The Hint of Spring …
The deepest purple at Ham House, National Trust, Richmond, London.
It has been awhile she said. Something I tend to say between the hope of Spring and the valley of Winter still present on the landscape. It has been a while. Procrastination and I are firm friends, closer than many others.
On one small score, that has not been true. A major, life changing decision came about a few months ago. The commitment to Mud Island. Sold my home in the Western Cape and as it is now, my life in material things, crated and stored, waiting to be shipped to a new address.
That part, the new address, is as yet undetermined.
Primroses at Cliveden House, Berkshire.
Both exciting and terrifying. When a great decision is made, it seems to gush like water from a broken pipe, everything follows too quickly; things are sold without thought, others are involved with legal matters, transport matters, banking matters - giving it all away until the keys are handed over and the car is driven away. It will be holidays now, which is fine and rather fun to think about. But first, the quest for a new little nest is all important.
‘The beautiful spring came; and when Nature resumes her loveliness, the human soul is apt to revive also.’ Harriet Ann Jacobs
Dancing daffies in the garden.
Time for a new chapter, yet unwritten but with the support of those who know how it is to be ‘ a little older’ needing to be a ‘little bolder’. It is never too late to start again, but for me, it has also become a time to reflect, and thank. We travel too fast between passion and survival and this is what maturity seems to be offering me in a beautifully wrapped gift in my lap. There is no need to chase anything. No need to compete, or compare. The gift of reflection and growth.
Like others who suffer with the black veil of winter, it seems too long. I normally stayed longer in the South African summers, but arrived back in the midst of winter this year, for a very special reason. Nevertheless, the buyers remorse, the idea that it was a foolish choice to sell, to wave goodbye was premature, so many anxious thoughts, dissipated with the coming of early light. Birdsong, blossoms and the ability to let it go stepped in with Spring.
Let me begin this April with hope (trying to find somewhere to live), with conviction that the choice was the right choice and the the energy to carve, in my heart, that all will play out as it should.
The Robin and the Eurasian Blue Tit are sweetening the London skies this morning. Yes, I have an app to identify the birds. It’s a new things, maybe a ‘oldie’ thing but I love the songs they sing.