What beautiful noticings, you've such lovely soothe in your words, Susie. Sorry to hear of injury on top of winter's empty mouth, her skeleton trees, her purge will be behind us soon.
I'm hoping you're a little better by now. Your posts always a joy. The comments attest to their gift.
Thanks you Louise, I am healing... slower than I would like but I can feel each day a slight difference, in the weight I can place on my ankle and the speed I can walk, small steps but getting longer!
Beautiful, Susie. I really loved the part about the badger (and the smells). I just came back from a winter hike and enjoyed all the different kinds of discoveries one makes at this time of year. I'm a true winter lover and part of it may be this kind of poetry you've found in this reflection.
Thank you so much Kathleen, I am growing to love winter for these discoveries, less so the cold and the wet — snow is so rare here — but the badger tracks, fox, deer and boar, all of which have passed through my tiny woodland this winter I am delighted by. The cold seems to heighten the scents too, where as in summer the smell is rancid, almost unwholesome even, in winter I can detect the differences, they are sharper, less like the animal is ailing in some way. I often wish I had a night vision camera to be sure of what I see but then think perhaps some of the magic would be lost in the knowing…
Winter’s bones are simmering in the pot. So much goodness even in the barest of season. Your words and attentive heart carry that truth with every phrase, every beat. I read this while awash in an unusually warm, bright January sun. Robins and juncos and finches flitting around like it’s already spring. My ears tuning in to their songs and they fool me into thinking it’s already time to plant spring peas!
Send me those songs Kim! I would dance to their trickery with pleasure.
Winter has stalled here, I loved snowdrops in December, no matter the abnormality, I loved early catkins and budding birches, sticky in anticipation of spring. Now, soft greys on repeat seem to have doused some of the excitement, even the robins are quieter, I miss their sweet voices when I feed my sheep each morning… so yes, send me your warm days please!! xx
By the end of this dazzling piece of writing Susie tears were tipping over. Just beautiful - thank you. 🌟
I'm sorry to hear you have injured yourself. I might have missed that in a previous post? Must be very hard for you to sit still!
I feel like I know you and your house on the hill even more viscerally now after watching your chat with Eleanor. ❤️
Those snowdrops. 🥰
Favourite quotes amongst the whole stunning post that I was a risk of re-quoting all back to you:
"One day, then another, then another, hoping for the goodness in the world to outshine the bad.."
"winter flowing like ice in our veins both invigorating, calming, demanding, ambivalent, not so much asking for attention but insisting on acceptance that it will be both beautifully calm and savagely wild."
"writing downturned smiles into upturned words and stories."
Jo, you’re way too kind, thank you so much for listening. That you know me better scares me stupid, I feel like I’ve let out secrets I shouldn’t have or made the most awful faux-pas! Not unlikely, either way 🙈
One day then another and another feels like a continuing theme, I have a very annoying tendonitis in my ankle which is not only frustrating but horribly painful… rest and more rest I’m told but rest is a word easier said than done! And bloody uninspiring!
Happy days are on the horizon… I can see them coming!
sending love Jo, I hope your week is a kind one! 😘
Tendonitis - ouch. Sending healing vibes your way. ❤️
And no need for being scared. It was a wonderful and warm chat. Just a deepening of what we already know. You're talking to "raw and unfiltered" here - remember! 😀 I have shared way too much probably!
Thank you for keeping me company today, dearest Susie. I'm sick, and also forced into stillness. I'm so sorry to hear that you are injured. But we do have the birds and the books to get us through, and your words and photos always bolster me. Spring will come, and we'll find our feet on familiar paths again. xoxo
Oh Kendall, huge apologies for my late reply… I hope by now you are bright eyed and bushy tailed again sweet soul, I feel quite certain, like me, that you curse the fragility of the body being so susceptible to winter bugs! I have been still for too long already and although feeling an amelioration, I’d pay big money to speed it up! If I had big money of course… but something positive always comes from a pause, I have picked up my wool bag and started knitting a spring jumper!
