Day by Day

Hello dear blogging friends.

I am writing today surrounded by boxes of tissues and am generally feeling a little bit fed up. For the past week, me and the Little Girl have been suffering with a nasty cold. It all started at the weekend when the Little One's cough got so bad she was finding it hard to catch her breath...we rang our on call doctor on Sunday night for some advice, and to cut a long story short we ended up at the A&E of our Children's hospital as the doc was rather concerned....after being examined, she was given the all clear, but a couple of days later we were both still coughing our heads off. We felt things weren't as they should be so headed up the hill to our local doc, who pronounced us both to be with chest infection. Hmmmph.

Still, we have wrapped ourselves up and gone out into the back garden for half an hour today to enjoy the sunshine (which I assume is penetrating through vast swirling amounts of the volcanic dust we have heard about on the news). The skies are strangely quiet - our house is on the flight path to Manchester airport so we often hear and see aeroplanes heading in or out, but not today as all flights are grounded until the ash blows away!

We were delighted to discover our little cherry tree had dressed itself in a frothy gauze of delicious pink blossom! Other parts of the garden are being smothered by juicy purple coloured primroses which originated in my Grandads' garden many years ago...over time my Mum has taken cuttings and replanted and re-homed them throughout the years - they're still going strong here!

Our pot of spring bulbs is looking pretty now the tulips are out too...

...Im sure this variety is called Lemon Meringue, or something like that - I love the colours though, very reminiscent of that tasty dessert!!

So, due to the huge feeling of apathy around here, not much has been achieved art or craft wise - lounging, reading the new Country Living mag, drinking juice and herbal teas and watching Little One draw pictures has been about the extent of the efforts this week. Still, I have a little something to show you, something I made one evening last week before the deadly virus struck!

A little crocheted cuff for a jar!

I had seen something similar to this in a book on Amazon, and quite liked the idea that the coverlet stopped three quarts of the way up the jar instead of going all the way to the top. I added a little ceramic button to finish it off and have been using it in the evenings with a tea light in it - the glow through the crochet stitches is rather pretty but I'm afraid I couldn't get my camera to take a good enough picture to show you.

I made it using Rowan Handknit Cotton DK in white and aqua using half double crochet stitches for extra support (I find HDC work better with things like this instead of my usual double crochet).

I was thinking of making some more of these, and creating little wire hangers from craft wire so I could dot them about the garden when the weather is warm enough to sit outdoors - I imagine they would look quite pretty in different colours!

Being under the weather and not well really makes me crave wellness and getting out and about again as soon as possible. However, being ill again so soon after a recent head cold has made me sit and think a bit - I wondered why I was getting bug upon bug, and like most simple things, the answer was staring me in the face all along.

I was run down (without realising it), I do far too much and my diet is a bit rubbish.

(Well, that's to say there are perhaps one too many cakes in my diet and perhaps not as much of the green good stuff that there should be! :D )

With not much energy to do anything other than sit and ponder, I gave the matter a bit of thought - you could say I did a bit of a Body MOT, looking at my bod as you would a car you can safely say I've been running on a very low fuel tank for rather too long...which isn't good is it?

So I'm making some real changes. Things lie taking time for Me each day (even if it's just a nice soak in the bath) saying 'No' if something feels like it's too much or not possible - eating more fruit and veg (as well as the odd slice of cake here and there) and learning a bit more about the healing nature of food. I have started reading a book about nutritional health to pick up some tips and I'm hooked!! I had no idea there was a whole pharmacy in my backyard!! It's very inspiring and when I'm recovered from this chest infection, I'm going to be planting lots of immunity boosting salads and veg in my garden! :D

So, day by day, I am getting healthier and healthier...this is my positive affirmation to remind myself how important our little Bod's are, that we must love and nurture them as much as we love and nurture everyone else, otherwise they won't work properly.

Well, I've gone on long enough I think for today! I hope you are all well, and next time I write I hope to be fully recovered and full of zing and zest!!

Sending you quiet moments, cherry blossom, peach tea and sunshine

Love Julia x