The Little Postcards - December 2020

The year time won’t forget

December is a reflective month. Whilst it is filled with hope and joy, it also creates a pause to consider all that has come before. Turning the calendar to that last page has been sobering. Many of us have suffered this year. Through separation, isolation and financial anxiety, we carried our fears and endured. I have never anticipated the metamorphosis which January brings so much.

The pandemic has forced us to look at every aspect of our lives in microscopic precision. Simple decisions have hung like rocks upon weary shoulders. I feel the burden that is carried upon my spine. (I yearn for a freedom I’m not sure I have ever held.) I hover at a crossroads. I have wild, untameable ideas for 2021 all imagined in a vision of life free from pandemic anxiety. I have been joking it’s just a mid life crisis. My friends assure me it’s the enforced claustraphobia. (I am not so sure.)

Expectations for the new year tower above us all. We do not know how life will look but in my bones I feel this: I will step forward. We will all step forward. And when the weight of woe pulls my chin towards the earth and I fear despair will overtake me, I remember that even in nature, nothing blooms the whole year round.

From my family to yours, I wish you a soothing Christmas and a happy, healthy new year.

Laura

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New writing you may have missed

• How minimalism prepared me for the pandemic (frugal living) - Read more
  

• A Christmas that won’t cost the earth - Read more
  

• Podcast: A cloth nappy natter with Tickle Tots - Listen to me talk
  

• What the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State had to say to me about nappies - Read more
  

• The Joy of Reusable Nappies receives its first public review courtesy of JUNO magazine - Read more

What’s keeping me grounded and inspired

• Who Cares Wins: A reason for optimism in our changing world by Lily Cole
  I have been on a waiting list at my library since Lily’s book was published this year and finally I have a copy to read. It stirs enthusiasm and provokes optimism even in the darkest winter nights. What better read is there to start a new year?
  

• Escape to the Chateau - Series 7
  As a young girl I was lucky enough to visit Château de Sully in southern Burgundy for one reason: my maternal lineage takes us there. (Alas, we weren’t bred from the aristocracy.) I have enjoyed every series of Dick and Angel’s Escape to the Chateau and although this series is different as it doesn’t follow their typical pattern of events, it is thoroughly uplifting and heart warming.
  

• Bulb planting and my elephant garlic

  You may have read my post in April where I turned an old shipping palette into a strawberry planter. Someone was rather envious and one day I found a number of the plants had been dug out and pinched! So instead of wasting the space, I transplanted what was left into my back garden and filled the planter with spring bulbs for a small scale cut flower border. I even managed to include the sought after La Belle Epoche tulip. Suffice to say, the planter is now kept firmly behind the garden gate. I am also turning my hand to growing elephant garlic for the first time. I planted cloves at the end of October and already I see green shoots peeping from the soil. I bought seed from The Garlic Farm on the Isle of White and split the batch three ways, so my mum and sister can get growing too.
  

• Making reusable gift bags

  Sewing in my house can be a challenge. Our dining table is the hub of our home and so it is rarely empty. It is also the only place I have to sew. To calm my anxieties I have found it imperative to do something creative once the children have gone to bed. I have made ten reusable gift bags so far, all varying in shape and size. It is also helping me cope with bereavement. My Grandmother, who we lost ten years ago to Alzheimer’s, was released from her illness by covid-19 in December. I have the skills to sew because of her. It makes me feel close to her again after what has been a very long goodbye.

Thank you so much for reading my last Little Postcard of 2020. I am taking a break from social media over the holidays to heal, grieve and replenish. I look forward to reconnecting with you in the new year and hopefully reveal some of my wild daydreams.

Merry Christmas and bye for now,

Laura x

One last thing…

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