A tangled web, the morning sun,
Gossamer on high,
Dewdrops beading, fragile whispers,
Magic in the sky.
Spiders are not everyone’s cup of tea and if I am to be totally honest, they aren’t mine either. What I do find fascinating about spiders though is their webs.
Web of pearls.
How do these tiny creepy bug things build such beauty? What instinct has taught them how? How do they build these homes of theirs so quickly? What is contained in those gossamer strands that will hold an unsuspecting fly in place for the spider to feast on later?
Sparkling diamonds.
You know something, I don’t really want to know the answers to these questions! I love the mystery surrounding spider’s webs! And I don’t really need to see the spider either, although I don’t mind occasionally bumping into one (figuratively speaking!) just so that I can admire his agility as he builds his home.
Incy-Wincy spider.
If there is one thing prettier than a spider’s web in the sunlight, it is a spider’s web in the sunlight with drops of rain, or dewdrops, hanging like delicate pearls from each silky strand, and this is just what I have seen outside of my window over the last couple of mornings.
Pink pearls.
What an incredibly beautiful way to start the day! It is a sight to make my heart sing!
Diamond edged spider’s trampoline.
These clever spiders have chosen the ideal area in my garden, between some evergreen trees and shrubs, where they won’t be disturbed at all, and best of all, I can see them from my window.
Strands of diamonds sparkling in the sun.
This family of spiders is welcome to live in my garden as long as their collective little hearts, and multiple hairy legs, desire!
The whole family has moved in, and they’re welcome. 🙂
How fast the last seven weeks have flown by. Seven weeks, since I last added a post here at Home Life!
My regular routine kicked in toward the end of last year, which is being overly busy around the end of the year and the beginning of the new year, with work. I should be used to it by now, I’ve been working the same way for the last twenty-seven years.
The weather is turning cooler at night, bringing beautiful folds of mist to the valley in the mornings.
Twenty-seven years! I can hardly believe that I’ve done the same work, year in, year out, for that amount of time.
Making school uniforms from home has had its benefits throughout those years. It helps that I love to sew, the business has grown (or shrunk!) depending on the stage my life has been at, at various times. It has been a portable business too. I began the business when living in Sydney and it moved north with me twenty-one years ago and continued to flourish. And you know what the best part of my business has been? I have been at home for my children, during their growing years.
My children are all grown up now though, all except for Adam, but he is a teenager and will be finished school by the end of next year. And being a boy, he isn’t demanding either!
Miss Tibbs is always contented, so long as she has food and a warm place to snuggle.
I’ve been thinking about me lately, about what I want to do myself, where I want to be, the work I want to do. I think the time has come for change.
During the last couple of weeks I’ve caught up on life, you know, cleaning the house, tidying a few things up, getting through some paperwork and sorting through my desk. Doing the things I don’t have time to do when I’m making uniforms for schools.
This week I began catching up with some of my blogging friends. I haven’t caught up with everyone yet, but I will. And I’ve written, lots.
Little Butcher Bird, waiting for his breakfast.
On my family history blog, I’ve added a story of some old postcards, from Whitley Bay. Next, I’m looking forward to writing about my grandfather. I’m really loving the way this blog is progressing, albeit slowly! All of the posts I write seem to come together so effortlessly and I really love the look of the website. It’s very personal to me, like my baby, and a site which I am hoping that future generations will also appreciate in time.
It’s been nearly a year since I wrote for “A Sense of Spirit”, but I finally did so yesterday. I have so many ideas of stories to add there, yet when I do begin to write them, sometimes the words don’t come easy. Yesterday’s post, however, simply bubbled onto the page! When I feel what I am writing, deep in my heart, the words flow so easily. On the downside, the writing can leave me emotionally exhausted! I must attempt to at least write one post a week there though.
Tibouchinas flower spring and autumn. They are now covered in beautiful autumn purple-ness.
In “Memoirs of my Life” I remembered my dad’s birthday. He would have turned ninety-three last weekend, if he were still here. I added a photo on the post of the two of us, hand in hand, taken only about a month after we lost my mum. Dad was so sad at that time and seemed to never smile, so unusual for him as he was such a happy man. I love the photo though.
This week, I have even written a few poems, something that I used to do years ago, yet haven’t even attempted in the longest time. Surprisingly the words seemed to flow easily and I even started up a brand new baby blog to add them to. (I’m not promoting that blog here, by the way!) An awful lot of poets have already discovered the new blog, adding “likes” to some of my poems. I feel rather wary of some of the poetry I have read by some of these people though, as I have read what I would describe as some really “dark” words! Poems that include glass to cut with, and rivers of blood. Eeeeekk! Perhaps I live a very sheltered life, but I prefer to read poetry with meaning, or at the very least, uplifting! Having said that, some of the poems I have read have really made me smile; a good thing!
Palm trees, weighed down with bunches of palm seeds, looking stunning against the mist.
So, while I have been writing, and contemplating change, I have decided that I will see if I can find a buyer for my little business. I would hate to just leave my customers high and dry, with no supplier of their school shirts. Besides, I have more sewing machines than I need, if I stop with this business. There is someone out there who is looking for just what I have to sell, so when they find me, and I find them, we will both be happy!
