Its 5 years this January since I started writing this blog and this is the 500th post... it started as a college assignment - something we had to do to showcase our work in progress, our inspiration and our creative journey. For many that's where it stopped but as a compulsive diary/notes/list keeper I have kept it up - admittedly its a lot more sporadic now - partly because my degree journey ended and also due to a lethargy brought on by lack of adventures as life is a little bit on hold while Covid sweeps the world. For the most part this blog has been about my creative experiences but all of those are in turn influenced by my general life and being so there a lot of me in these posts as well.
Five years is a long time to reflect back over and just whizzing through the post heading shows a multitude of experiences - creative and otherwise - slowly documenting some of my life and that of my friends and family - it has slipped by quite fast in places.. I have deliberately not named people - other than the long suffering Dr Fred as not everyone wants their life documenting on an open forum in weekly - sometimes twice weekly chapters. Also for the main part of my ramblings I leave out the miserable bits - no one but me needs to dwell on my less good moments and no one wants to read constant moans and groans - I think those that know me get enough of that and others may read between the lines about odd things -serious disappointments with some aspects (most) of early college experiences - doom and gloom about our previous house location and lingering sadness about having to leave a wonderful community and place in Northumberland. Some sadness could not go unrecorded - the loss of my son in law, Dr Freds Mum, a couple of close friends and odd other less emotional moments define moods and consequently creative outputs but thats how life flows sometimes....
Its been an exciting 5 years - I've met loads of new interesting people and managed in spite of living in the grim north to keep in touch with dear friends across the country - I've earned a first class honours degree - moved house three times, discovered seriously diverse skills ranging from technically challenging CAD to equally technically challenging weaving, But I MASTERED photoshop 😍😍 although I've dumped that programme for Affinity which is a cheaper, as good (if not better) option. I'm still working on the weaving.... I gained a second grandchild and have watched long legs get even bigger and more teenagery...(even though shes only 11) we have had some wonderful travel opportunities, both in the UK and wider afield, the Emerald Isle, quite a few foreign city breaks, North America and a few European van trips - Lots of galleries and museums and even a chance to be in a couple of exhibitions myself.
We've celebrated birthdays with crazy Yuri parties, city breaks - held star weekends and lots of travel - managed a run in with proper rednecks and a total eclipse in Wyoming (missed recent one due to covid restrictions) - It was until last year a good time for festivals and music, and living in Northumberland for a few years I nurtured a love of the beach and castles!! We've collected loads more paraphernalia - so much so we have had to keep moving house - I'm working hard to diminish my fabric stash - I've made soooooo many cushions!!!! but if I leave the studio closed for too long things get together and multiply and some how all the fabric mounts up. The new house is full of creations, telescopes, books, photographs, but less and less anaglypta wallpaper.... Dr Fred is still, a year on, reeling from buying a house with me ha ha ha but we are lucky to feel settled and have this space to make our own.
Currently, life is a little different to how we would like it to be - who would ever have imagines todays lockdown scenario 5 years ago... all these adventures seem like an eon away - and feel like something someone else did in a different life. For now we have to be content to potter around in the garden and wander locally - but we appreciate past comings and goings - desperate as we are to be out on the road - hugely disappointed not to be regaling you with tales of South America - our planned trip for this winter cancelled as SA is not the place to be at the moment even if we were allowed to travel beyond the village limits... we remain well and in touch with family. We are lucky so far to have had little contact with this pandemic and hopefully it will remain this way.
We have over binged on Netflix and such like and are now spending our evenings looking at old photographs with a view to making some kind of picture book to document our travels - its really interesting to look at pictures from 15 years ago and remember the places and good times when we could leave the house .... we have reduced our big 'gap year' experience (2012) from a hefty 6000 pictures taken over a good 9/10 months as we crossed the globe variously in a tent - a campervan and then backpacker hostels to under 1700 'best of' pics!!!!
Sorting through these reminders of travel, friends and family out while we continue to strip anaglypta wallpaper will keep us busy - still we, as do many, miss our family and friends and hope soon we can all get together - meanwhile we live in interesting times. I could ramble on for ever reflecting over the last five years but its time to look to the future and embrace a vaccine and hope we get to travel and hug and visit and all those things we took so much for granted!!!! Blimey I'm almost looking forward to shopping!!!
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