Spring will come, I can already see and feel the signs lurking in the soft greys and the damp, I have been watching a pair of female deer they are waiting for a mate to appear. He is there, I hear him in the forest biding his time. I wonder… which of the two he will choose? As no doubt do they… and the birds, oh how I wish I could send you a recording of the conversations that are happening in the mornings. 🎵🎶
Sending healing hugs dear one, just in case they are still needed, thank you so much for being here, it means the world to me — xoxo
Oh, please do share photos of the spring jumper! I would love to learn to knit, but I also know that I'd never get my book finished if I started buying yarn and tempting patterns. As it is, I've had to hide my sewing machine for the time being. ;)
The deer in my yard are also looking quite lush and fertile, and I expect we'll have new fawns in a few months. There are two mothers that return here every year with their newborns- one even gave birth just yards away from the backdoor last year. The bloodstains on the dirt and the tiny, tiny hoofprints were some of the most sacred signs I've happened upon on this land.
Healing hugs to you as well- I think I'm in the final days of nose blowing now. xoxo
Kendall I have found birthing blood in the wild just once, like yours, a deer. She had made a form under a small stand of trees, well hidden from most eyes by briars. I spied her in the throes of labour pains from the track I was walking but didn’t want to disturb her so continued. When I returned the next day she was gone, I hope with a healthy fawn. Left behind the were traces of her placenta and the smoothed, blooded grasses where she must have hidden herself in wait for the birth to happen… I wish I had a photograph to send you — it was, as I know you can imagine, a holy sight. xx
Dear Susie, so sorry to read that you've had an injury.
Your words are magical...makes me re-appreciate the long winters that we have in Canada. I love sitting by the fire, reading a book, having a 'tisane'.
Your photos are so pretty. The snowdrops one makes me wish that spring arrives here soon...but I know that it will take a few more months before I will see any little shoots come up. In the meantime, I will look for your photos and dream of my garden sleeping beneath the snow.
Ahh Jeannine, I wish I could send you a small bouquet of my snowdrops for your table, they have been abundant this year and prettier than ever — probably because I separated bulbs that had become overcrowded last year and I may do the same again in a months time for next year too! Maybe even plant some in my little patch of woodland...
I think of all the flowers we love, the snowdrop carries more hope than any of them; that first small sign of winter passing. We all look forward to the end despite the cosiness of log fires and woollen blankets to cuddle up in.
Thank you always for your kind and generous reading dear one, I hope your winter isn't too harsh, that you find beauty in the days to come before spring finally arrives. xx
We are in the belly of Winter and I am far from being satiated. A long while away from any full thought or a wink of spring. But as you are well aware, I like it that way.
I read this, Susie, and thought of one little hidden place, I’m sure you know well;
“The Badger, who wore a long dressing-gown, and whose slippers were indeed very down at heel, carried a flat candlestick in his paw and had probably been on his way to bed when their summons sounded. He looked kindly down on them and patted both their heads. 'This is not the sort of night for small animals to be out,' he said paternally. 'I'm afraid you've been up to some of your pranks again, Ratty. But come along; come into the kitchen. There's a first-rate fire there, and supper and everything.'
He shuffled on in front of them, carrying the light, and they followed him, nudging each other in an anticipating sort of way, down a long, gloomy, and, to tell the truth, decidedly shabby passage, into a sort of a central hall; out of which they could dimly see other long tunnel-like passages branching, passages mysterious and without apparent end. But there were doors in the hall as well—stout oaken comfortable-looking doors. One of these the Badger flung open, and at once they found themselves in all the glow and warmth of a large fire-lit kitchen.”
I sincerely hope your Badger friend would do the same for you. A friend, injured, and in need. I am quite sure he would. ( Kenneth Grahame~ The Wind and the Willow)
After they had dined, were sated with food and camaraderie, as good friends do...
"He conducted the two animals to a long room that seemed half bedchamber and half loft. The Badger's winter stores, which indeed were visible everywhere, took up half the room—piles of apples, turnips, and potatoes, baskets full of nuts, and jars of honey; but the two little white beds on the remainder of the floor looked soft and inviting, and the linen on them, though coarse, was clean and smelt beautifully of lavender; and the Mole and the Water Rat, shaking off their garments in some thirty seconds, tumbled in between the sheets in great joy and contentment."
