Every year I swear next December will be different. Shopping, making, wrapping, baking, cooking, cleaning – I’ll start all of it earlier and cruise into Christmas Day serenely on top of everything. Ha.
I do get a little more organized with every passing year, it’s true. The Christmas Binder™ of plans, lists, recipes and games helps a lot. Not having a whole month of Christmas concerts, class parties, Secret Santas and so on for three kids on top of all the other stuff helps even more.
And yet, by December 24 every year, I want to lie down and sleep for a week. After a few festive days of breaking up animal fights, endless dishwasher loads and non-stop eating, everyone gathers their loot and goes home and it takes a week to clean up again. I like Christmas, I do, but I like not-Christmas more.
Two of my guests, Nadja and Simon:
This guest was not allowed indoors:
Before the pressure got to be too much, there were walks with Anna and Evie.
Just this past week, all the trees have fully leafed out and the serviceberries are blooming and the gardens are taking off. Spring has sproinged. I’ve been picking lots of asparagus, daffodils and tulips:
Anna’s house-buying preparations continue and wow, is there a lot to keep track of. Mortgage brokers, insurance brokers, house inspectors, septic inspectors, appraisers, lawyers, real estate agents – emailing people and attending appointments has been almost a full-time job for her for more than a week now. It has completely cured me of any desire to move. What a hassle.
Buying a house has also been instructive for her (and me and our immediate family) when it comes to what we all thought were reasonably good relationships. There’s nothing like taking a big, scary step to show you which people in your life are supportive and excited for you and which people can only criticize or, almost worse, can’t be bothered to say a thing. It will never fail to amaze me how certain people who are more than old enough to know better do not in fact know better.
On a less infuriating note, it was a pretty good week for wildlife:
While I’m always watching the trees, Charlotte spotted this handsome devil in the grass:
Evie was a capable assistant in the garden on Friday afternoon, shredding weeds for the compost and breaking down old corn stalks and trying to eat bumblebees and barking at birds and following along behind me to remove little twigs I inserted to help identify where I’d sown seeds.
Sunday was Mother’s Day and we had a nice lunch here with the kids and my mother. I spent the afternoon on the couch with my feet up, watching the ball game and taking no responsibility for meal plans and it was great.
With so much to discuss in the evenings, I still haven’t been reading or watching as much as usual, but that’s okay because there will be more than enough time for that all too soon. In the few minutes before bed each night, I’ve been enjoying Murder on the Ballarat Train by Kerry Greenwood. On Saturday and Sunday, Anna and I binged on several episodes of Stath Lets Flats, which I adore. It’s brilliant.
Busy, busy week of cooking and cleaning and gardening and baking and errands and trying (and failing) to deal with the chaos created by adding another household to one that was already over-full.
Luckily, there were birds:
And not birds:
The weather was perfect for walking:
But not for much longer because things are definitely heating up. Boo hiss.
I’ve been reading The Nursing Home Murder by Ngaio Marsh and The Tempest by Shakespeare, and watching Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light. So good.
For many years now, it’s been hard to see the point in blogging. No one visits, or, if they do, they don’t comment. I have persisted, half-heartedly, because I like the idea of recording things – books I’ve read, places I’ve gone, birds I’ve admired. I need to write things down or I forget.
To minimise what has long felt like wasted effort, I had taken to writing only two monthly summaries: one of what I’d read and the other of photos of anything that had captured my interest. Eventually, I dropped the ‘month in photos’ post, even though I enjoyed the opportunity to review the past month and pick favourites. Despite keeping a paper journal of everything I read, I could never quite give up on the book review posts, though, because the blog’s search function does come in handy sometimes.
Thanks to Feedly, I still keep up with about a hundred blogs, although the number dwindles every year. People get discouraged and give up, or switch to Patreon or Instagram or Substack (which pays actual Nazis to create newsletters, btw), or drop the personal (and, to me, more interesting) posts to focus on whatever bland content SEO demands.
I do enjoy the hardy bloggers who stick it out – like Lucy at Attic24, Julie at Little Cotton Rabbits, Barbara at Coastal Ripples and Pip at Meet Me at Mike’s – even though I am also guilty of not leaving comments. I guess it’s nosiness, but I love the glimpses into their daily lives. I like seeing what they’re interested in and what’s particularly trying to them at the moment and what they’re doing with their time. And every time I see them add another post I think again about how nice it would be to have years and years of detailed records of a life. How gratifying it would be to look back on.
Anyway, all this blah blah blah is me trying to remind myself that even if no one ever sees a thing I post, future-me would be grateful to current-me for taking the time to jot things down.
