one Friday in summer

Hello honey bunches,

Welcome to another instalment of your Friday Foxslane.

I hope the week that was was kind to you, and I hope that your weekend ahead is filled with the perfect mix of activities that are replenishing and enriching.

I’m good. I feel like my moods are so often incredibly weather dependent, so this week with times of sunshine, then icy wild winds, storms, and torrential rains, I’ve felt a bit all over the place; a bit happy, a bit overwhelmed and a lot exhausted. I am in need of some calm, still, sunny days to even me out.

We’re in desperate need of some sunshine to warm up the soil to grow our vegetables, fruit and flowers. It’s such a short growing season here in the mountains, in the forest, and I’m terribly worried that there won’t be enough time left to grow the plants and to ripen the crops before it gets cold again. It’s already the second week of calendar summer, I don’t think a little bit of heat is too much to ask. Please!

I’ve been reading stories of farmers’ crops rotting in the ground from all the rain, and getting fungal diseases from the humidity, I hope I’m not being naive in my dreams of a bountiful garden this year. I hope Mother Nature comes to the party and sprinkles a bit of magic dust and my tomatoes and cucumbers start jumping out of the ground and producing like crazy. Wouldn’t that be nice.

I took the next six photos of the house garden at different times of the day over the past week. After I wrote last week about how much I like watching it change over the season, I thought it would be good to capture a bit of that.

It’s funny how sweet and peaceful that photo of the roses on the hot-house looks! Just that morning we were lying in bed and heard three enormous trees falling down in the forest. It used to be such a rare occasion when a tree fell over that we’d race to the place it sounded like it was coming from to survey the damage. These days it’s far from rare. These days we just offer up a little prayer of hope for the tree not to have fallen on a fence line, and try to make ourselves feel better with thoughts of the light that will now be able to filter through the gap left and the space for new plants and trees to grow.

I remember I was pricking seedlings out in the hot-house one afternoon trying to find my happy, calm place when Pepper started texting me messages detailing the progressively worsening case of eczema she was developing on her arms and legs. I cleaned the potting mix off my hands to answer her and then got straight back to it. Then Jazzy texted me from inside the house to ask where the window cleaner was and when I didn’t answer her fast enough she called me, and then just as I was dusting off my fingers, she came outside.( We didn’t have any.) Then Indi texted me about a detail on her resume she was updating. I cleaned my hands and answered and then got them dirty again just before she called me. And then Bren started texting me beautiful photos of the storm-clouds through the windscreen of his tractor. By this time my shoulders were creeping up around my ears and I was deep breathing. It was all too much. I had wiped my hands and answered over and over and felt completely overwhelmed.

Isn’t it funny how some days you can deal with everything and anything thrown at you, while on other days the smallest thing pushes you off balance.

In the end Pepper had to take the next day off school because of the eczema and it turned out to be one of the happiest times of my whole week. We were home alone, it was freezing outside, we snuggled up on the couch under blankets and watched Tick, Tick…Boom! And then we watched all sorts of YouTube clips about it. We are big lovers of musicals in this house and this one did not disappoint. We loved it!

We saw another snake during the week, which I did not love. You probably heard me screaming from where you are! It was sunning itself on the path when we were taking the dogs for a walk. I was concentrating on whatever it was Bren was talking about when he calmly said ‘snake’ and then called the dogs away from it. It was then I started screaming and shouting and thank goodness the snake burrowed down into the brush on the side of the path and the dogs couldn’t get to it. It took me ages to calm down. I am terrified of snakes and we’ve already seen two this summer. I might start looking at real estate in the city.

Someone, one of you beautiful people, left a comment on my blog last week and used the word delightful. I don’t know what it is about that word, but I really love the sound and the meaning so much. I’m going to try and use it more often from now on. Doesn’t that sound delightful?!

While we’re on the topic of comments, thank you so much for yours. I’ve replied to each of them. Though I still haven’t worked out how to send you an alert when I do.

Speaking of reading blogs and commenting on them, my friend Pip of the incredible blog Meet Me At Mikes, has just published a list of 100 blogs that she reads. It’s a fantastic list.

I must admit that even though I’ve started writing a blog again, I’m pretty crap at reading them. But this list is exactly what I need to get me back into it again. There are foodie blogs, and craft blogs, design blogs and lifestyle blogs, there are blogs about all sorts of things. I’m sure you’ll find a few to tickle your fancy.

Here’s the link to the list -meet me at mikes - 100 blogs I love to read (and you might too!)

Pip’s blog was one of the first blogs I ever read and over the past 15 years she has continued to be a huge inspiration for me, and encourager of bloggers all around the world, I’m sure you have, but just incase you haven’t, you should definitely put hers at the top of your list.

After writing of shelves stuffed with vases of roses covering every surface of our house last week, this week looks like the aftermath of a wedding. Rose petals, like pastel coloured confetti, are sprinkled all over the place.

Pepper’s been gathering them and laying them out to dry to be made into potions and witchy spells. Mostly I’ve been sweeping up the remainders and chucking them in the compost. But occasionally when a pile looks particularly pretty and festive, I can’t help but leave them where they are to be admired. It’s like an early summer installation.

There’s not much to see on the knitting front this week. progress has been sloooooooooow. Knitting for me is such a seasonal thing and I’m wondering if I might be winding down for summer. I hope not. I’d really love to get this tee finished first.

I read these two books this week.

I borrowed Love Objects by Emily Maguire from the library a few months ago but returned after the first bit didn’t grab me. After hearing that my mum and sister Emily really loved it (after the first little bit), I decided to give it another chance and I really liked it too. Family relationships and drama, class, hoarding, a university sex scandal, this book has it all and deals with it all so sensitively and compassionately.

And Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson which I couldn’t put down and finished in two nights. I don’t really know how to describe this book without giving it away, in fact when I read the description I almost did give it back. But I’m so glad I didn’t. I absolutely loved this book and my mum is reading it now and is loving it too.

And now I’m reading Five Tuesdays in Winter by Lily King. I’m actually surprised that I ordered this book from the library because I’m not usually a reader of short stories. I get too invested in characters and plot and don’t want to leave them after 40 pages or so. I like big, chunky books. But I LOVE Lily King’s writing and I loved the first story in this book, and I’m sure I’ll love the rest. Even though I know I’ll wish they were all extended out by another few hundred pages.

I just noticed that I’m holding my camera’s lens cap in that photo of the book. Oops!

Phew, on the way home from the hairdresser’s this afternoon I told my mum that I didn’t think I had anything to write about today and here I am, a whole lot of words and sentences and stories later. It definitely wasn’t an eventful week, but it was a week all the same.

How about you? What are you reading, or watching, or making ,or doing on the weekend? I’d love to know.

See you next Friday!

Love, Kate x