Lor you have chosen my favourite chapter from a book I have read countless times, to myself and my own children... how did you guess? As if I even need to ask...
Thank you, thank you... now of course, since it is quite a number of years since I have read The Wind in the Willows, I may just have to dig it out and enjoy the adventures of Ratty, Mole, Toad and Badger all over again!
Imagine me offering you a huge bunch of snowdrops in appreciation of wonderful comments and well wishes!
PS Replying to your last mail very soon... I have a few words to say 😉xx
Oh no, I'm sorry to hear about the injury! And I found this piece especially enchanting, especially the smells of wildlife that you are so attuned to.
We saw the movie Le Chant des Forêts Sunday, have you seen it? I think you would love it and it is worth seeing on a big screen. It made me think of you and your sharp observational skills.
Hi Betty, thank you so much and huge apologies for the delay in replying again, my injury (a tendon in my ankle) has meant the last three weeks have felt like someone hit the slo-mo button! But, petit à petit, ça va mieux! Enfin…
I have been dying to see Le Chant des Forêts Betty, I heard so much about it and I know it is showing in Villefranche de Rouergue starting tomorrow for a week but I don’t have a day free until the holidays… praying for Decaz or Figeac.. 🤞🏽
Me too 🤞🏽Thanks Betty, ten dons are notoriously slow to heal as I am sure you know! Il getting there though, hopefully fully functional again by the holidays! xx
I am dying to see it too Jeannine, I am literally praying it is still showing in a local cinema in two weeks time when I have holidays again! It’s supposed to be stunning from start to finish.
Beautiful Susie! “Winter is a feeling”…. yes!! A feeling that can be so many different things. Including in some places where snow is revered and enjoyed, a wildly joyful feeling. But then early spring comes with its letdown and its doldrums… we have to lie fallow and empty out sometime, whether it’s winter or spring.! Your piece is a beautiful reminder to embrace that invitation and fully feel into it❤️
A huge heart thank you Sumaya! Ridiculously, I have never thought of spring doldrums, but of course when you have a snowy winter departing, the melt is less than lovely and if you love snow and all the wild winter beauty therein I understand… goodness, it must feel like a deep sadness even! If I lived like you dear one I too would be devastated to lose winter, living where I do I try to work with it, I try to understand all the quirky changeable days and let it lead me. Sometimes it beats me, sometimes it doesn’t… either way, spring is a bright horizon beckoning me with its colourful songs! Today they were the loudest yet…!! 💚🍃xx
One of my favorite reasons to read is to be taken into the mind and heart of the narrator, to experience their world as they do. And oh what a delight, dear Susie, it is to see your hill, your Dusty corners and must my pages. The scent of that visiting badger tickles my nostrils. The timid sunbeams greet me. A slowness necessitated by injury, and the humming calm my nervous system. As someone constantly on the move, I cherish the opportunity to be as I read, grounded in place, and oh what a place.
I am sorry about the injury, my friend. May it heal quickly and may the slower pace and humming wrap you in the intimacy of this season.
Dearest Holly, thank you, thank you for such a beautiful and heartfelt reply, excuse (please) my own tardy response. Work has necessitated much writing of words, though sadly those of the type none of us enjoy compiling, much less reading! They are finally done and my injury is healing, slower than I would like but I can at last feel less like age is taking its toll. It isn't... no way will I allow it to get the better of me yet, ever if I can help it!
I love that you felt grounded—even if for a short while—by the scent of badger and dusty books. I think this, these scents and feelings, these moments in quiet corners are designed for winter days especially, moments to curl up in and relish without self-admonishment because something on a list isn't ticked off.
The pace is speeding up here, a climbing rose has thrown green shoots, there are primroses on the banks roadside and this morning a daffodil stared straight at me from the neighbours garden!
Sending love dear one, I hope the week is kind to you xx
OK, first this paragraph is dreamy: "The pace is speeding up here, a climbing rose has thrown green shoots, there are primroses on the banks roadside and this morning a daffodil stared straight at me from the neighbours garden!" It might just fit wonderfully in one of your dreamy posts from your hill.
