingly but to read those words makes my heart feel like bursting!! Thank you dear one, so much. For all your kindnesses throughout the year I humbly hug you and send you love in buckets!
Here’s to another year of new days and new loves and sharing more than we could ever imagine possible. ♥️xx
And then I read this (just mere moments after your previous post) and I am left feeling an aching beauty, the most appropriate adjective I feel from your and Kimberly's writing.
This was beautiful, Susie. Thank you for capturing the melancholy that the holidays can bring, or perhaps only start to bring as we reach "un certain âge." I had some dark thoughts during our NYE party last night -- is moving into a new year really a good thing, at our ages and with the current world situation? I hope I can look back at this time next year and say my worries were for nought, but I'm not convinced.
I am trying to leave dark thoughts in the days of last year Betty. There is so much bad news and sad news at the moment I fear we lose sight of what is still a joy to us… I am determined to concentrate on all that makes me smile rather than the latter! I am sure it is far better for our souls…
We have little choice but to move with time as it is set us, I think perhaps it will be a far better year if we move with it rather than against it — as far as ladies of our age can of course! I hope we can both look back and smile, that our worries were wasted worries. Doubtless the world will continue to have cruelty and madness therein but let’s dig out the magic and make it big! Sending love to you xx
I do love these cold mornings and brisket days too. It's -7 here this morning. As for the dark thoughts, my premonitions were born out by some awful news I got on New Year's Day. I may or may not share it by DM; for the moment I'm working on absorbing it. However it is of the nature to make me want to seize every day even more. Xoxo
I am here if you need to share Betty, I now how these not so glad tidings can eat into our happiness and optimism at this time of year, any time of year for that matter. I am thinking of you and send courage if courage is needed, a shoulder if that is needed too... much love xx
this is the most beautiful year and message. I’ve read. I’m so I’ve ever. It’s so gorgeous and it almost made me cry. I could smell your faith. I could feel your love. I could smell how much the world means to you and the many things that has happened that led to this moment and to his body of work.
just so you know, I may just have met you but trust me you are absolutely amazing🤍 happy new year, darling
What an absolutely humbling and beautiful and heartwarming message Ral, I had tears in my eyes when I wrote of these end days and now tears in my eyes when I read of a lady far away that loves them so that she too has tears — this world! this beauty! this love! this sharing!
A huge heart thank you to you too darling girl, may your new days be filled with smiles and just enough magic to make the world feel always kind and gentle and good because deep down it is! 💛💫🌺
Beautiful reflection of the end of the year. Reading this was medicine. I didn't manage to get a second to put pen to paper this Christmas. In fact I think I am still recovering!!😂 Flu was the last ingredient I needed at New Year! Thank you for writing so beautifully
Dear Susie! I was saving your (this) post to read when the festivities were over....and well, they have been 'done and dusted' for over a week and I have only just remembered your last post of 2025! And so, here I am writing a warm wish for a happy and especially healthy New Year, a little late! (Better late than never, right?)
Your walk with young Seth had me tearing up. My youngest is now 30 and yet in my mind's eye it was only yesterday that we were sliding down the snowy hill in the park behind my home! Oh my! We are so busy living life that we don't see time fly- just as those two herons disappeared so swiftly into the mist on your walk home.
Thank you Susie for sharing your beautiful writing. I am forever grateful for finding you here. Hugs from Canada.
Bonne et heureuse année chère dame!
Peace and love for 2026.
Ahh dear Jeannine, late wishes are the best wishes! I send mine to you also. The new year has begun with such a blast of cold air I have lost all sense of everything, time especially!
It's a huge shock to suddenly turn and see our children, all grown up, saying grown up things when we can still feel their tiny hands in ours as they climb onto our knees... time does fly, too fast, far too fast, there are days when I would do much to feel that soft skin against mine again, oh I sigh Jeannine, deep wistful sighs...
I am thankful for you my dear friend from Canada and your lovely comments, for herons rising from the mist, even for freezing weather, I am thankful also for being alive and capable of loving and longing.
Je te souhaite une belle et très bonne année ma chère, de la bonne santé et plein de joie!
Je t'embrasse de loin, fort fort! xx
Beautiful, Susie. That moment on the hill with your son — heart wrenching!
Thank you so much for reading Stephanie, They were the words I have dreaded since his birth, even knowing they would come didn't numb the pain... 💔x
💛
Beautiful writing as always, Susie. Parts slip into such wonderful poetic prose. You've such a gift for bringing us into your moments, Susie. It's a wonder.
Bless you for taking precious moments of your time to read dear Síodhna, sometimes the moments that we move through are poems before a word is even thought of… wonder is everything really isn’t it? xx
Seth’s stride grows longer , and time may take him farther away as he sets out to write his own story, deciding who he wants the main character to be. But your love of home and hill , even your once stolen woodland, are a part of who you are, you have set down roots; blood and bone . Passed down to Seth and Rosie. And possibly into the next generation to come.