When I think of selling my business, I feel so liberated! Time for me, to keep up-to-date with my life, all year round! Time to take more walks, to take more photos, to start up something new, something that fits my life more comfortably, work-wise!
My lovely friend, Larry the Kookaburra, is still frequenting my garden restaurant.
Having spent so much time in “blogging hibernation”, I have prattled on a bit today! I’ve added a few photos to break up my ramblings a bit, with no particular theme, just photos taken recently that I like.
It’s good to be back and I sincerely hope that this time I’m back, I won’t be disappearing for weeks on end, ever again. 🙂
“Good night, good night. Parting is such sweet sorrow that I’ll say good night until tonight becomes tomorrow.” ~ Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet.
The house appeared to us late one afternoon in August. To this day, I believe we did not find the house, the house already knew us, and was waiting for us to locate it. We were destined to live here.
It wasn’t until the next day that we entered the property, climbed the two stairs up onto the front veranda, walked through the front door and felt the welcoming embrace of the essence of the building. We were home.
This house was not simply bricks and mortar, this house was our home, and our home had a soul, and the soul of the home protected us, nurtured us and guided us along the path that our lives would take throughout the next nine years.
When I look back on those years, I lived in abundant happiness, every day. Perhaps they were the happiest years of my life. In many ways I believe they were, even through the occasional time of sadness, yet with hindsight, as I reflect on those sad times, they were really only sad moments, times when there was a lesson to be learned and some growing to be done.
Everything happens for a reason, even the sadness we experience in our lives. And all of the sadness I felt whilst living in this home was preceded by extreme happiness.
I learned how to grow up during my years of living here. There were lessons to learn. Friendships were formed, and lost. Pets shared our home with us, and some were lost to us. Devastating news was received. A monetary fortune was earned. And throughout every event which took place during those nine years there remained an overwhelming sense of joy, and gratitude, love and happiness.
There were always friends at the house, parties and children.
My two eldest children were born whilst we lived here. Our home held many parties and with every new visitor to our home, there became one constant theme, that our home felt inviting and welcoming. Our home loved and needed our presence, just as it welcomed the arrival of our friends, family and our children.
Shiny, happy people….
When the year of 1992 began, everything changed. A subtle shift could be felt, a shift which I initially rejected. I felt afraid.
The most devastating news imaginable reached me from afar. That very same week, I discovered that my third child was on her way. There were changes taking place also with the means to our fortune, the income would soon dwindle. Work situations were changing…..
Change was in the air, in every aspect of our lives…..
Our beloved home knew that the time had arrived for us to prepare to leave.
I have one extremely vivid memory of this time of change, of a day when I was at home, alone. Of a day when I felt the walls of my home gently speaking to me, telling me to let go. I wanted to hug my home and never let go, yet all I could manage to do was lean against the wall, and cry and cry. I realised that I must heed the signs, and stop fighting. I had to listen, I had to let go.
Our 15 year old German Shepherd didn’t make the trip with us. We moved just over three months after this photo was taken.
That was the day I faced reality. I cried my heart out for my impending losses. My fear of losing a loved one, which would ultimately take me away from my home. The loss of all of the wonderful friends I had made whilst living here. The loss of this suburb, this city where my home was located. The loss of my beloved home.
Over twenty years have passed by since I left that home, yet my eyes are welling with tears as I recall leaving there, although even then, I knew it had to be.
A force far greater than anything I had ever experienced in my life, and far greater than anything I have since felt, had come into play. I had no control. I knew that I had to leave.
Methodically, I packed up my home. Progressively, the life I had been living for the previous fifteen years in this city of magic was neatly packed away into what seemed to be hundreds of boxes. Where had all of these possessions come from? I had arrived in this city, in 1977, owning just a few possessions. They had fit into the boot of a car.
For one whole day, late in the month of September, I watched as the removal truck became packed to the rafters with my life. My belongings, my memories….
I stood at the front door of my home as evening approached, watching the removal tuck back out of my driveway and headed away along the street; watching as my life drove away, fifteen years all neatly sorted and packed away in taped up boxes, knowing it would never be the same again, knowing that I would be leaving also within just a few short hours, seven months pregnant, knowing that tomorrow night I would be a thousand kilometres away from here. I would never live in this home again.
And I cried like I have never cried before, or since. My heart broke that day.
Yet for all of the pain I felt when I knew I must leave my home, I wouldn’t change a thing. I couldn’t change a thing. The good far outweighed the bad, the positive outweighed the negative. To live nine years of contentment and love was definitely worth the sadness of leaving.
Can a building possess you for a period of your life? And when the time has arrived for this building to push you out of the nest, sending you out into the big wide world, never to return to its warm folds again, can it really do this?
And can a geographical location, a city, and the surrounding area hold possession over your heart?
I know it can. For nine years I had been carried along on the tide of my life, a life which was overseen by the home in which I lived. They were happy years, precious years, years that I will always remember vividly and treasure forever.
The time had come to move on, yet after twenty years of being away, this city in which I once lived still holds a piece of my heart. It always will.
“The long and winding road that leads to your door
Will never disappear
I’ve seen that road before. It always leads me here
Leads me to your door. “ ~ Lennon /McCartney.
In My World 