And also, whenever you reply is always the perfect time.
Glad to hear your injury is healing. And I'm with you! Let's not let our age or whatever else get the better of us!! ♥️
Peace and healing Susie, something the world desperately needs now. Having said that chaos always leads to rebirth of some kind. Praying for good old love, peace and grace. Hugs and warm bright light xoxo
Thank you sweetie, healing is slow but today I walked again with less pain than I’ve had in three weeks so yes! I just need to remember to not go crazy, ‘petite à petit’ as they say here… and yes yes yes to more grace, more love, more peace always and forever… 🙏🏼 Love you xxx
Bless you Leah, I am still stepping gently and I am feeling the healing. I believe there are reasons for everything… injury is so often a warning, I am taking heed.
I'm reading this wintery dream of a letter, Susie, with desire for your complete healing. For gentle relief from any discomfort, except the kind that reminds you to go easy. And slowly. Peace to, dear one, even when it makes no sense to feel it. Peace, even so. 💛
Ann, thank you for your so very wise words. They were needed, held close to the parts of me that listen. Healing has begun…
Today, for the first day in too many weeks I walked again without pain. Not as far as I would have enjoyed and indeed needed most but far enough to soak up the many changes, a beautiful longed for setting sun. Spring is taking giant steps all of a sudden… I feel the peace, the long months are fading. Sending love always dear one xx💛
What beautiful noticings, you've such lovely soothe in your words, Susie. Sorry to hear of injury on top of winter's empty mouth, her skeleton trees, her purge will be behind us soon.
I'm hoping you're a little better by now. Your posts always a joy. The comments attest to their gift.
As always, beautiful and moving. Heal quickly, Susie. xx
Thanks you Louise, I am healing... slower than I would like but I can feel each day a slight difference, in the weight I can place on my ankle and the speed I can walk, small steps but getting longer!
I hope your week is beautiful xx
Beautiful, Susie. I really loved the part about the badger (and the smells). I just came back from a winter hike and enjoyed all the different kinds of discoveries one makes at this time of year. I'm a true winter lover and part of it may be this kind of poetry you've found in this reflection.
Thank you so much Kathleen, I am growing to love winter for these discoveries, less so the cold and the wet — snow is so rare here — but the badger tracks, fox, deer and boar, all of which have passed through my tiny woodland this winter I am delighted by. The cold seems to heighten the scents too, where as in summer the smell is rancid, almost unwholesome even, in winter I can detect the differences, they are sharper, less like the animal is ailing in some way. I often wish I had a night vision camera to be sure of what I see but then think perhaps some of the magic would be lost in the knowing…
Winter’s bones are simmering in the pot. So much goodness even in the barest of season. Your words and attentive heart carry that truth with every phrase, every beat. I read this while awash in an unusually warm, bright January sun. Robins and juncos and finches flitting around like it’s already spring. My ears tuning in to their songs and they fool me into thinking it’s already time to plant spring peas!
Send me those songs Kim! I would dance to their trickery with pleasure.
Winter has stalled here, I loved snowdrops in December, no matter the abnormality, I loved early catkins and budding birches, sticky in anticipation of spring. Now, soft greys on repeat seem to have doused some of the excitement, even the robins are quieter, I miss their sweet voices when I feed my sheep each morning… so yes, send me your warm days please!! xx
By the end of this dazzling piece of writing Susie tears were tipping over. Just beautiful - thank you. 🌟
I'm sorry to hear you have injured yourself. I might have missed that in a previous post? Must be very hard for you to sit still!
I feel like I know you and your house on the hill even more viscerally now after watching your chat with Eleanor. ❤️
Those snowdrops. 🥰
Favourite quotes amongst the whole stunning post that I was a risk of re-quoting all back to you:
"One day, then another, then another, hoping for the goodness in the world to outshine the bad.."
"winter flowing like ice in our veins both invigorating, calming, demanding, ambivalent, not so much asking for attention but insisting on acceptance that it will be both beautifully calm and savagely wild."
"writing downturned smiles into upturned words and stories."
