Solstice blessings

A crown for Mrs Noah, also to celebrate the Solstice dawn.

We went to the graveyard for a walk to say hello to the creatures that live there and to reflect on those who have gone before us.

The sun was glorious and there was hardly a breath of wind. So much better than the past few days. Although there was no sunset to be seen last night and Solstice morn was greeted with rain showers.

It’s all done the plants so much good though.

My garden is looking so lush. It’s small but full of life.

Days

It’s a strange unsettling time, so much happening in the world , so much change.
I’m trying to keep afloat on a sea of uncertainty and fear.
While I ponder and listen, some things help me through.

The colours of a shawl in the garden.

My lovely Nano and the amount of yarn it holds.

Freshly baked bread , even if it is cut on a slant.

My flour parcel from Dove.

My latest Goddess figures waiting to go out into the world

Uncertain times

It is an uncertain time we are living through and no end in sight. Some days it’s hard to see anything but lockdown. Then there are signs and seeds of hope. As I write this New Zealand are lifting restrictions. They approached this virus differently than the shambolic UK attempts.
But going back to The Book of Qualities by J Ruth Gendler. Today my first page that opened was Terror.  She writes of the Qualities as people. Quite a lot of them are illustrated in black and white lines.
The bit I want to quote is this :-
‘When Terror wants power she has many ways to silence those who oppose her. She is willing to use violence to achieve her ends; often she prefers less obvious means. Terror knows that she can control the body by controlling the mind. When people are in states of confusion, Terror’s propaganda passes for truth.’
It seems apt for how we are being manipulated somehow.

But looking for the beauty and something positive helps me. Just look at the yarn I am plying. It’s called Samarkand from Fellview Fibres. I’ve loved spinning it, it reminds me of the sea and sand.
The cards are from my friend Sue Creative spirit affirmation cards

And I guess no surprise that I’m still knitting shawls. Here is the latest one off the needles.

Finally some friends of mine were involved in a ritual on YouTube . I think it was called pass the light  and keep the candle burning. So for hope during these worrying times I leave you with this.

Please keep the light burning.

Lockdown is a strange bedfellow and companion. Unseen but the effects are felt throughout each day and night. To me it’s very like the J Ruth Gendler book of Qualities . Each emotion is described so thoroughly and they sometimes meet or bump into each other. Despair, loss, fear, but then hope. Hope when things are relaxed a little but fear as we realise it’s all too soon and await the next spike in this dreadful virus.
So lockdown. We don’t see the thing but it’s all around us . We woke up in a strange new world that isn’t going back to how it was. It’s like the fairy tale RIP Van  Winkle, he slept for what he thought was one night and woke up 20 years later in a strange time. That’s what has happened to us, although we saw signs of it coming when the virus first started. None of us could forecast how it would become.
We have had to learn to live so very differently. Touch is not allowed, 2 metres does not allow it. It’s hard if you are a small child at school perhaps needing comforting should you fall. They even have to supposedly put their own plasters on?
It’s bad if you have your first grandchild due and you can’t be there for the birth, or visit and hold the baby for the first time. What’s app and face time, zoom etc can’t replicate the emotion you feel when first looking at the small being who has just entered this world.
It’s awful for those dying alone in a hospital bed with no familiar faces around or loved ones holding your hand as you take the next step on your journey.
Or a funeral with limited mourners, how can you say goodbye or celebrate a life cut short by this?
How do we make a new life but a positive one for ourselves out of it all?
What seeds are planted for hope and joy? There has to be some good from it all.
More kindness? More care for our fellow man and woman. But at the moment the world is in chaos and still reeling.
Planting seeds for us all.

Return? Never really went away.

It’s been a long while since I wrote a blog post and to be honest I never thought it would happen again. After Mr Mog died my life changed drastically. Not just the grief and the loss of someone I loved, but my soulmate.
Then you start to live again, slow steps but you start to see the sunshine and the turn of the wheel. To follow the moon’s progress through her cycle. It wasn’t the same and it couldn’t be could it? We none of us know where the path will take us, we see just a little bit of it each time. A good thing sometimes as I am sure we would hate to know the future.
So what’s been happening? Lots and some  bad but much more that was good.  But there’s good come out of it. I met a man and we fell in love. Very unexpected to find I could share my life with someone but I have and I am.
I’m still creating, that also changed around but I am still knitting shawls. Still spinning and still playing with mixed media. I’ve got a new urge to make things and it’s great to be in touch with the muse once more.
There will be more but for now let me leave you with a photo of my latest toy, a gift from a very generous friend.

Time passes

The sadness never goes away when you lose the one you love. You just have to file it in a room and close the door. Don’t lock it. It doesn’t ever stay closed. You miss that person all the time with never decreasing grief. But having it somewhere you can close the door for a while means that you can start to live again. It’s a totally different life but never the less it’s a life. You smile, you go out and you socialise with friends and family. You even have fun.

