Being stuck inside the house with a toddler, who thinks that she no longer needs an afternoon nap, isn't much fun. Specially when I know that she'll be tired and grumpy by about 5pm. So yesterday we ventured outside again to build more snowmen.
And afterwards we had a good excuse to drink hot chocolate.
Our exploration of the new area was slowed down by both Cat and I catching a cold and spending a whole week mostly at home with occasional short trips to the shops. And just as we got better the weather turned really cold (for London), the snow came down (London has seen the heaviest snowfall in 18 years, weather experts said.) and we are staying indoors again. We did brave outside for few minutes to play with the snow and build a tiny snowman.
Poor Clive didn't have the same option and just spent TWO and A HALF hours getting to work, since most London public transport is suspended or experiencing sever delays.
Saw this meme at Rachael's:
The rules:
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open to page 56.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 2 to 5 sentences, along with these rules.
5. Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual book. Pick the CLOSEST!
6. Tag five other people to do the same!
Surprisingly the book next to me wasn't The Little Red Train Storybook or some other kid book from Cat's current favourites. Few minutes previously I picked up Elisabeth Kubler-Ross' autobiography "The Wheel of Life" from one of the many boxes filled with books. Here is the quote from the book, if I follow the rules:
Dr. Braun's fate was as unclear as his whereabouts. Either he was hospitalized for one of his manic episodes or he was in jail. Who knew when we would see him again, and it turned out the answer was never.
I think you'll all agree that this isn't a very exciting quote and doesn't do justice to the book or its incredible author, so I thought I'll post the bit from the end of the book, which I loved:
It is very important that you do only what you love to do. You may be poor, you may go hungry, you may live in a shabby place, but you will totally live. And at the end of your days, you will bless your life because you have done what you came here to do.
Some of the files on my Australian photo DVD got corrupted and my computer is struggling to read it. I asked my parents to make me another copy from the one they have and until the new DVD arrives in the mail I thought I’d do a review of 2008. It feels a bit premature to do so, as the year will truly end for me with the trip to South Africa. Lately the starts and ends of my years don’t coincide with the calendar ones.
2008 was definitely a year of travel: starting with our New Year trip to Berlin (Germany), followed by Utsunomiya (Japan), Odessa & Kiev (Ukraine), New York (USA), Melbourne (Australia) and few small trips in UK. I’m planning a quieter year at home: maybe do some camping in summer, explore London and surroundings, do a lot of walking and train riding and less air travelling. Long trips to far away lands feel wrong for our family at the moment.
I made few things this year, not as many as I could’ve if I was more organized and less timid in starting new projects.
However I learned to knit thanks to my mum, attempted to sew few simple things and discovered the joy of embroidery. I’m looking forward to improving my crafting skills and making many items for our new home (despite the horrified look on my husband’s face, who is probably imagining floral curtains and crocheted doilies covering every surface).
And my main project is growing well and bringing me more joy than I ever could imagine. Should I have another one?
I thought we managed to switch back to London time, but yesterday Cat fall asleep at 1 pm and slept until 4 am today. After being stuck inside the house all day yesterday I really wanted to get out and we went for a very early morning walk. Navigating in a new area in the dark was hard, but we got to see a fox and after finding a big park had it almost all to ourselves.
On the way back I went to a little local veggie shop to get some potatoes. After all the cold of outside Cat wasn’t in the mood to interact with the sales lady, but it didn’t stop her from giving Cat a mandarin. Made my day. I’m sure it makes business sense to be extra nice to the new customers, but I think the little kind gestures like that make a world much nicer place. And with my desire to be part of the community I definitely prefer shopping at the local shops instead of the big supermarkets.
I was completely in love with this area before we moved here and was slightly worried that I was seeing everything through the rose-coloured glasses. But I keep on falling more and more in love with it everyday. There seems to be so much to discover and enjoy here.
We are back from Australia. Back to OUR OWN tiny house full of boxes to be unpacked. There is so much to be done: renovation, furniture buying, curtain making, etc. But for now Katya and I keep on waking up at 2am and sleeping through big parts of the day.
It may look now as if people educated to use our newest technologies efficiently are the world's elite, but in the long run I believe that people educated to have, as well, that point of view that used to be described as humanistic - the long-term, over-all, contemplative point of view - will turn out to be more influential. Simply because they understand more of what is going on in the world...
To my mind the whole push and thrust and development of the world is towards the more complex, the flexible, the open-minded, the ability to entertain many ideas, sometimes contradictory ones, in one's mind at the same time.
Doris Lessing Prisons we choose to live inside.
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I finished reading this tiny book by Doris Lessing and looking forward to reading her other works. She sounds like fascinating wise woman.
