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I managed the above three sentences before I was interrupted. It's now very common with three little lives that come bursting in on me in the morning. We had to get ready for the school run so off I went to convince them to stand still for more than a few minutes just to get them changed. I rudely interrupted their game of MumandDad. They really have the sweetest games. But this post isn't about 3-4 year old games. As always, I never know where this writing will take me but I have a vague idea and I know that I need to write. So I write.
I'll crack straight on with this first post since March 2024...my mission is to use this blog to write every month. I have showered and dried my hair. Alone. A luxury in this Mum world I'm currently in. It isn't just peaceful showering I need, I also need some structure for me. This craving of structure comes from feeling totally lost. I am supposed to be the calm in the storm of 3 girls every day. I am supposed to be their pillar of strength but that strength needs to be renewed somehow - and I’m fading. It might just be January but usually that doesn’t affect me - I just plough on. It is something within me that needs something else. Something just mine - focus on me.
Whether that be reading, writing, gardening, yogaing, crafting. My friend reminded me about making every crafty hobby a job and how it doesn’t have to be. I can just create with freedom rather than trying to make a business out if it. So that’s what I’m sticking to - doing craft as a hobby and keeping it fun and personal. So right now, work for me is centred around Reading and Writing. There has to be a focus. Yoga and Crafting are hobbies. I need more body. I need more. So: once a month, I'm going to write a post at the end of each month, reflecting on what has happened; what I've read, how my ‘work’ is going (oh yes, I will fill you in on this shortly) and how the new garden is coming along.
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January 2025
So far, this month has been pretty a pretty standard bleak January but we need it bleak. I enjoy the peace, all tucked away - but that’s the weird Victorian poet within me. We need the dull, lifeless, mornings, then we can really indulge in the summer haze. Living seasonally and all that.
The last few weeks, we've had a big school change and a new job thrown into the mix. Last week was hectic but that's what the family needs. A new shift in being. The school change is a calming, nurturing choice that is starting to reflect at home after a very uneasy term elsewhere. I think we've found the forever primary where all the girls will attend and there's so much relief and grounding happening because of that.
Since our third little girl was born in June last year, our sole focus has been her and the other girls. It always will be. They are first. And for a while, my working life has taken a hit. It's hard to handle sometimes that it's me that has to make the changes but maybe it's meant to be me because I can adapt. I feed; I give life to them from me. I can bend with the needs of the girls. I have learnt to be so flexible and responsive. But it's hard that I can't have my old job back - well, not yet, anyway. And that's ok. When I get there again, it'll taste so much sweeter than before. Just how Spring feels compared to now. Now is a time of organising. It’s a time for hope, love - growth will come.
When I've gone back into teaching with the other two, I was happy to report that it was like riding a bike - I got straight back into it. My love for it has never gone away. The feeling of guiding the pupils through a project or knowledge that I craved to pass on will never get old for me. I think and hope to always chase that feeling.
How I can get that small spark of a feeling, at the moment, is through tutoring. If it's in the UK, it is usually after school, so that is tricky as I'm making dinner and getting everyone into bed. So I've gone international, through the help of a friend. She's passed on some tutees that she's moving on from and they need guiding through their English GCSEs. I teach at midday(ish) to students in Hong Kong when it's their evening. It's pure pleasure to be able to discuss books and poetry again. I can carve out a few hours a week to this tutoring and it's keeping me in the loop.
With Oscar away at his new job, it means I'm home and doing a lot of school runs. In between them, I'm making dinner, doing the housework and trying not to get too bogged down by how many toys the girls seem to leave laying around. It's a new adjustment as since 2020, when our eldest was 6 months old, Oscar has worked from home. Lockdown changed the working world for him, like many others. He's been here a lot to see every milestone and every step. It's strange without him but also very much needed for us. We can reunite at the end of the day instead of getting fed up of each other. They miss him terribly though and ask when he's coming home.
Life has changed considerably, and I'm starting to see the light through the dark post partum trees.
Talking of trees, our garden will be taking on a big change this year. We are stripping back the entire right hand side where all the sun beams down, and putting in a veg patch. Practical food that we eat and can use. I can't wait. My Nan used to have a huge one in the bottom of her garden on the side of a cliff in Cornwall and I remember going down and picking the vegetable for dinner in the summer holidays. Lots of runner beans and carrots. Anyway, I'm hoping the girls can get stuck in with seeding and planting and all sorts of muddy fun.
My current gardening jobs:
- cutting back the roses and relocating them while they're dormant
- relocating or binning shrubs
- sourcing a small greenhouse to grow our seeds
- buying the wood for the shuttering
- digging up bulbs to relocate
- daving up cardboard to lay down over soil before filling in with top soil (researching the no-dig method)
My current book:
Still Life. I started MONTHS ago and I'm finally getting round to finishing it. I've read a few books alongside this one but this one is staying strong. I am savouring being in Florence. This may lead to me taking on the Oxford class for Art History and I'd be doing that I think if I wasn't tutoring. I am also desperate to take the girls to Italy and will one day just book a ticket and fly with them. I want to watch their sun-kissed faces light up at the taste of the best thing in the world: fresh pizza. I want to fall asleep with them after all day picking olives. I want to huddle under a brolley and eat sandy sandwiches with them on the beach.
Anyway, before I fall asleep on my keyboard, I'll sign off with my new ideas (I promise they're not resolutions - just ideas to get me feeling more structured and focused):
1. Write an end of the month post to reflect and record time, but also look forward.
2. Read at least one book a month and use the monthly blog to write up a small review once finished.
3. Tutor at least once a week.
4. Design, create, and eat from a new veg patch.
5. Continue with doing about an hour of yoga every other day or so - whenever my body tells me.
Here goes 2025. It's time.
ZP x
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