One of the things I miss most about not having Mr. VP around is the walks.  Despite the typical Northumbrian weather we used to go out for lovely walks.  Even if it was just an hour’s walk along the beach at sunset – we were together.  I have found that doing things alone is considerably different to doing things together.  I miss pointing things out to him, walking and talking, and running around like children with him.  However on my own I am more inward, I take more notice of my surroundings and my mind is louder; it makes up for the lack of conversation.

When I left for this walk it was icy outside.  The night before we’d had torrential rain, followed by clear skies and a harsh frost.  It was a winter white scene that greeted me that morning, with a low hanging mist.  It was beautiful but it took me 20 minutes to get the windscreen de-iced.

I like getting up early and beating the rushes.  Even on my days off, the latest I seem to get up is 7.30am – I am an early bird by nature (though only when I don’t have to be up – I hate getting up early on days when I have to be up!).  The early dog walkers were just leaving as I was arriving and I had got to this mist-laden place at the right time – after the dog walkers but before the normal crowd.  It was cold and quiet.  The first person I came across came bounding up to me like her golden labrador – she clocked the camera hanging around my neck and told me the exact location of some woodpeckers.  It is this sort of open warmth that I’ll miss when we move down south.  I don’t think people down there are like the people up here.

I walked to a meadowland and as I walked it got lighter and lighter.  Each drop hanging from a branch wasn’t a drop at all – it was a mini-icicle.  All that stillness and beauty was laid before me and I was the sole person there to enjoy it.  As if time had stopped mid-downpour, the mist hung and the icicles clung to their branches and it was still.  Filled with birdsong it was beautiful.

The trees looked like they glad of their mossy symbiotes, the deep green covering their trunks is welcome relief from the ice and snow.

The light was so subtle, as February is in general.  The sting has been taken out of the tail, it is not harsh like January but yet not as welcoming as March either.  My favourite picture was the sight of a row of trees, silhouetted perfectly against the horizon, with a chimney puffing out woodsmoke.  The smell of which takes me immediately back to the Dordogne, as did the constant, hanging mist.  It was magical, and yet I felt a pang that it was just me alone enjoying this – Mr. VP was a very long way away indeed.

But just as the robin singing atop a hawthorn tree cheered my soul, the sight of a budding wild honeysuckle did much the same – it gave me hope that not only would the winter be gone soon, so would my long separation from Mr. VP.  Hope, every little helps.

Positive thought is supposed to banish negative.  With that in mind, I am consciously trying to ignore the comments made by one rather unpleasant colleague today and move on.  I keep thinking of someone coming to look around the house, fall in love with it and buy it.  So far we’ve had no takers, not even a viewing and it’s been on the market over a month.  It’s pretty grim here at the moment, snow falls in ever-changing amounts, sometimes (as we’ve had tonight) a sprinkling, other times (at the weekend) we had 2 1/2 inches.  And it’s still dark.  Much darker than it is in the southernmost parts of England.

I am officially done with winter.  I not only have the blues (lack of blue sky that does it), I have the drizzly greys, the orange streetlights and the snow whites.

So I am officially abandoning England in winter and am taking up residence at 101 Zen Street, Tashville – a.k.a. My Happy Place.  Comments from colleagues are going “over the head and away” and, at least I am lucky enough that I won’t be working there much longer.  *insert happy dance*

Ok, I’m off to My Happy Place.  Catch ‘ya on the flip side :)

(Alternate post title:  “How to make your 24-year-old daughter scream with delight”)

When my dear Mum came up to see me last weekend she gave me one of my birthday presents.  It may seem odd, giving me birthday presents so long after the event but in truth this wasn’t a late birthday present.  Oh no!  It was in fact an early one.  My birthday (officially on 4th Jan) was scrapped entirely because we had such a bad day.  No cakes were consumed (an M&S cake was bought but not really eaten properly on the day), no merriments were had, there were no wishes upon candles and there were no presents or festivities.  We took the “executive decision” to have it at a later date (as yet unspecified, though I’m thinking it might be late Feb early March) or rather a birthday “in lieu”.

