January - I started the year violently with a cut throat end to my job. It was time to move on. I began the year spending a few days with my family in France .
Followed by family time in Devon in February. I sometimes feel I have been given the role of Mother Dove to my friends and family. But I was feeling weary. It was time for the little bird in me to sing again and refind her innocent child like heart and innocence.
While staying at my father's house in March I had the privilege of seeing a very unusual natural ice formation. In very special circumstances this ice phenomenon forms. It requires exactly the right amount of moisture in the air and the right temperatures for this unusual bird cone shape to form.
April - Skiing in Switzerland in the Bernese Oberland around Wengen & Grindlewald. The mountains always fuel my soul.
From the snow to the sun.
Making up for 2 years during Covid when travel was restricted and I went nowhere overseas, in 2024 I followed the mountains with a visit to the beach in Portugal with my cousin Sue & her husband Frankie.
From the sun back to the snow. In late April we had a day of deep delicious snow at Loseley.
May - King Charles III Coronation. The Compton phonebox made us famous again with the huge ears we added to the phonebox in tribute to the King!
We celebrated in Devon with my niece wearing the best red, white & blue outfit!
I enjoyed another year of trying to join in Naked Gardening day. The first Saturday in May is observed around the world as a day to enjoy the garden with very little clothing on ! Slightly juvenile but it is a challenge I like to give myself every year. To get out of my comfort zone and take a different photo from alst year.
The May Bank holiday brought back the Big Church Festival. The weather was sunny. It was freezing cold sleeping in a tent in a field at night but gorgeous during the day. I was delighted to be back with crowds of people and to immerse myself in a celebration of life after all the focus on death & destruction that the Covid years carried.
June - For the first time we had a full red field of poppies in the pastures at Loseley. When I think of this year I see it as a red year, fuelled with blood. Smelling of smoke and feeling like warfare. It began with the bloody end to my job in January and felt like a year of grieving and battling the craziness that was unfolding with the whole swing to immature uptight self righteous judgements on every area of life and increasing division and strife over any difference in our points of view.
In the summer I went back to France and swang from the tree. Recapturing childlike innocence amidst what felt like a growing gloom.
July - Back to France for sunshine & sunflowers.
August - David's Tent. A tent in a field with hundreds worshipping the King. Followed by Bluegrass in the Surrey Hills. Stumbled across a village fete in Peaslake on the August Bank Holiday & was delighted to hear a young fresh group of boys playing bluegrass!
September - a friend from South Korea visited. It was good to catch up after nearly 5 years. We had the annual grape harvest which I took friends and family along to at Albury Vineyard. This was the same day that good friends got engaged.
October - all hell broke loose in Israel & Hamas slaughtered men, women & children on October 7th. I was driving down to the beach and just by chance decided to put on the radio as I was arriving. Thinking some Country music would get me in the mood for the beach. Instead I listened numb & in shock as the News flashed on telling of a jubilant celebration of the slaying of life. I spent a couple of hours hidden in the sand dunes numb & in shock, reflecting on this massive onslaught.
This was also the month we celebrated a friends birthday with a houseparty on the Isle of Wight.
November - A visit to Northumberland with my sister & the children. We arrived just after a huge storm and the beach was pounded with huge waves. This was my fist visit to the holy island of Lindisfarn & a visit to Bamburgh Castle. This was the month for long walks & log fires.
December - Christmas at Farley Green & Carols in Shere.
The Compton phone box outdid itself with another great display.
So the year ended.
I read this quote and loved it.
'We are Kings & Queens living like orphans in our shame because we have forgotten who we come from.'
I think 2023 was a year of turmoil personally & nationally. Like orphans we ran around trying to protect ourselves with rules and new laws and more and more red tape. The Nanny State increased, personal freedom diminished. There was shame in the air but this little bird was remembering who I came from. The eternal music stirred within & I began to sing again.
This year also cemented in me the realisation that I am a creative individual and it is important to engage in this area not only for myself but for the world around me. To wake up the sleeping around me from the hypnotising effect of digital overload and to find healing in the little observations of the natural world around me.
Another quote I loved this year -
' To be a creative is to be wildly awake in a world that many have fallen asleep to - and to work tirelessly to wake the sleeping world with words, song, dance, or canvas & to never stop trying. '
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