*hive mind*

instagram

don't you love instagram?

💙i know i am shouting but i just adore it 💙

it was a whole lot better than bf (before facebook) but still better than fb

for my sins i am still on fb because its the only place where i can keep in touch with my friends who are spread across the country and those closest to me are towards swindon.

instagram has my heart the way pinterest once had

until the insidious creep of adverts and suggestions for pictures based on my likes. i cant even remember the last time i went on my pinterest  (saying that i will probably slink over and have a peek after this!)

there is little politics and much love and so many hive minds that it feels like my safe space and a place of utter joy-people sharing snippets of their lives, passing on ideas and support in a myriad of little ways. 

anyway, what i am getting at is how i seem to have touched a nerve with people in my last couple of ig posts about how i have been feeling change-positive change coming over me.

i have been feeling it for a couple of weeks, just a need for personal change-in myself and in my environment. i have spent the last year focusing so hard on the end of my degree and before lock down i was also working part time. my life was nothing but study, work and crashing into bed to fend off my m.e and fibromyalgia. 

i was effectively juggling 

lock down gave me time to think, assess and re-think and from comments on ig it seems it has done the same to many friends...i may not have met you in person, some of you i have known since the earliest days of blogging, and here we still are, communicating our lives over our screens, sharing our snippets...yes you are my tribe...

so we are now, as lock down is easing, making an assessment of our surroundings, our lives and you know what? i think it is going to bring us untold joy.

i started by starting a big de-clutter of my cottage, things i have never un-packed in two house moves in two years will be going. if i haven't missed it by now i don't think i ever will, i am going to keep surfaces clear, under the bed clear and easy to hoover...although i will need to buy cookie a little bed for under the bed as he still likes to sleep under there, old clothes will be gone...just stuff...gone!

i can almost feel the freedom like a weight lifted from my shoulders.

while the clutter is slowly going i have been thinking more about my life in general-

who i once was and who i have become.

long gone is the person tied into a gaslight relationship

its taken me four years to reach the point i am now.

i feel so free

i have my cottage, 

i have my North Star,

 i have my little Cookie 

and now i feel on the cusp of a whole new life. 

i feel that once the clutter is cleared then the door is wide open for the next stage in my life.

last week i bought a new set of oracle cards, ones i have seen being used by friends on ig, then two friends on fb posted about them and it felt like a sign...buy them!

i have to say they are beautiful and something seems right about them

last night my mind was full of what seemed like everything, i wasn't in the right frame of mind to do a proper reading, but still wanted to start working gently with them. so did some mindful breathing and picked one card...

this...

it says it all really doesn't it?!

*connections & lost threads- a new community*

so i have been self isolating for a seven days now

i work as a community support worker with vulnerable adults-until a month ago i was permanent but as i am in the final year of my degree and wanted to gain more control over my days i became a relief worker and signed up to a second job under the same umbrella.

then covid 19 hit the UK and following government guidelines took to self isolation last monday.

which of course means no income

luckily, for now,  i have the money to keep a roof over my head and pay my bills and even luckier to have my North Star tell me daily not to worry, i know there are many out there who do not have these words to give them solace and so i know i am really, really lucky.

talking with my sister, i was made aware of areas in desperate need of staff, working from home and so as soon as she knows whats happening  i will hopefully have a trickle of income coming in-again i give thanks for what the universe may bring me.

this all means i have time, a lot of free time...

i don't spend all day on my university work, i think my brain would explode if i did. 

so i find myself trying to keep to some kind of routine to my day...

i study for 3-4 hours, maybe 5 now i have an assignment to do

i potter in my garden-growing my herbs, wild flowers and vegetables

yesterday i tung oiled one of my Adirondack rockers

i actually read again-while juggling work and study i actually stopped reading. now i find i have time again and find myself adding books to my kindle, or pull books of my shelves

i also just sit-i sit in the garden and watch the birds and think...i let my mind wander where it wishes as i drink cups of tea, a blanket over my knees if the wind gets chilly

and i grieve for my sweet Arthur-i think at the moment i have had maybe three days where i have not cried. but the tears come too easily and i miss him so very much. during the week when we had the cottage to ourselves he would always sleep on the bed at night, taking up much of the room and i feel badly that on his final night in the cottage he slept alone on the sofa as my NS was here...

of course being here alone makes me think of all the others who are alone and it made me think of the blogging community that existed years ago. by years ago i am talking of  13 years ago. 

my first blogger post was 27/06/2007 (which is freaking me out right about now because that was my NS 44th birthday) and blogging really was old school then and it really was a close community. we all sat typing away, opening our lives and hearts, we visited each other, supported each other and i think brought with us all a sense of belonging.

then it slowly changed, people stopped blogging, facebook happened and with the growth in mobile phones and the huge capacity they held things became instant.

now i feel change is in the air, or could be in the air and i feel the pull of grass roots, old school blogging

i think this virus will...no, i feel this virus is going to change things. i just feel that society will change and i hope for the better. we are being made to re-assess our lives, our world, the resources available. of course there are selfish, mean people who walk this world and there always will be but i hope that the lesson this virus will teach us will be one of increasing compassion, community and love. that we can start to take things a little more slowly, open our hearts and minds again and fill spaces of the internet with all the good things blogging can bring.

so are you reading this?

do you feel like un-earthing the past?

do you want to help re-build our old blogging community?