Finding Our Feet.

We are settling in.

Some of us not quite settled yet. A whole new world to get used to.

Getting to know the light in this new place.

I love it very much.

Follow it from room to room.

Loving the hill behind our house.
Our new playground.

Loving this new urban life that allows us to not have to give up the sea.
Loving so many friends on our doorstep.
Loving walking everywhere!

Loving that spring is rushing towards summer.
Happiness runs.

Learning From The Trees.

We had a lovely week off school, and even though for a lot of it the clouds sat low over the mountains, a mizzling rain pressing up against the windows, keeping us mostly indoors, we really didn't mind at all. We had lots of pyjama days, with plenty of baking and cooking going on, and just as cabin fever began to set in, the days began with blue skies and there was that little whisper of spring in the air.

There, in the stretch of light in the morning sky, or stirred into the tenacious sting of the winter wind, a hint of warmth that was not there before, just a momentary tenderness against our skin, and all of a sudden there is a new softness, a slackening off, in the physical tension of winter, and our bodies somehow fathom, in some deep place, that instinct of the trees to begin to let go of that green they have held onto during the dark months, to allow it to begin to unfurl.

Our hunt for a new home continues apace.
We have all been dreaming strange, house-related dreams. Uncomfortable, insecure kind of dreams that leave us unsettled. We have never undertaken anything like this before, as a family, and while it really is unsettling, I think it may be no bad thing. Sometimes we need to shake things up, to force ourselves out of our comfort zone, in order to unfurl and reach for the sky and warm air, in order to grow.

And so, we wait patiently for Something Wonderful to come our way, and I am grateful for the time of year, for that sense of the rising sap, and I know that, like the trees, if we trust our instincts, we will know just what to do when the time comes.

In Which The Milkmooners Go On An Adventure.

Has it really been more than two months since I peeked in here? Well, it's not like life has been uneventful, probably too eventful really, and therefore, where do I start? I won't recap, as it would not do justice to all the wonderful things that have been and gone, but instead I will just have to see which ones emerge over the next few posts here, as I actually have a number of marvelous things to share with you, in the style of The Early Days of Milkmoon, because that is where I have woken up on this side of the New Year, in a place of Blogging Rediscovery, which is quite exciting for me.

So, with photos from my archives (as I am still without a camera), of corners of our home, I will start with what is most currant for us here in the Milkmoon household: you may recall this post about our looming Leave-Taking.
But I have questions. For example, how does one begin to pack up a house? Accumulated belongings of more than sixteen years, times six people.... Let's just say I am somewhat overwhelmed by it.
Where does one start? Is there a system to it? We've never had to do it before. The last time we moved, we had a two roomed apartment, no furniture, and just ourselves and a four month old baby to pack up. It all fit into the back of a car.

We have become extremely adept at finding excuses to not do it. It's not that we don't want to move, although there is a reluctance to leave this beautiful place, of course, but it's more just the sheer enormity of this mountain we have to climb to get ourselves to the other side of it.
We are hoarders, of sorts, the waste-not-want-not kind of hoarders, the rainy-day kind, and while Jay would deny he is one in any way, I admit I am the worst of them. For example, what constitutes my 'studio' is a haphazard mountain of shoe-boxes, jars, bags, curvers, baskets, all stuffed with bits of fabric, ribbons, buttons, threads, haberdashery of all kinds, as well as postcards, photos, magazine cuttings, letters, and teetering piles of books... you get the picture. And four children means an accumulation of toys, partly because I have a penchant for antique/old-school toys, which are impossible to get rid of, right?

And books, oh my, the books. One of the things I valued most, growing up, was my Dad's extensive library, which I truly discovered in my late teens, early twenties, when I read as many classics as were there, poetry, plays, biographies, you name it. It truly was a significant part of my education, one which had a bigger impact on the adult I was to become than any other singular element. And so, without being conscious of it, I have since spent my adult years building a Library Of Significance for my own children. Add to that the fact that when we moved into this house the bookshelves were already full, full I tell you, of someone else's, very long, life's collection! I cannot begin to estimate just how many books we have, but I can say it runs to the thousands, with bags and bags of them stuffed into cupboards too. So you can imagine, can't you, the task in that department alone. Clearly I can't bring them all, so there will have to be a culling, won't there, something I am dreading.