So, to keep it brief, this past week, I:
-celebrated Anna landing a permanent, full-time OT position only 20 minutes away (instead of the current six-hour drive to visit)
-started putting Merlin in the window again to listen to the birdies (no spring migrants yet)
-have been reading A Pelican at Blandings by Wodehouse, Undoctored by Adam Kay, Marple by Mark Aldridge, and listened to The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie
-sowed Brandywine, Sweet 100, SunGold and Roma tomatoes, as well as Bright Lights chard, Sugar Ann bush pea, Grand Rapids lettuce and basil
-tidied all the seeds and potting stuff
-cleaned out and reorganised all the pantry shelves
-opened all the windows because it’s been unseasonably warm for mid-March
-watched Blue Jays spring training baseball
-went to the farm market for fruit and veg
-scored a couple old music books at the local Little Free Libraries
-cooked a gigantic pot of chickpeas to freeze (but have since used four jars so so much for a huge freezer stash)
-worked on the never-ending blue alpaca lace wrap and a very chunky baby blanket (nothing exciting – just using up stash)
Heading into February, I expected a fairly quiet and mellow month. I knew there’d be drop-off and pick-up trips to the airport and that I’d be dog-sitting Evie for a week in addition to all the usual duties (grocery shopping, doctor appointment, parental care), but nothing too draining. What I hadn’t anticipated was an emergency root canal after two weeks of steadily worsening pain while (thanks to an error at their vet’s office) cat-sitting two of the world’s most energetic, curious and affectionate kittens.
This is grandcat Simon and this was my view any time I tried to write. Simon loves chewing pens, plants, upholstery, cardboard boxes, kitchen utensils, drapes and human fingers.
Simon is unfamiliar with the concept of personal space. He’s lucky he’s so cute.
This is grandcat Nadja. Like Simon, she likes to be paws-on and “help” write, walk, care for houseplants, knit, cook, do dishes, read a book, and, as in this photo, empty the kitchen garbage can.
They are beautiful cats and smart enough to break out poses like this just when you’re ready to strangle them.
Sadly, cousins Simon, Nadja and Evie do not make good playmates.
Evie just needs everyone to understand that this is her house and what she says goes.
I have never met a dog who enjoys the snow so much. She’d stay out there romping for hours if only she could find someone to stay with her.
But it was really cold during her week here and the stupid wimpy humans always pack in it too soon.
Uncle Glen is also frustrating for her. He looks like a dog and smells like a dog, but behaves like a Canadian pensioner on the beach in Florida, refusing to do anything but lounge in the sun all day. “Toys do not tempt him, Evie,” I said. “You’re wasting your time trying to get him to play.”
If you can’t beat him, join him.
And finally…
My lovely ram friend wanted to do a bit of modelling, but it was really cold that day and my mouth was hurting so I just took a few photos from the car and promised I’d do better next time. Sorry, buddy!
December is a lot. The cooking, the baking, the shopping, the wrapping, the cleaning, the cards, the finishing of handmade projects, the four million little things to prepare and remember. I get a little more organised with every passing year, but I’m not sure I’ll ever be organised enough to not feel overwhelmed for a couple weeks in the middle there. We had a lovely week with everyone home, though, and all the work was worth it, of course.
*My favourite people
*My favourite granddog
At her great-grandparents’, tuckered out by late Christmas afternoon and using Santa as a pillow. He’s been around so long there are probably pictures of little me doing the same thing.
*One of my favourite grandcats
This is Nadja, waiting impatiently for me to make a fresh cup of green tea she can share. Her brother, Simon, never stops moving and is harder to get a picture of.
*My favourite birthday present: Shaun the Sheep
Charlotte, genius crochet toymaker, designed him herself, which is no mean feat. Makers understand just how much skill goes into crafting something like this.
*Gecko!
Charlotte looked in on a friend’s geckos while she was away for the holiday and you better believe I was getting in on that. There were three geckos, but this one was the most outgoing. I could have watched him (?) eat mealworms all day.
This beautiful black cat popped out of the brush during one of our post-lunch walks out to the dykes and boy, did it (she? I think) have a lot to say. It was really cold that day so I hope she had a safe home to return to.
*Autumn colours persisting
The woods were still pretty yellow for November 22.
*Getting caught in a surprise snow squall
Thinking the overcast skies were harmless clouds, I suggested we push our Wednesday walk further (and further and further) and was rewarded with driving snow and bitter winds the whole way back. Still kind of fun, though.
*Eagles
In the photo above you can see a lump near the top of the middle tree, which we assumed was a large bald eagle because we’ve seen dozens of them this year. Surprise – it was two eagles, and the chittering they did to each other when a smaller bird/possible lunch innocently flew by was amazing to hear.