At first it’s very very hard because you feel guilty, guilty that you are having fun and not crying all the time. Guilty that you are enjoying yourself. It almost feels as if it is against the rules. But with the help of good people you carry on and you start to enjoy things once more. An hour here, a meet up there. You even laugh but that sounds almost manic sometimes. A frantic attempt to be normal.

You are grateful for very painful days, stay in bed days. They seem penance for daring to enjoy yourself once more. How can you have fun with a huge hole where your loved one was? But you carry on because that was one of the last things he said to you before his death:-
Have fun
Accept all invitations
Answer all calls and visits from friends

So I do.

I even look forward to days now. I’ve managed to start creating again and my craft room isn’t quite as scary as it was.

Yes my health is worse in lots of ways and this winter has been a very hard one.
But I am so grateful. Grateful for all the things I had with Mr Mog, grateful for my friends and family of choice.
And grateful that I know we will be together again and that helps keep me going.

Thank you

Thank you so much everyone. Mr Mogs cremation was yesterday and it was surrounded by much love and some laughter. So many of our  family and family of choice were there it really helped me get through a very sad day.
He was covered in a blanket of autumn shades, made by many friends across the world. Each square different and each one made with love. It had bells of course and I am writing this cocooned in the warmth and magic of this special blanket now.
We had 3 pieces of Mr Mogs favourite music ending with Status Quo - rocking all over the world. Making everyone smile as we left the crematorium. He wanted a simple ceremony and he got it. Just one eulogy from a friend of ours, spoken from the heart and a mix of tears and laughter when she reminded us of Mr Mogs awful cups of weak tea;) we had a simple hot buffet while sharing our memories of a very special person.
Today I feel empty and bereft. The man I love has left me and although I know he is still here surrounding me with his love I just can't see or touch him.
We celebrate his life on 10th December and friends are most welcome to be with us.

R.I.P Mr Mog

My lovely husband and soulmate Mr Mog sadly left this earth plane on the 1st November. He died peacefully in the early morning after I had just gone to bed for a nap, having been up most of the night chatting to him . He waited, thoughtful to the very last.
He had become more and more frail and in pain but was determined to attend one last wool festival , the Kendal Woolgathering weekend just a couple of days before his passing.
He had a most wonderful time, enjoying being with all our many woolly friends and family. He was surrounded by love and joy a worthy last event indeed.
Our friends came from one end of the country to the other and he was so so appreciative of their taking the time.
As one of our old friends told me "he was storing up memories for you" not for himself but so that I would remember this most gentle loving person full of smiles albeit very very frail.
He will be cremated  with a simple ceremony and then in early December we will have a celebration of his life to which family and friends are all invited.
Mr Mog planned his funeral and his celebration, I just have to put the pieces into place . My heart is broken and I don't know how I can function without him. I know I have to but it's so very very hard. I have a big lump in my stomach and I have cried enough tears for Britain.
I can feel that He is still here in my heart and all around me but I can't touch or see him. I wait for the sound of his bells heralding his arrival in a room. They don't come.
I know we will be together again as he did, it's just the wait until that happens.
Rest in peace my darling, I love you always

Update , it's been a long while.