Nothing can compete with time. In Tolkien’s book, The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins plays “the riddle game” with Gollum in his cave. Bilbo’s very life depended on the correct answers. The first one who cannot answer correctly, loses…
Gollum asks; Riddle 5:
“This thing all things devours;
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;
Gnaws iron, bites steel;
Grinds hard stones to meal;
Slays king, ruins town,
And beats mountain down”
Bilbo eventually has the correct answer in the last possible moment;
time.
So come, dry your tears ,my dear one . Makes no sense to even give it brain space to solve the inevitable equation.
What a beautiful, beautiful gift you have already given. And continue to give.
Though we live far a part, we arrive together at the doorstep of the new year . May all you dream of and wish for , come true. Hugs to you, Susie!
Lor you are always a balm dear one and I am late with my gratitude and wishes to you for a New Year that shines in all the right places as we sidestep the rubble of the last no matter how insurmountable they seem!
Bilbo found the answers in the nick of time and so will I. Love is a bond bound tightly between both my children and I, it will take more than a chance comment or a departure to sever the ropes!
I am trying to remember the five riddles Gollum asked Bilbo, one and two were mountain and wind, three and four I don't recall... and five was time; both a wretched thing and a beautiful thing.
I think I need to adopt Mr Albert Einstein's attitude when he wrote "Time is an illusion.” in order that I may not trip up on it quite so often!
Now, don't you worry Lor, my tears are dried, the inevitable accepted and logged to avoid further unnecessary upset to the heart while I wait with curious eagerness for the next generation... a page has turned but more will follow.
Sending hugs across ocean and mountains, they should arrive in the wind just as you are rising! xxx
Winds gusting to 50 this morning on my hike, pretty sure a tree tried to reach out and hug me. Maybe I should have worn my ski helmet, didn’t realize your hugs would have such gale force!
The tree only reached out? Damn! I asked it to give you a huge bearhug Lor! Hugs are my forte, at least that is what I am told… xx
A thousand hearts
“I turn away to hide the grief of realisation, the utter heart-splitting piercing pain. I knew this day would come. When his world would expand, that it would be he, not me turning to stand and wait, but I never imagined that he or it would grow so fast, that it would be me trotting to keep up in his world.”
Thank you
And mine in a thousand scattered pieces Eric… it was a biggie that throw away line of his, never to be undone. ❤️🩹
Thank you my friend, may your year ahead by touched at least by a little magic, good health and many many smiles. x
Happy new year lovely Susie, and what a beautiful post to usher us into 2026. This line stole my breath - "two pairs of vast silent wings catch in the air like poems from prehistory". Oh, my heart! wishing you a year filled with winged poems and smiles x
Hello dear Rebecca, I was wondering where you were hiding just yesterday, hoping you'd be back very soon and here you are! Thank you, I love that your breath was stolen by that line, it was a favourite of mine also. I hope the this new set of days have begun beautifully for you, that those that follow will be filled with magic and miracles as yet unknown... xxx
Happy New Year, Susie!
I was struck by the variety of birds that fly or sing around you in that corner of France. It always seemed to me, when visiting La France profonde, that the country has such a variety of birdlife, greater than in Britain.
It is true Jeffrey, here in the Aveyron we are very fortunate to live in a relatively unpolluted area and the wildlife, not only birds, is abundant and myriad in variety. This morning my Merlin bird app counted 12 different birds within one hundred metres of my door… it is a gift I never tire of!
Happy New Year Susie, and thanks for all the joy and wisdom and kindness and just damn excellent writing. I've loved my time on your Hill. Looking forward to the coming year, the spring, the return of the lush landscape and your fine writing so that I can wallow in it all :)
There’ll not be much wallowing done this week! It’s -7c outside and the ground is like concrete, I will be sure to let you know when that time returns!
Huge thanks Jonathan, you've been fabulous inspiration and support to me here in this little but so delightful community we’ve built, I am looking excitedly forward to another year of The Crow! A very Happy New Year to you also, here’s to the magic of words! 💫
PS I tried to read your post this morning and only half loaded, defo a problem this end because when I tried again I got the same thing though I could see others had commented… I will try on a different device later this evening, with wine in hand!
