Hello friends,

How are you? How have the first few days of your new year been treating you?

I'm good. It's ridiculously hot and scarily windy outside, so after a morning of farm work I'm now sheltering in my dark bedroom, in a tee-shirt and undies, with my laptop on my lap, thinking about my blog.

It's been a month since I last posted here.

In the beginning I just ran out of time. It was a Friday early in December. I had taken, edited and loaded a whole bunch of photos documenting the transformation of the old farm shed into farmer Bren's new wood-workshop, and all that was left was to write the words. The words would be straight forward and easy. It's all very beautiful and exciting.

But then somehow the hours disappeared and it was time to go and visit a local ceramicist friend, then we came home and I had washing to hang out, a greenhouse to water and girls to feed. And then it was time to get ourselves dressed and ready for our beautiful friends' wedding. And then we had so much fun that we stayed all afternoon and evening and by the time we got home, after all those champagnes, I was in no state to write the words.

The next morning I woke up with all the best intentions but then my computer died. I knew it had been coming - it had been acting up for a while - so I closed it down and walked away. Unlike other computer malfunctions, this time there was no tantrum, there were no tears and there would be no blog post that week.

I felt a little bit disappointed, a little bit relieved and a little part of me wondered if it was a sign. If my time as a blogger was over and done with.

Blogging does take up a huge chunk of my life each Friday and as the growing season progresses and my time gets more valuable, it's hard to justify the whole process.

I'm a little bit embarrassed to admit that over the next few days I waited for the messages to start arriving. I thought that some people would notice my absence and write to ask why. And although I never wanted this to be about ego, I did feel a bit disappointed when nobody did. Not my family, not my friends, nobody. (Poor me - I'm so embarrassed to write this but it's true).

I think it was then that I stopped being a blogger. 

I stopped taking photos, I stopped writing posts in my head, I stopped thinking about it and I worked right on through my Fridays without another thought.

After a little while a few messages did trickle in, and then a few more. Mostly I replied that I was having computer problems, which was officially true considering I still hadn't turned my computer back on since that first Friday.

When I eventually did try to turn it on and it still wasn't working my farmer boy took all the photos off, wiped it and then reinstalled everything. 

Then he wrapped it up with a bow and left it on my bed.

Over those few weeks I thought a lot about who I was without my blog. I thought about what it gave me and what it took away. It challenged me when one of Indi's friends told her he just could not understand why I did it. And then I considered signing out of all social media altogether. I wondered if six months short of my 10 year blog anniversary, it had all just run its natural course, petered out.

As the weeks went by I received some beautiful messages from people telling me how much my blog has meant to them over the years. Lots of memories and stories and thoughts. So much kindness. Those messages meant the world to me.

And then this past week as the flowers started blossoming and the girls picked a bouquet a day, as the late afternoon golden summer sunshine intensified the beauty of where we live, and as the vegetable harvests began in earnest, I discovered that I missed the whole blogging process and was ready to have another go.

I took these photos last night, I edited them and loaded them into my blog early this afternoon when it was too hot to work outside anymore, and then, just as I was getting ready to write the words, my computer crashed. Again! Apparently the operating system I'm using is so ancient it's stopped being able to talk to Safari. Or whatever that means.

So while my computer is updating itself in the other room, I'm back on blogger on Jazzy's computer. Fingers crossed I can make it to the finish line this time.

I quite like the thought of writing a post summing up 2018, but for now I think I'll count my blessings and stop before something else goes wrong. Maybe in the next few days.

Until then I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you so much for hanging out with me at Foxs Lane. I hope your 2019 is full of all the best, most beautiful and love filled stuff. Hopefully I'll see you here really soon for more flowers and farming, family and knitting.

Big love,

Kate xx