It's the only way I could think to describe this week's dovegreyretreat / hibernation with thread, needles, audiobooks and fire-lit.
Bookhound was off on his pre-festive season travels across country to visit The Olds for a few days which left me home alone. Honestly, I try not to look excited at the prospect because I know there could come a time in life when being home alone becomes a reality for one or other of us, and that won't be exciting, but for now...well let's just say I treat it like a bit of a hunker down and a retreat from the world, especially in winter. I can be silent and focused and give way to extended episodes of flow without being conscious of everything else I really should be doing. Bookhound would argue I do that anyway, even when he's around (and he's right, I do), but somehow, when it's just me I can surrender to it completely.
I have to walk dogs and things, but even that becomes a mindful excursion up to our valley vantage point at the woods where I just stand and stare at a view that can hardly have changed in centuries....
Coming back down, the view on this frosty morning seemed so Month-in-the-Country it took my breath away...
And bless the man for leaving me a full log basket and a new batch of torches. It's proper dark here so we keep a torch by every door, but also to hand just in case the power goes off. It's rare but if its going to do it you can bet it will be when I'm here on my own. In the end I was pleased because BBC weatherman Ben Rich (Tavistock lad) pronounced a frost in the south west, so I was out in the greenhouse by torchlight covering up my cuttings and seedlings.
Anyway I lit the fire and went into semi-silent retreat for three days. I sometimes feel as if I talk far too much as it is, a few days of being quiet does me no harm at all.
With too many projects on the boil as usual I set about a few unfinished journal quilts. This has been a Pleasing I have relished this year; moments captured quickly eventually in an A4 quilted piece.
I thought Armistice 100 was incredibly moving this year; watching the annual Festival of Remembrance from the Albert Hall, seeing the tide reclaim those sand pictures of the soldiers. We went to the Service of Remembrance in the town square in the morning and listened to the half-muffled peal afterwards, and then across to the village church (in the picture above) that evening. We all gathered to hear Last Post played from the top of St Mary's church tower (by a very brave villager, well done Pete if you are reading this) followed by a wonderful half hour of bell ringing. There are some pictures on the Instagram feed over here <<<<<< and some film footage too, in case you missed it and are interested, but the moment needed to be stitched into fabric too, as well as etched in my memory...
What did Edward Thomas write in his poem of 1915...
'The new moon hangs like an ivory bugle
In the naked frosty blue...'
There was a waxing crescent moon that evening, with Saturn clearly visible just below it in the night sky, so they were stitched on along with some stars. I sensibly looked up the right notes for Last Post before stitching them along the bottom, and added lots of berries to the yew trees in the churchyard because it has been a prolific year for them. 'Mast Year' were Robert Macfarlane's Words of the Day a few weeks ago...a year when across the country, trees are laden with nuts and berries, we've certainly just experienced one of those. I'm always in danger of over-gilding the lily with these things, so I stopped.
Talking of Robert Macfarlane, next up, while we all eagerly await his new book Underland (May 2019) I had an unfinished book jacket entry in the journal quilts. I am slowly adding in some of my favourites. I was fortunate enough to interview Rob at Port Eliot Festival about The Old Ways in 2012 and gave him a quilted map of one of the journeys in the book as a thank you.
The Old Ways was a favourite book then and it's become a treasured one now. I've read it and listened to it countless times and have copies various including battered old charity shop copy for my rucksack having given Offspringette my original rucksack copy full of under-linings, marginalia and quotes from elsewhere. Along with a copy of The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd I thought it would be nice for her to add her own walking thoughts to it in New Zealand.
I've taken a large slice of quilter's license with the cover design but, like The Salt Path by Raynor Winn, The Old Ways was a cover asking to be done.
That finished I turned my undivided attention to Cass by Rita Angus (signing herself as Rita Cook on this occasion). This was a painting I fell in love with in the Christchurch Art Gallery and went back to see it countless times...
Then visited Cass Station itself up on Arthur's Pass...
While I was in New Zealand I read a biography of Rita Angus borrowed from Christchurch Library, went and said goodbye to the painting and have been meaning to do a journal quilt of it ever since. A year on and I've at least made a start...
and within a day (and listening to The Distant Echo by Val McDermid) I have made good progress. I sort of make the stitches up as I go along but I need to be a bit more adventurous I think...
When I wasn't dog-walking or stitching I was knitting, but that's probably another whole episode in the story of the spontaneous dovegreyretreat which I can highly recommend for insurance against the winter doldrums. I could feel all that flow-related serotonin stacking up and emerged feeling as if I'd had a little holiday...one very great big Pleasing. Bookhound returned safely, there was a casserole in the oven and I was very pleased to see him.
Now how about your Pleasings... I hope there are good, nice things happening...
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