Despite my relatively easy homecoming from this trip, I woke up on Wednesday feeling a bit grumpy with everything. I had struggled through a night filled with vivid terrifying dreams (which is so unusual for me these days), it had rained non stop for weeks and was in fact still pouring, we’d stopped drinking coffee three days before, and I couldn’t even be bothered getting dressed in my same old boring winter work clothes again.

The day before I’d had to come inside from doing farm jobs twice to change my socks and boots when they got soaked through, and twice to have showers to warm up when my whole body felt sore with the intense icy chill.

The grump continued when I drove Pepper to school and could not get away from the car in front of me who for the whole hour accelerated wildly and then braked madly, over and over again. Pepper was gorgeous and played cute music on the way there, but somehow I got stuck in some grim podcast cycle on the way home that didn’t help my state of mind.

Added to that some conversations with a few dear friends who are really struggling at the moment, and I just felt flat and sad and a bit grey. Like the day.

And I know it’s disgustingly, awfully, possibly unforgiveably privileged, but I really missed the colour, and vibrancy, and discovery of travel. You know that feeling where all of your senses feel alert and awake and you have nothing better to do but explore your surroundings and experience everything to the fullest? Everywhere you turn is something new for you to process: the smell of sweet pastries wafting out of a bakery, the sound of a group of women chatting as they make bunches of parsley in the marketplace, the taste of a freshly fried falafel ball while you’re standing making your mind up in the queue, the street art, the architecture, the fashions, the languages, the music, the names of places, the history, the cultures, the religions.

Back home the muddy, dark, depths of winter just couldn’t compete.

I mean look how cute all these front door and balcony potted gardens of Jaffa are. I became completely obsessed with the creative ways people decorated their outdoor spaces.

I mean, wow! Don’t you think this one looks almost religious?!

Last time we came home from Jaffa I tried my best to recreate one of these potted gardens for myself just outside our front door. I bought a bunch of random pots off Facebook marketplace and filled them with all manner of random plants that I had growing around the place. Then I scattered them on both sides of the front door. But honestly they never looked as good as the versions we’d seen overseas. They looked sort of messy and wild, and eventually they grew weedy, and then sweeping up the dead leaves and fallen soil that fell between them just felt like one more chore I never got around to doing.

Eventually we took them all away and replaced them with one big daphne in a pot which looks almost minimalist in comparison. Definitely not as interesting, but a nice change. And as a bonus the daphne is just coming into flower at the moment which is sublime. But still, not quite the artistic statement that stopped my in my tracks overseas.

But yeah, imitation of such mastery is futile.

While we were walking around I did add another subheading to my botanical collection and it was titled nature wins. Buildings and walls and roofs and tables and gardens that had to make way for tree limbs, and vines, and boughs, and trunks growing through them. We saw them everywhere and always stopped to marvel at them. Strangely though this is the only photo of such an example that I can find. But how beautiful and what a privilege to be able to sit in the shade of that majestic giant on that stinking hot day and enjoy our crushed icy lemon mint drinks.

Back to Wednesday. Eventually when I just couldn’t ditch the feeling, we rugged up, climbed over the back fence and went for a long walk through the forest. We walked fast and hardly spoke at all, and eventually the forest started working her magic on me and my shoulders relaxed and my mind wandered and I started to see the beauty in what we do have right here.

Although there’s no comparison or competition for colour and excitement at this time of the year, it is pretty spectacular in its own way where we live.

Added to to that is the random thought this morning that if we’d returned from overseas this time last year we would have had to spend two weeks in hotel quarantine. In fact we’d only be leaving this week. I can’t even imagine.

The other best parts of being home are my bed, our own bathroom, no one sleeping on the couch, a library full of books I can borrow and read, catching up with family, a pantry and fridge full of food that I feel good about eating, working out with Leah, our studio where we can make cool stuff, the thought that there are only two weeks left of calendar winter, dates with friends…

What are some of the best things about your home and your home life? I’d love to know what’s making you feel good.

I hope you have a beautiful weekend.

Love, Kate x