so sorry to be missing, life has been exceedingly fraught to say the least. Mr Mogs cancer has spread and is now in his neck and nervous system. His tongue is paralysed at the left side and his face has dropped at same side. A form of Bells Palsy. He takes more care  speaking as his speech is slurred a little, especially when he is tired. Swallowing is now becoming difficult and food has to be mashed up or smaller morsels.
He recently spent just under a week in our local hospice for pain management  and they were fabulous. Mr Mog had already been attending day hospice once a week since the summer so it wasn't a completely strange experience.  He now has fentanil pain patches alongside oxynorm liquid as required. He also takes 4 gms of paracetamol a day and 900mg gabapentin 3 times a day.
Last Monday he was discharged from hospice and Monday evening/Tuesday morning had a fall in the bathroom . I struggled to help him, I managed to get him sat on the toilet but couldn't move him back to bed due to my health stuff plus his left leg not cooperating. I rang Hospice at home and district nurses both of whom were answerphone so ended up ringing 111 for an ambulance. With hindsight I should just have phoned 999 but at 1-30 in the morning my brain wasn't thinking straight. Ambulance men were wonderful and got him into bed. When they did his obs his temperature was very high. They rang primary care doctor to come and check him over but he refused. He kept saying sepsis to them even when they explained that Mr Mogs wishes were no hospital unless acute (I.e. Fractures) Mr Mog reluctantly agreed to go to hospital. In the meantime as they got him ready to transport Marie Curie rang us and they too tried to get primary care doctor to come out to no avail. I should just add that the centre they come from is just 2 minutes drive away.  They had to take Mr Mog to city hospital. He spent 5 hours on trolley. After 4 hours I was so upset seeing his pain I burst into tears. The sister took me out for a cup of tea and I think expedited the doctor examining him. He agreed it was chest infection. Gave Mr M a drip of antibiotics then sent him home with more to take orally. The kind ambulance men had moved us up in the queue to the resuscitation area at A&E as current wait otherwise was heading up to 9 hours apparently. Trouble with the resuscitation area was that while we were there 2 people passed away sadly. Fortunately Mr M didn't notice but I did hence the tears.
He is a lot better now from the chest infection but very frail and things are obviously getting worse.
When we got the news the cancer had spread Mr M decided to organise his funeral. So he did, or should I say I am doing under his instructions. He wants a cardboard coffin and cremation and his ashes to go in our friends garden in the village we used to live in as we were happiest there and still call it home. Our friend said she would be honoured. He wants it to be a celebration of his life with lots of colour and bells.
He thought a patchwork covering Autumn shades  for the coffin would be good and it has snowballed with friends all over the world making a square  or two.he also wants bells. Those who know us will remember that he always has a couple of tiny bells attached to his jeans. He started it when the grandsons were tiny  but has continued it. Friends think it's so I can keep track of where he is;) Friend in Surrey is coordinating it and arranging the stitching, then other friends are organising the transporting up to us via several stages. What has been so humbling and amazing is that as people signed up to make squares they have been saying  where they met us , or how they know us, or why they are using the yarn etc.  Lots of people have been messaging to say it has made them discuss their funeral arrangements with one another also.
So I think that's where we are today. Each day is precious, very precious and as Mr Mog said now he has the after death organised he can enjoy the now. A good way I think - don't you?
Ps Mr M has also chosen  some of his music. A track from sacred spirit cd and Rocking all over the world by Status Quo who are his favourite group:)

And yet again -it has been a while

Sorry time gets away from me. There have been hospital appointments, hospice and doctors and time is gone so fast. There were meant to be photos but picasa doesn't work now and I need to work out how to upload photos and where from. So that will be later.

I have stuff to show, the creating has helped with stress and worry.
Mr Mog is frail, he has lost more weight and now weighs 9stone 8 pounds. There is nothing to him:( Friday we went to hospital and Mr Mog signed papers to release his original biopsy for checking to see if he has a particular chemical in it. If he does he may be accepted in the drug trial. 2 out of 3 people don't have it.
Monday we went to palliative pain clinic and the consultant has tripled his steroids for 2 weeks to see if they will help with appetite and loss of energy. He has also put Mr M back in his hormone injections which were stopped inadvertently in January . I only realised last week and mentioned to consultant. They are the ones to restrict the production of the male hormone.
Sunday is Mr Mogs birthday and we are going to Liverpool overnight to his favourite hotel in the docks there. Our daughter and 2 grandsons are also coming which will be good if poignant as the odds are it will be his last.
We have had to restrict normal days out to a couple of hours as he gets too tired otherwise.
The following Sunday is my birthday.
That's up to date I think. Thank you for all the messages, calls, texts etc they really help.

Cancer Update

It has been a while but haven't felt like posting much.not a lot to report, Mr Mog is getting more and more tired each day and losing weight again. This heat doesn't help either when you have to wear a full back brace and a layer of clothing underneath all the time you are up and about, plus he doesn't like it too hot at the best of times. There may be the possibility of a new drug trial. Lots of screening beforehand and he may not be a suitable candidate but hey it's a little more hope. It "may " make him feel a little better and it "may " extend his life but obviously they can't say for certain. It doesn't matter really it's a little more hope and that's never a bad thing.
Today Mr Mog made the decision that he wasn't well enough for the birthday trip to the Isle of Man . He is worried about worsening while away from hospice, oncology and doctors and it's a good allbeit sad decision. There would be no point having a few days away if he worried all the time or me. I must admit I wasn't sure that he would be well enough but no one could say except himself.
We haven't done an awful lot but did fit in an overnight trip to Liverpool  which we both enjoyed.
There has been knitting and spinning going on here and I have been doing a little more playing in my craft room.

A box I altered

The garden is looking particularly lush this year

Love all the tangles of green

Even if the nasturtium flowers are shy.

And we never add fertiliser

No need

This months full moon was particularly spectacular

And lots of colour

This shawl was gifted before I had even finished it, a friend at Woolfest fell in love with it 

So as soon as it was off the needles and blocked it was winging its way to her.

Then I started one in my handspun

P.s. Blue Witch the golden  Lammas shawl  is Pamuya pattern on Ravelry and the stitch is called Wave. 

So how's things with you?