Month: April 2026

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Island Blog – It takes Time

I used to be lonely, and for years, not just after himself took off to the stars, although that sideswiped. me a ton truck more than I had expected. When you care for a partner, and for so very long, you can find yourself wanting it to end.

I used to envy oldies like me walking past my island home holding hands and actually talking happily together. I used to slow down, to tackle any task wounting my steps, pausing a lot. Any task would have taken me five minutes plus a bit in the past. But the past is gone and I am very changed. Most of that change is olding, and we all face that, in time, but there is a lift and lift of responsive changeability, which kind of implies I did the changing myself. I did. I knew I didn’t want to hover over the past, wishing a load of shit away. I knew, instead, that I wanted to be someone, be something, no matter any demise, any trauma, any loss. And, the answer was/is simple. I hate that because it isn’t. However, over the last six odd years, suddenly alone and not just in the death of himself, but of my family leaving the island, I have learned much. Actually this learning thing has surprised me with its results. It seems to me that, by just a gentle daily practice with intention, a whole. way of seeing and believing shifts like something underwater and unseen.

I. wanted. to decide I was perfectly okay with all those happy lives around me. I wanted not to feel lonely and. definitely not needy., but a decision like that has. no legs because it’s all about willpower, and mine is floppy. I don’t know when I decided to stop feeling sorry for myself, to question my going out there among friends with a rictus smile, the great pretender. But I do. remember. hiding, facing nothing, living in minutes, filling in hours, drudging my days. And at some point I found light, just a twinkle, a tiny something that lifted my. heart, made me smile. Could. have been a. hug that was real, a hold. Could have been the stranger who wanted to chat in the veg. section of Dugie’s. Could have. been a kindness on the road to a dentist appointment. I don’t remember.

When the whatever began it showed as faith in humanity. I felt seen and heard. I mattered, and that made me ‘matter’ up. I began. to appear, to rock up, to step up. Now I work, now I walk, now I see couples go by hand in hand and wave and smile and wish them a wonderful evening. Now I feel that I miss nothing at all. I can embrace those slow minutes and, when I put on tunes, can dance through rooms that hold only happy memories. I remember so much now that my mind is rid of all that angst. The key for me is thankfulness. When I wake, whatever the striations of the night, I greet the dawn with a thankyou. As I go through my day I thank and allow. The things that irritate are only there when we feel like confronting. If we don’t, if we just back up, back down. then I recommend the peace that comes from that decision. Everyone has a tough life.

This takes a decision and practice and a lot ot Time. They say Time is an illusion. I like them.

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Island Blog – Thoughts and Feelings

It is so good to be home, and. that thinks me. Learning as I have from others, wiser than I, I make my mind go deep on them. It is too easy to think a thought or to feel a feeling and for either to skitter off like kangaroos. I want to grab them and to hold either and for us, together, to burrow deeper. What is it about coming home that really makes it so wonderful? What is it about that feeling that so caught me by surprise? It can be catch in breath, a skitter in the belly, a wildflower in the mind, or a sudden desire to run. It can be so many things, but without deep thought it can decide itself and that is usually a mistake. As long as we surface glide over feelings and thoughts we can make wrong decisions, ones we later regret. However, it is understandable that we do this surface gliding thing because nobody ever taught us how to hold, to allow, to let a reaction breathe for itself. Instead, we react. I have reacted so often in my life that I have learned the inefficacy of it. Not always, of course, not when a situation requires it in order to save someone from falling into the beyond of themselves, but often when there was nobody nor nothing in danger beyond my pride or the invasion of my personal space or my crappy decision to go inside when I knew that inside was a trap.

Situations mellow me for sure, people, friends, community, a safe place, home. This is a truth, although even this will never stop the budgie flutters of awkward encounters and situations, most of which happen in my beautiful island home and when I am all alone and in my own mind. Thinks and feelings have, as it seems, no boundaries. And I love the challenge. In my youth, nobody mentioned feelings. In fact I do recall being remonstrated with for the abundance of my own as if. I was somehow poisoned and potentially a dange. to others. I was, I know it. Without. a clue and in my youth I just know I ‘infected’ others. Who in my days ever ever spoke of feelings. or developed thoughts? Answer…..Nobody.

Thus my feelings about being home list thus….. warmed, welcomed, safe, protected. My thoughts are scattermagic. They will settle as I let them breathe. Half of them are still in Africa after all. The key is to allow, to give thoughts and feelings time because they are up against all the fears, anxieties, imaginary demons, realtime horribles and more, already swirling like crows inside any of us, and they will wait for a clearer sky in which to unfold.

I am home and that is more than enough.

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Island Blog – From Flame to Ice

It feels so weird turning over two calendar pages. I did say thank you to the one I flipped past, something to do with not being picked for the netball team I think. Strange how the past triggers thoughts of being unimportant like mist when the sun comes out. I see how my home has been nurtured in my absence and I feel truly thankful. I have great and good friends who probably would pick me for the netball team, even just for laughs. I unpack, downstairs because my huge suitcase is way too heavy for an upstairs attempt. It’s good for me, I tell me, to do a lot of stair rising, which it. is. People my age give up too early. The wash is on, the mail opened and mostly binned, the fire lit, the range turned right up and the upstairs of this old home ever-so-slightly warmed. Lordy, it’s cold, and snowing now, a lot, like meaningfully determined. The tulips are flattening, ditto daffys and soon the anemones and wee other things will disappear completely. I tell them, snow gets warm as a coverall. I hope that’s true.

I was, I confess, afeared of my journey from mainland to ferry port, the chance of said ferry being offed for about ten reasons, the roads being busy, wet, rainfilled, the clouds so heavy they just land right in front of you, but none of that happened. My journey through quiet roads was easy, my arrival way before time, my name on the list and the ferry (not the bathtub) was shorter than expected as I met and talke with a lovely young islander woman all the way through a dodgy cup of tea. There was nobody on the boat we knew, we agreed. The season has begun. We talked of the ferry disruptions and our thoughts on the proposal for a tunnel and we both blanched at that. The thing about island life is that it is safe just because nobody can get here without a ferry ticket.

It’s snowing. This stupidly named gale is coming apparently. The roads may slip us or they may not. The visitors may grumble or they may not. There may come a storm that threatens life and limb, or there may not. The weather reports. always give us. the disaster thing. It is nonsense. All anyone has to be is prepared. I learned ‘prepared’ even before Tapselteerie. I learned it from the boots up in Norfolk, married to a farmer who could look at me, all puzzled, when I freaked out about something he had encountered and managed for years. In my defence, I was only 20. I. learned quick and why was that? Because I want to be an agile and vibrant part of an active life. I still do. It. does. wonder me. Are there gazillions of people out there who just don’t want to face what is clearly ahead?

Enough now. Unpacked and chilly, I am morphing myself back into. the now of the now of island life, the life I love. And I wish you all a very happy Easter.