~yule~

well how was your yule?

i admit that this year i have really struggled, really, really struggled.

for weeks now i have had problems with insomnia, i fall asleep easily but find myself waking around 3-4am and more often than not i get up instead of staying in bed and trying to get back to sleep.

boxing day found me up at 1am, wide awake, knowing my family were going to arrive later that morning and i had to cook dinner for the five of us.

luckily i made it but i am feeling so run down and exhausted. as i am off on holiday with my sister next week i really need to get on top of this.

the weather here has been grey and damp for weeks now with only a day or two of sunshine, a few days ago i was able to get washing on the line and magpie and merlin had fun playing in the garden

i was given some new books for yule which i have started already...

my neighbour Calv sent round some lovely ginger biscuits

and this morning i had a nice chai latte

choosing incense

and finally meet 'Gibson' our 1999 VW T4...

we finally sold 'Pretty Pagan' for something considerably smalller, something more of a pocket rocket. 

because we have lilith our crazy little french folding caravan we no longer needed a big camper with all the bells and whistles

 unfortunately a week or two after bringing him home some low life broke in and stole every one of swampys tools and so the spare money we had to turn him into a day van went on replacing all the tools, then he broke down and more money had to go on his repairs.

because it involved taking a lot of the engine apart swampy decided to replace a lot of the parts with nice new ones. we finally had him repaired and with his MOT the friday before yule.

once i am back from my holiday we will be slowly working on the interior~nothing fussy, just a seat than turns into a bed and a unit for the 'kitchen'.

this morning swampy put a hook up my my alter to hang my shaman drum from...although i just realised that in the new year we will be moving things around in our living room and it will have to come down again anyway!

~come visit~

so i am officially in my grrl-cave

 

okay so it is not in the garden as i had hoped but it is my little room and i am making it all mine and even better i can burn my incense in here without upsetting swampy.

 

although i have 'moved in' there are a few things that still need doing...

 

new curtains to make with some cheery fabric with trees and little birds on and green gauze panels to put up at the window...although the only regular passer by is calv, who indeed walked by in the dark last night and called out a cheery 'hello' as he passed...so i have no worry about odd people looking in my window but i think having the panel up will bring a nice bit of colour to the room.

 

i still have to make fabric panels to hide some of the shelves and the things i do not want to see every day...dvd collection comes to mind.
i just want this place to feel right for my projects, writing, for me.


this is my room this morning...

you know i love ferns right?
 well i moved this one into the cave to sit on my desk next to the box that holds my special 'trinkets'...mostly the lovelies i own from the wonderful wild roses

i knew that this room had to have an alter...

i put this mexican blanket down for flynt and he now joins me in here...

if you look closely you will see this lamp is splattered with dried paint...my dad's paint. this lamp must be a good 30-35 years old and sat on my dads desk while he worked...you will also see my little needle felt guardian gnome and dog...

swampy put this shelf up for me...see the bear? i have owned him for many years, i named him bran...then my mum bought me another in a lighter colour who i named hovis...i must get hovis out of his box so they can be together again.
see the red tin?
that holds my stash of stem ginger butter cookies :)
the little bat and spider are jellycat which i brought out for samhain ...

cookie and my notebook which holds all kinds of notes on the slowly developing *wylde apothecary*...

 

 

 

 

i was up early this morning, actually i have been up early or awake for large chunks of the night for about two weeks now.

this morning i woke around 3.30am, lay listening to the radio for an hour or so then decided to get up as i have so many ideas for *the wylde apothecary* that i had to get up and do some research and note taking and order something i had neglected to do yesterday when i ordered a few more bits and pieces.

 

i am taking this flood of ideas and plans as being fortuitous for the success of my new venture...but i do have a good feeling about it and cannot wait to finally share it all with you properly.

~nomads are home~

 

we are back from our travels...

 

 

 

despite the blue moon being hidden by cloud we had a wonderful night at the rollrights/kings men-we had a fire and plenty of food, drink and laughter.

three of us with campers bedded down in the layby while others snuggled into their little pop-up tents for a few hours sleep.

 

in the morning i had the area to myself for a while so did some dowsing with my rods and put my 'travelling' alter in the centre of the stones so it could absorb some energy.

 

 

this is thought to be the entrance to the circle, facing a single tall stone...