However my Mum being the angel she is, could not keep this present from me.  She knew it’d make me a very happy person indeed.  She couldn’t have been more right.  On the day of my actual birthday Mum and I were looking around possible houses to rent.  We spent the day visiting many little towns, villages and hamlets in the chance that somwhere would eventually catch our eye (we failed*).

In one of the towns we visited there is a proper ironmongery shop.  The kind that every town used to have, which stocked everything conceivable, including Tala icing sets.  Seeing it there reminded me of a post on Jenny’s blog about Spritz biscuits.  It appears that it was a rather retro fashion in the 1950’s to make extruded biscuits, and seeing that icing set reminded me of those and we started talking about it.  Mum was aware that such things existed and she very cleverly and secretly bought me a Spritz biscuit maker!

I found a recipe on the ‘net and off I went, merrily making hundreds of these perfectly-shaped mini edibles.  It was so much fun!  Sandwich the round ones with jam and you have perfect jammie dodgers!  I made almond-flavoured biscuits, which just happen to be perfect with coffee.  Thanks Mum, you’re the best! :)

*We failed, but that could’ve been down to the freezing temperatures (it didn’t get over -2ºC all day), the stress, carsickness and Mum’s dog being attacked by a neighbour’s dog.  I’m hoping with time I’ll come to love our New Location.

I’ve had a really nice time this weekend.  This may seem like a fairly inane sentence to most, but of late my weekends haven’t been filled with much relaxation or pleasurable activities – this is the side-effect of me being up here and everyone else being “down there”.  Whilst we’re still waiting for people to come and see the house (apparently no one in Northumberland is viewing houses at the moment, though it is hoped that this will change with the better weather).

This weekend Mum came up and we had a very civilised and girly weekend.  We visited Durham, walked around the cathedral and had pizza from the little pizza shop in the covered market.  I queued for ages to get my favourite coffee ground at a little stall in the market before doing plenty of window shopping then coming home.  It was such a nice way to spend a weekend; in good company.  Mum and I have the habit of staying up really late and chatting away for hours.  It’s been nice to have someone other than the cats to talk to!

Today it’s icily cold and I am not feeling well so I took an executive decision to stay at home.  Whereas I would usually flog myself to the last and work even though I was feeling awful, as I know I will be leaving at some point in the future I have decided to be good to myself and not overdo it anymore.  I sent Mum on her way this morning and I have been feeling fairly ropey ever since, so have spent the morning in and out of bed.

I have something to look forward to though, in the form of Mr. VP coming up to visit me this weekend for a long weekend.  As I haven’t seen him since the beginning of January, I cannot wait!

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Now playing: Liam Finn – Gather To The Chapel

It has been a quiet few days.  It is less quiet now as I am back at work.  Today was one of those days when I woke up earlier than I needed to, and spent the whole morning wondering how I was going to manage to survive the day.  Thankfully survive it I did, with almost all of my sanity intact.

I have opted to take odd days off unpaid for the next few weeks, in the quiet time, giving me a little space to do the things I have found myself desperately wanting to do but not having the chance to do.  I have been playing again with my lino-cuts.  It’s been a long time.  I am finally putting pencil to paper and coming up with designs.  It feels good.

I find time to be a fairly scarce commodity at the moment – it seems to drag endlessly at work and disappear at home.  I got back from work just before 6pm this evening and between cooking food, washing up and chilling for about half an hour, time has disappeared.  It’s suddenly 9pm and I’m already looking longingly at my bed – albeit sans Mr. VP (this separation of 250 miles is proving to be annoying).

I baked this cake for my friend’s birthday.  I show I love people by baking them cakes.  I really do love people, my people, and I love baking them cakes.  This was for my dearest friend D.  The cake was a buttery Victoria sponge with Tiptree raspberry jam and vanilla buttercream filling.  Add sugar flowers and girly handwriting and it’s a birthday cake!

And despite the distance between Mr. VP and I, I’m not totally alone.  I still have the loving company of D and H, our lovely, wonderful, purring friends.

I have also enjoyed the sunlight immensely (when it’s around).  Even the cats who are usually totally unphotogenic and squirmy laid still enough for me to take photos.  The cats are usually forbidden from being on the bed, but I allowed them on just to get a nice photo of them.

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Now playing: Lucy Schwartz – Gone Away