This was the view out of my kitchen this week and last. It is June, people. We've passed the longest day. But that sluggish
North Atlantic Drift, watered down and warmed up, is not sending us much summer any more. Still, the garden looks kind of beautiful in the wet. Droplets of water hang from plants like jewellery, and the garden furniture has the sheen of night-out clothes to it. I quite like its rain-adorned finery.
I am wearing my winter cardigan but other than that, all is good. The Tiny One recovers from tonsillitis (again) and is experimenting with the extent and the power of his will. The Little One feels the brunt of it, but mostly they are playing nicely together and usually it is the Little One causing the tears anyway. The Little One is heading to Big School for try-outs once a week. It's an adjustment for all of us, but less than the one from the hiding place of my skirts to braving nursery school. I am proud of him.
The Big One is taller than me. His feet are bigger than my husband's. His ears are being ruined by too-loud music and his eyes ruined by too-much Minecraft playing. But he occasionally sees the outdoors, breathes in fresh air, talks to us, and evolves. The angry transition from boy to teenager is over and now we see the gentler maturing from teenager to man before our eyes. He was my little chum once, my four-year-old best friend. It's a strange thing for a mother to see - wonderful but distant.
The sewing is slow. In the evenings I am tired. In the days I am diverted. But starting to appear on the horizon is the time when the youngest will both be old enough to spend at least some of the week away from me in nursery or school, though still a year away. Rather than something intangible, it is now something of my imagination. With the view of the horizon, I can live happily in the present. It has meant I can more kindly set the sewing aside as the days require, and can revel in my children unencumbered. These days are numbered. They are precious and, as I remember from the days when the Big One was four instead of fourteen, they are bliss. It sounds a bit silly to say it, but though my vocation is sat at my sewing machine, my heart is now full with my two very best, very favourite little friends.
The Tiny One has been awake since 5.30. I am surprisingly not that tired - after nearly a week of early starts, perhaps my body has accepted it. It is time to go and wake the Little One, get us all dressed, and get his very precise breakfast made. I have nursery to drop off at, toddler group to go to, stories to read to the group and a music session to lead. A hurried lunch, and no sewing again today as we have friends over tonight. That means a house to hurriedly clean, a cheesecake to make, a stew to prepare, and if they're lucky, eight pm will arrive with me serene, prepared and all hostessy (yes you can laugh too - ridiculous notion!)
I'm blogging less because I'm living more, and somehow when the present is accepted with less questions, I find I have less to say. But as I write now, oh goodness, how I love stitching these words together. I should write here more, don't you think?