Happy days Susie. xx
Jo, you’re way too kind, thank you so much for listening. That you know me better scares me stupid, I feel like I’ve let out secrets I shouldn’t have or made the most awful faux-pas! Not unlikely, either way 🙈
One day then another and another feels like a continuing theme, I have a very annoying tendonitis in my ankle which is not only frustrating but horribly painful… rest and more rest I’m told but rest is a word easier said than done! And bloody uninspiring!
Happy days are on the horizon… I can see them coming!
sending love Jo, I hope your week is a kind one! 😘
Tendonitis - ouch. Sending healing vibes your way. ❤️
And no need for being scared. It was a wonderful and warm chat. Just a deepening of what we already know. You're talking to "raw and unfiltered" here - remember! 😀 I have shared way too much probably!
Much Love. xx
Healing vibes have arrived Jo, today, the first in three weeks, I can walk without wanting to shout/cry/hit something… thank you so much xxx
Yay! xx
Thank you for keeping me company today, dearest Susie. I'm sick, and also forced into stillness. I'm so sorry to hear that you are injured. But we do have the birds and the books to get us through, and your words and photos always bolster me. Spring will come, and we'll find our feet on familiar paths again. xoxo
Oh Kendall, huge apologies for my late reply… I hope by now you are bright eyed and bushy tailed again sweet soul, I feel quite certain, like me, that you curse the fragility of the body being so susceptible to winter bugs! I have been still for too long already and although feeling an amelioration, I’d pay big money to speed it up! If I had big money of course… but something positive always comes from a pause, I have picked up my wool bag and started knitting a spring jumper!
Spring will come, I can already see and feel the signs lurking in the soft greys and the damp, I have been watching a pair of female deer they are waiting for a mate to appear. He is there, I hear him in the forest biding his time. I wonder… which of the two he will choose? As no doubt do they… and the birds, oh how I wish I could send you a recording of the conversations that are happening in the mornings. 🎵🎶
Sending healing hugs dear one, just in case they are still needed, thank you so much for being here, it means the world to me — xoxo
Oh, please do share photos of the spring jumper! I would love to learn to knit, but I also know that I'd never get my book finished if I started buying yarn and tempting patterns. As it is, I've had to hide my sewing machine for the time being. ;)
The deer in my yard are also looking quite lush and fertile, and I expect we'll have new fawns in a few months. There are two mothers that return here every year with their newborns- one even gave birth just yards away from the backdoor last year. The bloodstains on the dirt and the tiny, tiny hoofprints were some of the most sacred signs I've happened upon on this land.
Healing hugs to you as well- I think I'm in the final days of nose blowing now. xoxo
Kendall I have found birthing blood in the wild just once, like yours, a deer. She had made a form under a small stand of trees, well hidden from most eyes by briars. I spied her in the throes of labour pains from the track I was walking but didn’t want to disturb her so continued. When I returned the next day she was gone, I hope with a healthy fawn. Left behind the were traces of her placenta and the smoothed, blooded grasses where she must have hidden herself in wait for the birth to happen… I wish I had a photograph to send you — it was, as I know you can imagine, a holy sight. xx
You know, you know. Of course you do. Thank you for this story!
Dear Susie, so sorry to read that you've had an injury.
Your words are magical...makes me re-appreciate the long winters that we have in Canada. I love sitting by the fire, reading a book, having a 'tisane'.
Your photos are so pretty. The snowdrops one makes me wish that spring arrives here soon...but I know that it will take a few more months before I will see any little shoots come up. In the meantime, I will look for your photos and dream of my garden sleeping beneath the snow.
Do take care dear one.
Ahh Jeannine, I wish I could send you a small bouquet of my snowdrops for your table, they have been abundant this year and prettier than ever — probably because I separated bulbs that had become overcrowded last year and I may do the same again in a months time for next year too! Maybe even plant some in my little patch of woodland...
I think of all the flowers we love, the snowdrop carries more hope than any of them; that first small sign of winter passing. We all look forward to the end despite the cosiness of log fires and woollen blankets to cuddle up in.
Thank you always for your kind and generous reading dear one, I hope your winter isn't too harsh, that you find beauty in the days to come before spring finally arrives. xx
So beautiful.