I also love teacups, and saucers, and teapots, and jugs, and I adore antique furniture, the bigger the better, I hold on to clothes that one lad grows out of, so the next lad can wear them, even though there is three - five years age difference between them, baskets and cupboards full of every kind of art and craft materials for the children, oh I could go on...the list is random and endless.
Now don't get me wrong, I am actually really looking forward to a new, simplified,  pared (a bit, anyway) back, beginning in our new house, which no, we have not found yet, but are now wholeheartedly looking for.

However, first we have to get through the dismantling, sorting, packing, moving, bit. And that's after making a decision on whether or not to go after a house that ticks some very important boxes, but does not tick other very important ones. Is it possible to get everything you want when house hunting? We did last time. Literally. To such fine detail it would give you goosebumps and instant Faith In The Universe. And I want with all my heart to believe we can do it again, because to us our home is not just bricks and mortar, it is a beloved part of the family, and therefore must be something we can love. Oh! the responsibility! the expectations! the enormity! of it all. Plus the fact that there are now six of us, all with different needs and desires and hopes.
It's a very fine juggling act we are now involved in, and I hope we get it right.

The Leave-Taking.

There is a little house that sits on a spit of land between a marsh and a sea, a place with jackdaws in the chimney, where lizards hide in the grass with the tiny shrews, where swans glide overhead and murmurations of starlings loop through curlew cries, and at dusk the bats swoop in their beautiful dance as herons skim the tops of the reeds against the sunset. There are countless birds that throng the marsh here, among them terns and mistle thrush and finches, lapwings, even occasional owls, and in the evening pheasant wander in the garden, and sometimes, somewhere beyond the reeds, a peacock calls, his cry across the marsh sending a tingle down your spine.

I have written so many times about the weather here and how it changes the shape of this place, about the seasons and how each one blooms and swells, brings dustly moths on the walls, spiders along the windows, stormy seas, sea mists, dancing sunlit grasses, endless blue skies, and sunsets that take your breath away.

I did mention big changes around here, didn't I? Big changes that we have been studiously ignoring the possibility of for rather a long time, now.

You see, our golden age is over.

For the sixteen years we have been living here, I have been in a little bubble with my babies, cocooned in this most magical of places, like some little creatures from the Wind in the Willows, the seasons rolling around us as we burrowed in, and we grew into this land, the green and the salt seeping into our blood and bones, from the very formation of my babies. Our Eldest was barely four months old when we moved in, and the following three were born right here in the living room with windows to the sea, and windows to the green and the mountains, pulling all combinations of seasons and weather and time of day into their beginnings, all manner of the elements that make this place so miraculously special, into the weave that is our little family.

As the years have passed, they have grown, we too, myself and Jay, have grown, this place like a paintbrush against our skin, each night touching up where it did not find us in our day, a tender reassuring like a fine mist that layers, and over the years has become our skin, as though we are this place and this place is us. But now it is at an end. When the year turns, together we will pack the little pieces of us, the myriad of little things that have been put together to form our home, the collections of Us, and we will move. And though nowhere will ever match this place, with all our hearts we know it will be somewhere beautiful. I do need green outside my window.

We are on a rollercoaster of emotions about it all. Some are excited, some wholeheartedly against it, but it is out of our hands, regardless, and because of that I have decided to embrace this change, the timing of which I can't complain about. I no longer spend my days embraced in this magical cocoon with my babies and toddlers, now that our Smallest is in school, instead I am out in the world more, looking at what I want to do with this next phase of my life, and this makes it easier to accept.

So, this summer will be about making the most of this remarkable place, a summer of gatherings of friends and loved ones, of Celebrating, and later in the week I will share with you, one such gathering that we had this weekend.

Photo by Líosa.

And who knows what wonderfulness is just around the corner, for I know there is a place for us.