~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!

~hello again~

here i am again, dropping in to see what is going on and bring you some pictures of life here in this ancient forest since my last post.

i would like to say i have been busy but i haven't really.

in my guise as the wylde apothecary i had a commission to work on that happily arrived at its new home in canada last week and i have a pile of wood painted pendants that need finishing to be listed on my etsy shop.

i have been having a lot of bruxism induced migraines that seems to have been lasting forever~in reality about two weeks and a few days of semi-hibernation where i lay on the sofa reading and channel surfing.

however the sun and blue sky that has covered the land over the last two weeks has been utterly glorious...

the temperatures in the sun-trap of our garden has been high and because we had to trim back my canopy of rose and jasmine in my nook (asbestos removal) i have no shady bower to shelter under. so i had to improvise with a cheerful throw...

 as you can see Merlin found it to be the perfect play hammock!

i have had a few walks with swampy and flynt and all the animals are enjoying the sunshine too...

our garden is becoming glorious with the help of the sun. we had to make the decision to stop trying to grow grass on the bottom level of the garden. i don't know what the problem is but grass just wont grow into a nice lawn and so after 5 years of trying decided to pave the area and hopefully small, creeping plants might take to the gaps

fungi growing on a birch log 

   

solar water feature kindly given us by swampys parents

i am a total fiend for a hellebore, fern, aquiligia and fritillaria especially the fritillaria meleagris and have them dotted about all over the garden

swampy and i have totally different ideas about gardening and as a result we have spilt our garden to make us both happy. swampy has the front garden where he has the more showy flowers he loves, where he keeps the edges of the beds clipped and weeded. i have the back garden which in spring and summer bursts into a wonderful wild garden. i have planted many of the sacred trees~oak, rowan, silver birch, elder, holly, hazel, hawthorn. there are herbs growing between the favourites i listed above as well as primroses, primula, creeping jenny, sweet woodruff, ransoms, forget me nots, honeysuckle, poppies,...the list goes on and on. i have my small pond with waterfall and the solar water feature to give me the sound of flowing water.

swampy has been given the strictest instructions not to remove any of these...

~long & hard winter~

my but its been a long hard winter

i have had a lot of flare ups with my bruxism and fibro and my body is coming to terms with the osteo arthritis.

so i have spent many days just sitting on the sofa or sitting in bed.

mostly reading or journalling

i have had no inspiration for anything at all.

just literally nothing

i am slowly coming out of it now, my room has been tided up and the clear desk is giving me some inclination to sit and create.

i think the full moon energies helped and i did a reading with the wild unknown tarot while snuggled up in bed. it was cloudy here and so we could not see her but i certainly was buzzing with life

we have had some gloriously frosty mornings here in this ancient forest

i love getting out in the garden early on frosty mornings, listening to the crows chattering away in the oak.

we have had a bit of excitement here with the grounding of the hoegh osaka between southampton water and the isle of wight.
we we drove down to calshot which is about a half hour drive from us and it was so busy~like a hot summers day~with people going down to see it

we took flynt and had a lovely walk along the beach hunting down fossils and hag stones

i have been moving music onto my ipod...

watching Vikings again before season three starts in march...

and loving this...

leveret has been sulking because we moved the sofa and armchair and so chose to sleep on my boots

and loving the new earth pathways diary

~bits & bobs~

yesterday i wanted to go to Lymington market to buy a gorgeous waistcoat i had seen on my last visit and so with the pennies in my pocket swampy drove me there...

 lymington market is a charter market and was established in 1250 and lymington itself is a small, beautiful Georgian town. it was so busy it was difficult to take as many photos as i wanted so here are a few. ..

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on a cold, clear night we had our village christmas evening, when the road was closed, the lights were lit and most of the village turned out for the lights, carols, mulled wine, mince pies and meeting with friends...

all under a beautiful full moon...

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here in this ancient forest we have had some wonderful hard frosts and the garden has looked quite magical

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on opening day we went to see The hobbit~The Battle of the Five Armies and so i took my Dad's old copy of The Hobbit and i wore two of my Hobbit badges. as expected it was an amazing film but i came away bereft that it was the final one

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i have recently started to re-read the Avalon books of Marion Zimmer Bradley.

I was introduced to the mists of avalon many years ago as a teenager in my first year of college (i just worked it out and it was 30 years ago!) and i still have my original and very battered copy.

this book was the first book i had read that really made me realise that the things i felt and believed about the world around me were something bigger than myself, that such things did exist and that other people believed the same.

due to the times they were published i initially read them out of chronological order but since getting all of the books i now read them chronologically on a regular basis and they never fail to stir my soul and affirm my spiritual path.

if you haven't read them i suggest you start!

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now the day really has dawned~my candles are still burning and the incense smoke has ceased and it is time to get on with my day...