We are in the belly of Winter and I am far from being satiated. A long while away from any full thought or a wink of spring. But as you are well aware, I like it that way.
I read this, Susie, and thought of one little hidden place, I’m sure you know well;
“The Badger, who wore a long dressing-gown, and whose slippers were indeed very down at heel, carried a flat candlestick in his paw and had probably been on his way to bed when their summons sounded. He looked kindly down on them and patted both their heads. 'This is not the sort of night for small animals to be out,' he said paternally. 'I'm afraid you've been up to some of your pranks again, Ratty. But come along; come into the kitchen. There's a first-rate fire there, and supper and everything.'
He shuffled on in front of them, carrying the light, and they followed him, nudging each other in an anticipating sort of way, down a long, gloomy, and, to tell the truth, decidedly shabby passage, into a sort of a central hall; out of which they could dimly see other long tunnel-like passages branching, passages mysterious and without apparent end. But there were doors in the hall as well—stout oaken comfortable-looking doors. One of these the Badger flung open, and at once they found themselves in all the glow and warmth of a large fire-lit kitchen.”
I sincerely hope your Badger friend would do the same for you. A friend, injured, and in need. I am quite sure he would. ( Kenneth Grahame~ The Wind and the Willow)
I found the quote I wanted. Then decided I need to knock on the Badger’s door again, too. Luckily I have it on my kindle!
After they had dined, were sated with food and camaraderie, as good friends do...
"He conducted the two animals to a long room that seemed half bedchamber and half loft. The Badger's winter stores, which indeed were visible everywhere, took up half the room—piles of apples, turnips, and potatoes, baskets full of nuts, and jars of honey; but the two little white beds on the remainder of the floor looked soft and inviting, and the linen on them, though coarse, was clean and smelt beautifully of lavender; and the Mole and the Water Rat, shaking off their garments in some thirty seconds, tumbled in between the sheets in great joy and contentment."
Lor you have chosen my favourite chapter from a book I have read countless times, to myself and my own children... how did you guess? As if I even need to ask...
Thank you, thank you... now of course, since it is quite a number of years since I have read The Wind in the Willows, I may just have to dig it out and enjoy the adventures of Ratty, Mole, Toad and Badger all over again!
Imagine me offering you a huge bunch of snowdrops in appreciation of wonderful comments and well wishes!
PS Replying to your last mail very soon... I have a few words to say 😉xx
Oh no, I'm sorry to hear about the injury! And I found this piece especially enchanting, especially the smells of wildlife that you are so attuned to.
We saw the movie Le Chant des Forêts Sunday, have you seen it? I think you would love it and it is worth seeing on a big screen. It made me think of you and your sharp observational skills.
Hi Betty, thank you so much and huge apologies for the delay in replying again, my injury (a tendon in my ankle) has meant the last three weeks have felt like someone hit the slo-mo button! But, petit à petit, ça va mieux! Enfin…
I have been dying to see Le Chant des Forêts Betty, I heard so much about it and I know it is showing in Villefranche de Rouergue starting tomorrow for a week but I don’t have a day free until the holidays… praying for Decaz or Figeac.. 🤞🏽
I do hope you can get to it! And glad you are healing.
Me too 🤞🏽Thanks Betty, ten dons are notoriously slow to heal as I am sure you know! Il getting there though, hopefully fully functional again by the holidays! xx
I hope that movie will be available in Canada, it looks amazing! So glad you mentioned it in your comment to Susie! Thank you!
I am dying to see it too Jeannine, I am literally praying it is still showing in a local cinema in two weeks time when I have holidays again! It’s supposed to be stunning from start to finish.
Let me know if you do!
I will Jeannine!
It just broke the 1 million tickets sold mark here, so maybe it will get to Canada.
