Today is Blue Monday, and news programmes, papers and places all over the internet are proclaiming it the lowest Monday of the year. Christmas is over, the bills ahve come in, the weather is blue and we are too. Well, not this year. I’ve done well at keeping active, meeting friends who keep me boosted and enjoying life, including finding the gem of a 1930s … Continue reading Blue Monday? Depends on the Shade
This year so far has been a weird mix of bright sunshine and dark rain clouds, physically and metaphorically. I either feel light and airy, or weighed down by stresses so heavy I don’t know how to get out from under them. I know sometimes the weather has the guiding hand in my emotions, but at other times the warmth is there regardless of the … Continue reading A Winter Wellness List
Well, there goes Christmas until next December. And here comes my darkest time of year. When I was supply teaching and mothering at home, January and February were my months of low, slow living. The bright lights were down, the children back at school. There wasn’t enough light in the day to do anything much and I basically squared my shoulders and set off to … Continue reading Wintering
Today’s UK news was full of the idea that, come January and February, the UK could have planned blackouts, when electricity supplies are cut to certain areas to preserve the available gas. Understandably, this sounds like a scary prospect until you sit and think about it. I think people who are into hygge are ahead of the curve on being able to handle the blackouts. … Continue reading Electricity Free Evenings? No Problem.
It’s Monday 17th October in the UK. We don’t do politics in hygge, but it doesn’t take a genius to know that, whoever you support, the country is in a deep pit of stressors and they are only getting worse: cost of living, international financial markets, worldwide worries and political machinations from every side. It’s enough to drive you to drink, except we all do … Continue reading Feeling Low? Free Ways to Find Some Hygge
I don’t know how time works: I just know that some weeks the time is everlasting and sometimes it flies. We’ve been watching The Lazarus Project on Sky recently, and the idea that there’s a reset point (on July 1st every year) that only some people remember if the machine resets is intriguing. Messing with time is dangerous, especially when we try to fit too … Continue reading Book Friday: The Green Sketching Handbook by Dr Ali Foxon
Change your space, transform your life. I like bold assertions and claims by books. This Book Will Change Your Life Forever has a nice ring about it… and then you read it, and realise that possibly it could… if you had the money to do everything it’s telling you to, or an army of servants to take over mundane tasks or even just space and … Continue reading Book Friday: Happy Starts at Home by Rebecca West.
What a strange few weeks it has been! I’m finally getting past my crazy cough that stopped me from fully participating in my Canterbury holiday. It’s not until now, when my energy is making a full return, that I realise how tired I really was, and how much I *may* have let slip by because of it. And now we’re in the last week of … Continue reading Creating Sanctuary: Summer Rescue Remedies
How to Hygge the British Way 