Solstice Bells

It's that time of the year again. Midsummer. Longest day, shortest night. Summer solstice, first day of summer....   People dressing up as what they think Druids might have looked like and ushering the down in at Stonehenge (incidentally, one of the reasons I first travelled to UK was to see Stonehenge. Nineteen years on, I still haven't made it.), Neo-Pagans dancing in the altogether on Glastonbury Tor.... Okay, maybe not that one.

 

But you see my point, I trust - it's a special time of the year. Two solstices, two equinoxes (or as some would have it, equinoces, or even equinoctes), four touchpoints in a calendar year that are all about balance. and balance, in my life philosophy, is what it's all about.

 

So having established that I see the summer solstice and its three little friends as pretty important, it would logically follow that I make the effort to do something to mark the occasion.

 

Well, I do. Of course I do. If I didn't, there'd be no point to the post, would there ?

 

Every solstice, every equinox, what I do is.....

 

 

 

.... change our toothbrushes. 

 

Yep, you read it right.  You know how the dentists and other dental care professionals say you ought to change your toothbrush every three months ?  Well, I kept forgetting.  There's generally too much going on in any given three months for me to give the toothbrushes any thought from one use to another - and it's only when they started getting too tatty for comfort that I would try and remember when I last changed them.....

 

.... And failed.

 

 

So now I do it on solstices and equinoxes.  One of these comes around every three months, and there are scant chances of even someone as preoccupied as yours truly of forgetting them.

 

Mine's the pink one, btw.

All Change

                                                          Paleo eating - mixed salad with squid rings.


Firstly, the Paleo diet is still going strong and is changing us both - the pounds are dropping off and the energy levels are rising.  I am walking a lot and reaching my 10K of steps most days....

Paleo eating - onion, mushroom and herb omelette with pumpkin seed salad.

.... and then there is DD, and her decision that she is ready to join the world again, and her application to study A Levels at college.  She had an interview yesterday - we are talking about pretty much the first public appearance, let alone a real-life conversation, in about two year - and has been offered a place.

...I've yet to see a bird in that birdbath....

I have handed in my notice at work, and have three weeks and a day left in the library - six and a half years, and I am ready to move on.  More than ready, in fact. 

Redecorated lounge

And all that work we did decorating and decluttering and getting the house ready to sell ?  It was worth it.  First viewer through the door fell in love with the place and offered the asking price - shortly afterwards, we offered on a house we've been eying up online for ages; viewed and struck off our list as being too much of a project; failed to find anything else meeting our requirements; decided that we will leave it to fate and, should we sell, no perfect house with every box ticked appeared, and this house was still on the market, we'd take it as meant to be and go for it -

                                                            The kitchen is never normally this tidy !

- and that's what happened. 

Dine in style

And you know what ?  I'm over the moon about it :o)  I am not even thinking of the house in its current dilapidated state - I see it as it's going to be when I've had my wicked way with it. 

Sweet dreams

Oh, and the garden - 120 ft of weedy wilderness with a little gated secret garden at the bottom.  I could not have dreamed it more perfect for us!

                                                                 My new garden !


So here we are - a few weeks to go, all being well, and it's go for new house, new town, new career and new educational opportunities.  Watch this space.....

 

 

 

 

We are on the move !

School's Out

.... for summer !

Well, really it has been out for good ten days now.  Our year of home educating has drawn to a close with two weeks of AS Level exams, and now it's time for the long wait until we found out how well we've done.

Of course, the fact that I have been ill and that DD was therefore perhaps encouraged a bit too much to draw on her own resources means that, if she does well, it will be to her credit - and if she doesn't, I'll be to blame.  Somehow the division of praise or otherwise always seems to fall in the same pattern. Oh well :o)  I am just pleased we reached the end of another school year alive and well - and really, more well than any of us have been for a long, long time.

So, what's DD decided to do with her long summer holiday ?  She has all this time on her hands now, she says, so she might as well dedicate herself to becoming fluent in another language.  And in order to give herself the best chance to do succeed, she might as well concentrate on the language that she already has the best command of.  Which, in her case, would be what you might call her mother tongue.... Or at the very least, her mother's native tongue, Croatian.

Which is great. No really, it is :o)  But how come that, once again, she finds herself with all this time on her hands, so she decides to fill it by finding me summat else to do. Because, of course, the best possible way to become fluent in a language is to make the best possible use of the native speaker you have living under your roof.  So much for school being out for me....

But hey, looking at the bright side - this must say something about my teaching skills, the fact that she wants so spend her long holiday making good use of them.  Right ? 

In other news, the long weeks of getting the house market-ready have also drawn to a close, and we should be on the market some time next week.  The valuations so far have been more than we hoped - let's hope that the buyers agree !  And so starts the merry-go-round of viewers and viewings and, hopefully, in the not too distant future, surveys and solicitors and movers and packing and.... A new home :o) 

Never a dull moment here.  Not sure if that is a good thing or not.....