Through My Window, On An Afternoon Of Unexpected Idleness.

"The mountains simply exist, as I do. The mountains exist simply, as I do not."

~ Peter Matthiessen.

From all directions, the distant mountains bathe their crowns in milky pools,
and the sky draws down a slow veil,
the earlier rain,
like the lightest canopy
shook out in slow motion, reluctant to return down to us,
a curious drift that settles unhurriedly.

It takes the whole day.

Of Bungled Plans, And Some Birthdays.

Three days past now, Milkmoon turned four. And I missed it! Oh my..... 

I did remember last week, and there were plans for a make-over and a giveaway, which I hasten to add will still go ahead, they will. But then my technical advisor was whisked away to Tokyo, at rather short notice, and I quietly folded my plans away into a shoebox and placed it on a sunlit shelf in my studio, to wait.

In my mother's kitchen,
she pauses to light the candles.

But just before he left, we had a birthday. Eight years ago our bonny babe no.3 was born here in our sitting room, all 11lbs (5kilos) of him, and such a ray of sunshine he has turned out to be. An all-singing, all-dancing, most agreeable cabaret of a lad, if ever there was one!

And so our week has been, as usual, a hectic one. A blustery, wind-swept, whiplash sort of a week that careened between autumnal gloomy rain-drenching days, and hot sirocco-like days, that found us mostly over-dressed, peeling off layers as we went, kicking off our shoes and longing for cool water on our toes.

There is a strange thing that happens when one tenacious season will not let go, isn't there? An odd sort of waiting. We stand in the wings, costumes in hand, just waiting for our cue to don them, but each time we do, we must remove them in haste as we are overcome, yet again....*sigh*
Let autumn begin proper, please, I say, as I eye my favourite tweedy skirt, woolen scarves and ankle length coat, and hats! Oh yes, hats, please!

But for now we will bide our time, scuffing our toes in the last of the warmth before the sun begins to thin, and we have to scramble and savour any heat we can find.
Although I was better, I am hobbling again, and so trying to slow things down a little, (yes, I did say 'slow things down', though when I say those words, I do hear manic laughter echoing somewhere in the background...)  and I have plans to actually get into my studio this week and get stuck into an exciting project I have in mind.

Ah, yes, the studio. Did I mention it before? I think possibly not. I may do a little feature to show you around, and you can peek into some shoeboxes and tins and see what we can find. I am still unpacking hence the shoeboxes etc but do stop by later this week to see where we are, and pop in for a cup of tea when I am settled in.

But in the meantime.

I'll be right here, fixing myself up and finding new homes for everything, unpacking and unwrapping and setting things to rights.

And waiting for the technical advisor to make his way home again.....

Where Ghosts Wander In The Trees.

For days now the rain clung to the mountains, a distant threat, a pale swathe that seemed to embrace them, draw them away from us. And each day we watched, waiting, but still they held.

And so we took ourselves off, running out into the afternoon sun, the day as muggy as high summer. We took ourselves up a winding, tree-lined road to a familiar place where ghosts sigh and murmur amidst the beech trees, and a happiness seems to linger.

There amongst the green the children ran and ran and ran, excitedly calling to one another, small hands busy finding treasure in the humus and leaves, their voices echoing off the trees, bouncing through the leaves.

And there in the virescent light a stillness found us, as though we sank into a verdurous pool of that magic that is leaf-sunlight, our thoughts straying to those lingering ghosts that dwell among these trees, and a silence fell over us for the briefest of times.

In the end the rain found it's way down the mountains, and today we awoke to a slow smothering of moisture that soaked and sank in to the earth, our clothes, our skin, filling the air with moisture, like a silvery haze. All day.
Finally.

A Thousand Heartbeats.

Look! Look up! The Swallows! Oh!

Yes, this is how our very lovely weekend finished up. And what a magical end to a curious and surprising few days.
A weekend that found us as though in a lovely dance back through time, a gentle trip that took us beyond the normal, everyday, expected places we find ourselves. That brought us into a beautiful, abandoned house I have passed countless times and never before entered, now (but briefly) filled with art and people who's paths I have not crossed in years. An evocative mix of faces, of familiar poses, standing together, talking, in rooms of art, as though time had stood still.

And then, in no time we were winding our way through the darkness, on a lonely road up and down mountains for more miles than I guessed it would be, to an olde pub in a wild place, and dear faces that time and distance have stolen from our everyday life.
And there, once again, as though we had found a little door to peek through time, we gathered around us those dear ones who meant so much, who were our Everyday, and yet who's lives now exist like kites on very long twine, somewhere in another world, in the mist and clouds between us. Still I hold tight, unable to let go. And oh! the sweetness of those short hours, sitting across from one another at last, with so much, and sometimes, too much, to say.

