Gratitude*Sunday

This week I have been grateful for:

• a friend giving me a lift to a crafting group and a lovely morning spent chatting (without the awful anxiety that often accompanies meeting groups of people)
• a gift of celeriac, land cress, kale and chrysanthemum – giving me the opportunity to cook with the latter for the first time
• a gift of poached egg plants and some jasmine to plant – I look forward to seeing them flower
• my mum sending me some rhus tox and ruta (cream and pillules) to try to combat the tennis elbow (that’s been causing a lot of pain over the past few months) – hoping it helps!
• my lovely partner having two weeks off so that we can spend some time together – so good that he doesn’t have to get up at awful times in the morning (1 or 2 am) to go to work
• Freecycle: picking up 2 compost bins and some bricks for the garden and rehoming a broken vacuum cleaner
• getting into the cupboards and having a good sort and clear out.
• the lovely weather today – a sniff of spring to come? An Imbolc blessing, perhaps?
• said lovely partner being able to get lots of work done clearing the rubble, etc, from the back garden and finishing the beds to settle for planting in a few months – the garden is finally starting to look as if it’s going places!

I’ve likely forgotten something and will probably have a light-bulb moment at some silly time of night – but certainly feeling much better than a couple of weeks ago (another reason to be grateful!)  Sometimes I just need a little reminding…

Joining in with Taryn from Wooly Moss Roots for Gratitude*Sunday

Gratitude*Sunday

I find this time of year hard (even without our recent mishaps) and it always seems like the as the year turns over, the waiting before Spring seems to stretch and stretch and it becomes even more important (and valuable) to remind ourselves just how blessed we truly are and every-so-often I need a bit of a nudge to pause, reflect and be thankful.

This week I have been grateful for:

• the ducks, who despite appearing massively skittish and giddy, stepped into the breach to protect the silkies and appear to have adopted them.
• sitting with Nin and showing her how to crochet (she’s making a heart bunting for her room).
• still being able to pick some bits of salad from pots outside.
• finding the nerve to just get on and phone Environmental Health regarding our roof (which resulted in them calling the landlady and the roof being fixed yesterday – although we need to replace the damaged mattress before we can sleep upstairs again)
• my friend gifting us a vacuum cleaner to replace our broken one – vacuum cleaners are indeed something to be very grateful for in a house with small children and a dog (and plenty of trips back and forth outside trailing in mud!)
• the same friend also gifting us a bed for Nin, whose bed was falling apart. She now has a good sturdy one which will hopefully keep her sleeping in comfort for many years to come.
• and, yet again, the same friend coming over with bags of woodchip to spread over the sodden runs (to help my poor chickens’ feet).
• the afore-mentioned friend’s mother (there’s a pattern establishing itself here) sending us some fresh vegetables picked from her allotment.
• The reminder that even when times are tough – I have good friends who I can trust and rely on and sometimes that is all you need to get you over that next rut in the road.

Joining in with Taryn from Wooly Moss Roots for Gratitude*Sunday.

Gratitude*Sunday

Joining in with Taryn from Wooly Moss Roots for Gratitude*Sunday and celebrating some of the things that I am grateful for this week:

• The kindness of a friend who turned up unannounced on our doorstep to give us a basketful of wonderful fruit and vegetables.

• Freecycle and the wonderful people who are members who kindly gift items that help us so much (and the kind friends who help us collect the things that are too large to fit in our small car-boot!)

• The gift of fertile Indian Runner duck eggs to set under our broody hen (another kind friend)

• The kindness of our neighbours – one of whom brought us some wood to help us build a new chicken run.

• My eldest son for taking his sister to her various martial arts lessons on Wednesday so she could pick up her medal and didn’t miss out (as John had to work and I was unable to get her there).

• Fresh tomatoes and cucumbers from the garden (and that I was able to rescue some carrots from the bed that the chickens scratched up)

• Apples – I love this time of year, the beginnings of making apple jelly which will hopefully move on to eaters and making applesauce and apple cake.  I try not to buy apples out of season and I’ve missed them!

• That the seeds I’ve ordered turned up speedily so I could get them planted – now for them to germinate and grow!

• And, I know I’ve said it before, but how blessed I feel to have moved here – I don’t think a day goes by when I don’t look around and think how lucky we are to have found such a lovely home, with such lovely neighbours in such a lovely place with such lovely friends – it may be a lot of ‘lovelies’ but it’s also a whole lotta love!