Beautiful Susie! “Winter is a feeling”…. yes!! A feeling that can be so many different things. Including in some places where snow is revered and enjoyed, a wildly joyful feeling. But then early spring comes with its letdown and its doldrums… we have to lie fallow and empty out sometime, whether it’s winter or spring.! Your piece is a beautiful reminder to embrace that invitation and fully feel into it❤️
A huge heart thank you Sumaya! Ridiculously, I have never thought of spring doldrums, but of course when you have a snowy winter departing, the melt is less than lovely and if you love snow and all the wild winter beauty therein I understand… goodness, it must feel like a deep sadness even! If I lived like you dear one I too would be devastated to lose winter, living where I do I try to work with it, I try to understand all the quirky changeable days and let it lead me. Sometimes it beats me, sometimes it doesn’t… either way, spring is a bright horizon beckoning me with its colourful songs! Today they were the loudest yet…!! 💚🍃xx
One of my favorite reasons to read is to be taken into the mind and heart of the narrator, to experience their world as they do. And oh what a delight, dear Susie, it is to see your hill, your Dusty corners and must my pages. The scent of that visiting badger tickles my nostrils. The timid sunbeams greet me. A slowness necessitated by injury, and the humming calm my nervous system. As someone constantly on the move, I cherish the opportunity to be as I read, grounded in place, and oh what a place.
I am sorry about the injury, my friend. May it heal quickly and may the slower pace and humming wrap you in the intimacy of this season.
Dearest Holly, thank you, thank you for such a beautiful and heartfelt reply, excuse (please) my own tardy response. Work has necessitated much writing of words, though sadly those of the type none of us enjoy compiling, much less reading! They are finally done and my injury is healing, slower than I would like but I can at last feel less like age is taking its toll. It isn't... no way will I allow it to get the better of me yet, ever if I can help it!
I love that you felt grounded—even if for a short while—by the scent of badger and dusty books. I think this, these scents and feelings, these moments in quiet corners are designed for winter days especially, moments to curl up in and relish without self-admonishment because something on a list isn't ticked off.
The pace is speeding up here, a climbing rose has thrown green shoots, there are primroses on the banks roadside and this morning a daffodil stared straight at me from the neighbours garden!
Sending love dear one, I hope the week is kind to you xx
OK, first this paragraph is dreamy: "The pace is speeding up here, a climbing rose has thrown green shoots, there are primroses on the banks roadside and this morning a daffodil stared straight at me from the neighbours garden!" It might just fit wonderfully in one of your dreamy posts from your hill.
And also, whenever you reply is always the perfect time.
Glad to hear your injury is healing. And I'm with you! Let's not let our age or whatever else get the better of us!! ♥️
Peace and healing Susie, something the world desperately needs now. Having said that chaos always leads to rebirth of some kind. Praying for good old love, peace and grace. Hugs and warm bright light xoxo
Thank you sweetie, healing is slow but today I walked again with less pain than I’ve had in three weeks so yes! I just need to remember to not go crazy, ‘petite à petit’ as they say here… and yes yes yes to more grace, more love, more peace always and forever… 🙏🏼 Love you xxx
Take it easy, go slow, hold still. For now :)
And thank you for welcoming this restless bird into your world, my dear Susie. 🙏
I always think life is too short for slow, now I wonder what Ive missed by speeding!
Thank you beautiful, I love restless birds… they remind me of me..🐦⬛xx
Stepping gently. Making simple acts into gifts…. Take care. May healing come soon.
Bless you Leah, I am still stepping gently and I am feeling the healing. I believe there are reasons for everything… injury is so often a warning, I am taking heed.
May your weekend be a kind one dear soul xx
Winter winds ways win...
Badger beams “outshine” bleakness.
Sing one verse... believe?
One verse sung,
I believed in the wind
Badger returns with spring.
Marisol I adore you! Thank you x
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I'm reading this wintery dream of a letter, Susie, with desire for your complete healing. For gentle relief from any discomfort, except the kind that reminds you to go easy. And slowly. Peace to, dear one, even when it makes no sense to feel it. Peace, even so. 💛
Ann, thank you for your so very wise words. They were needed, held close to the parts of me that listen. Healing has begun…
Today, for the first day in too many weeks I walked again without pain. Not as far as I would have enjoyed and indeed needed most but far enough to soak up the many changes, a beautiful longed for setting sun. Spring is taking giant steps all of a sudden… I feel the peace, the long months are fading. Sending love always dear one xx💛
So glad to hear that, Susie xo💛