And then today, a day when summer came back to fetch her hat, and we took ourselves out into the garden and welcomed some visitors who hold the weekend's title of the Very Much Oldest Friends of the whole few days. People from my earliest years of childhood, some of whom I would walk past on the street for lack of knowing, yet are still connected, thanks to our Mothers.
For our Mothers first met one another all those decades ago when we were the babies and toddlers of the group, and they the new, young mothers.

They still meet up, to this day!

So, we gathered.
And honestly, it really was a strange and poignant gathering, for this time I felt as though I was somehow in my own future, as though I suddenly roused and found I was no longer one of the children, but a mother, and I sat with these strangers, who I knew, somewhere in my bones, I knew. And our children ran around us, dashing through the sunlight, like memories behind my eyes.

And there across the table I watched my mother and her life-long friends, these five girlish Grandames, as they talked and laughed as only old friends do, and I thought of my own old friends, and I marvelled at the extraordinary power of friendship, and how time is rendered powerless by it.

And then, this evening, not long after everyone parted company, as the quiet descended around the house, we heard it, the sound of quivering feathers and calls to rally, the clear, sharp cries of a thousand swallows.

The air was filled. 

A thousand tiny heartbeats, the rush of feathers, calling, calling to one another. 

Getting ready to fly.

The Finest Season.

There is a chilly~ness to the air these mornings, do you feel it? It's time to close the windows, take the door off the latch, usher the chill and the curious leaves out the door as we close it. After the school run I return to find cats snoozing in sunny corners,  and a stillness settles on the empty house, a stillness settles in me.

We have wandered into the outer skirts of Autumn, where the leaves still cling to the trees like bright banderole, little flags waving to us in their finest hour, and as we pass beneath them I am surprised to find somehow the routine of school has brought with it a familiar comfort.

One that includes being witness to that magic hour of dawn, of leaving the house before the sun has warmed the earth, the cool air like a whisper on my skin. One that includes condensed little parcels of productive time, so different from the carefree, whimsical summer-time, and considered meals that are a little more protracted in the making, providing a sense of sustenance and nourishment, and one that brings an actual bed~time for our brood of dearlings.

Scattered in amongst the sunlit days, we have had squally showers and a fetch of wild winds that howled for two days and a night causing many people to lose many things, including their nerve, their dignity, a small child on a bike (nearly), their gusto, and an imaginary toupee!

It was wild, but still we ventured out, and on one of the days we took to the hills after school, headed inland and up, wound our way through tree lined roads to a warm welcome in little house that nestles there, in amongst the green.

Will and Anita's woodshed. Preparing for winter.

And so, as small boys scattered, an echo of footsteps and excited voices, (emerging shortly to race into the garden as bears and knights and monsters), we mothers sat, hands wrapped around warm coffee cups, and talked up a storm, a long overdue catch~up kind of talk, the kind that covers many months and miles in a mere couple of hours.

The bounty of their garden.

We are submerging slowly now, into this, the finest of the seasons, it's bounty a cornucopia that swells around us by the day, urging us on towards the darkening of the year, the hedgerows and trees bowed down in sweet supplication, whispering to us, 'Jam! Jam! You need jam!'

And as I submerge, I soak it all up, as though storing in my bones for winter the finest of this season, the warmth and bounty and goodness, and I take it with me as I move through the cooling air and the first falling leaves, and all around me I hear murmurings of how you all love autumn best, and how you too are overcome by a growing desire to make and mend and settle in to the evenings that are drawing in around us.

Anita's handmade soap.

And although my plans for the end of the week were somewhat scuppered by my enthusiasm to do just about everything with my newfound long hours in the morning, and in doing so, I went and put my back out. So instead of getting any of the actual making that I had been planning, done, I have been killing time by playing with both Instagram (See the link in my sidebar on the right) and Pinterest, (Click the link to see!) with great enjoyment, I might add, but somehow just not quite so satisfying as bringing a vision in your head into 'real life'.

So here this showery Saturday finds me, in between hobbling around like a bent old Sean-bhean bhocht (poor old woman!), attempting to let go of my disappointment and just do what little I can. At least my favourite blue coat now has all it's buttons, and I may just finish my latest redwork.

And it is, after all, the weekend, and one, now, without any plans to do anything.

What are you doing this weekend? I hope it's something lovely!