 

 

 

even the lichen on the stones is protected as some of it is hundreds of years old...

 

 

 

the following day we all made our way towards different destinations-swampy and i to the nearby campsite we had stayed the previous weekend, our friend dandelion moon to a neighbouring site and later in the day willow joined us...that night we were treated to clear skies...

 

 

packing up the next day we found the most teeny snail (click on the picture!)...

 

 

 

on the sunday swampy and i made our way to the foot of the malvern hills for busfest-where we caught up with our friends from far and wide-particularly our friends from scotland, some of who we only see once a year and our friends from germany-lars, jutta and roland-and this year lars brought his son robin, only a teenager but a wise soul.

 

we had our own little compound we named the 'happy camp'...

 

 

and were entertained by anthony who has a multitude of talents including fire juggling...

 

 

and i finally bought myself a set of ribbon poi made by the pyropixies...photos to follow!

 

*~*~*~*

 

yesterday we went to the STArescue and introduced mismi to a couple of ferrets needing homes-the first, a big poley boy named sooty who terrified poor mismi-not in a nasty way, its just because mismi has been a lone ferret for so long he is not used to being with his own kind-he was then introduced to a 12 week poley mitt girl...

 

 

enlarge and look closely and you will see Inca!

 

mismi is taking a bit of time to get used to having such a baby around-especially as they play rough and have boundless energy!

last night they had to sleep apart but this morning after two hours running around we put them in the cage together again but with an extra bed...swampy went out to check them and it seems mismi is in the 'spare bed' while inca has the bedroom!

 

well time for a mug of tea and i will endeavour to visit you all over the next few days!



~the femme & the yoga-grrrl~

well look who i found sitting at one of my alters this morning!

Cailleache the femme has made her way from amber moggies home to my little roundhouse over night and made herself well at home among the green men, crystals, stones, wood, antlers, a bowl of leaves and a rowan wand.

~*~*~*~

today i heard back from rue, the yoga teacher i told you i had found.

there are three sessions left before the summer holiday and i am welcome to attend to see how i like it with her and the other ladies.

i am starting with the gentle yoga and hope to move up to the multi-level hatha classes if my body allows me to.

so next tuesday will see me trotting to a neighbouring village right on the coast for my first class...between now and then i will have to busy myself making a bag for my yoga mat.

luckily i have a large amount of blue gingham fabric so am sure i can whip up something.

i cannot tell you how excited i am about this

no longer will i be a solitary yoga-grrrl~of course i will still practice at home, in fact i am busy making one end of my bedroom an area for my home practice.

the area faces the window onto my sacred garden and i have been slowly creating an alter space on my cleared desk, so i will have plenty to focus on.

but to actually go somewhere and be with other people who love yoga will feel so amazing.

 i had such positive vibes from rue's website.

~it feels so right~

~a peek into my world~

it was decidedly chilly as i stepped out into our garden this morning, a feeling i love. the honeysuckle and climbing rose we planted earlier this year is evergreen and i hope we will still have a little warmth during the sunny days to give it one last burst of growth before winter sets in...

the birds were singing, and there was that 'smell' in the air~one of falling leaves, wood smoke and damp earth, for during the past week we have had the dawn dew staying on the ground further into the morning. the life we have had florishing in the garden has been slowly going back into the earth and it seems the only thing hanging on is the black eyed susan...

i decided it was time to make my alter part of the centre of our home and so spent some time moving it from its tucked away place in my study/library and it now has pride of place taking up the mantle ove our fire~the centre of the home where it will be seen every day. it not an overlry sacred place, by that i mean it is not laid out in any specific way and the only 'specific' things there are my single antler and two corn dollies~cernunnos and brigid~like my path it is instinctive and there to be touched, changed, moved...

the next stage in my degree officially starts in a few days and so i have been ordering my set books~staggering them i might add as buying them all at once would mean a hefty £80 going out of my bank account! this hefty tome arrived the other day...

...to me this is a dream book, the sort of book to sit on my little coffe table, to be picked up at odd moments, letting it fall open at any page and enjoying what is written there.
my revision continues and i have had to have swampy put one of the extra extensions in my table to take all of my books, papers and files...i think the table is now about 5 foot long...

and now i shall leave you for in ten minutes a lovely soul who we have known for some years and who blogs occaisionally is in todays episode of the hairy bikers