Beautiful Susie. The post is also beautiful. x
Bless you for sweet words dear Louise, I hope January has begun beautifully for you and the cold is not too much cold! 🫶🏼xx
We had a few sprinkles of tiny, tiny snow last night (2 Jan), so I stood outside and watched them fall on my black coat. They only fell for a few minutes, but I had fun looking at them.❄️
I have done the same thing many, many times Louise, such is the childlike excitement of seeing snow I think! I hope you have chance to see a few more… we may see a few flakes next week again but sadly it will quickly turn to rain. There is still time for us both though…🩵❄️xx
As we return again to this place that marks the end of one journey around the sun and the start of another, we are blessed to have found such friends to share the journey, to share melancholy and joy, and hills and rivers and fields and woods, for as long as we can. Much love Susie, wishing you the very best for the start of this fresh new year xo
Much much love right back to you Emily, this feels like the sort of magical journey where dreams are not only made but come true, the sort we don’t dare speak of for fear the spell will be broken — I feel so fortunate to be sharing it with you and the many other beautiful friends we have found along the way and though I write of the melancholy of end days, let’s not forget that there is hope in new days to come always!
Love and light and peace and huge huge hugs to you 💛xxx
Always 😊💛
🙏🏼💛😘
Such a lovely post, Susie. It's so hard to find the nest empty and the space that our darling daughters usually fill, quite. The years that my daughter wasn't home for Christmas at all were so tough. Now she is near. I am grateful. The photos are stunning as always, the way you capture light always delights me. I can see you out on your hill chasing after it! Blessings and love, Dear Susie... xoxo
I have yet to spend a Christmas without either of my children being home Pamela, I dread the day like no other and yet I know it is out there waiting for me. I can only imagine the melancholy of Christmas Day without your daughter, thank goodness she is now close enough to you for that not to be the case. Something tells me it may not be with my own children but these things must be dealt with no matter… for this year, the day was wonderful, despite the germs and late lunch, much smiling and laughter could be heard!
Wishing you a very happy and healthy (especially that!) New Year dear one - much much love xxoo
The love you feel is so expansive Susie that it’s as if your heart is a self-generating love machine. The more you love, the more you are capable of loving. An infinite chamber of embodied wonder. Of course you are changing lives! You are even changing and shaping ours over here every time you share. ❤️🫀
I think only one who shares even more widely such love could notice another Kim. “The more you love, the more you are capable of loving.” I believe this to be an absolute truth, like anything and everything we do; the more we practice the better we become and, eventually the more we can share…
If I change and shape lives here, it is unknowingly but to read those words makes my heart feel like bursting!! Thank you dear one, so much. For all your kindnesses throughout the year I humbly hug you and send you love in buckets!
Here’s to another year of new days and new loves and sharing more than we could ever imagine possible. ♥️xx
And then I read this (just mere moments after your previous post) and I am left feeling an aching beauty, the most appropriate adjective I feel from your and Kimberly's writing.
Never stop, Susie. Never stop.
Much love.
So now, I am actually in tears… 🥹
Much love back Nathan - a huge tearful hug to you. x
🤗🤗🤗
This was beautiful, Susie. Thank you for capturing the melancholy that the holidays can bring, or perhaps only start to bring as we reach "un certain âge." I had some dark thoughts during our NYE party last night -- is moving into a new year really a good thing, at our ages and with the current world situation? I hope I can look back at this time next year and say my worries were for nought, but I'm not convinced.
I am trying to leave dark thoughts in the days of last year Betty. There is so much bad news and sad news at the moment I fear we lose sight of what is still a joy to us… I am determined to concentrate on all that makes me smile rather than the latter! I am sure it is far better for our souls…
We have little choice but to move with time as it is set us, I think perhaps it will be a far better year if we move with it rather than against it — as far as ladies of our age can of course! I hope we can both look back and smile, that our worries were wasted worries. Doubtless the world will continue to have cruelty and madness therein but let’s dig out the magic and make it big! Sending love to you xx
Isn’t it cold and beautiful every morning! ❄️
I do love these cold mornings and brisket days too. It's -7 here this morning. As for the dark thoughts, my premonitions were born out by some awful news I got on New Year's Day. I may or may not share it by DM; for the moment I'm working on absorbing it. However it is of the nature to make me want to seize every day even more. Xoxo
I am here if you need to share Betty, I now how these not so glad tidings can eat into our happiness and optimism at this time of year, any time of year for that matter. I am thinking of you and send courage if courage is needed, a shoulder if that is needed too... much love xx
Merry Christmas love...
this is the most beautiful year and message. I’ve read. I’m so I’ve ever. It’s so gorgeous and it almost made me cry. I could smell your faith. I could feel your love. I could smell how much the world means to you and the many things that has happened that led to this moment and to his body of work.
just so you know, I may just have met you but trust me you are absolutely amazing🤍 happy new year, darling
What an absolutely humbling and beautiful and heartwarming message Ral, I had tears in my eyes when I wrote of these end days and now tears in my eyes when I read of a lady far away that loves them so that she too has tears — this world! this beauty! this love! this sharing!
A huge heart thank you to you too darling girl, may your new days be filled with smiles and just enough magic to make the world feel always kind and gentle and good because deep down it is! 💛💫🌺