It always strikes me each and every year, how we all build up to ‘national holidays’ or ‘day’s off’ like Easter for example. The way the essential shops are filled with people buying copious amounts of food. Yes, the traditional family Easter breakfast is a must for sure! The week leading up to Easter, officially known as ‘Holy Week’ was, where I live, a glorious week weather-wise. Warm, sunny spring days, being able to literally sit out in the garden and enjoy the blossom on a lot of trees and shrubs coming into bud, after the winter period. Newborn lambs skipping about on the dykes and generally the feeling that after this long lockdown, there was some hope on the horizon. And there is always hope on the horizon, even if it’s difficult to see it sometimes.
I found myself being drawn back to childhood memories of Easter. We always used to visit my grandparents who lived in Marple in Cheshire. My grandfather was a local church minister and one of the best things I remember as a child, was the huge amount of Easter Eggs I received from all his parishioners. So many I shared them all later with my class at school when we went home. The majority of our visit would be seeing family and of course attending the service at his church on Easter Sunday morning. Of Hot Cross Buns, warm from the local baker and best of all, if the weather was nice, an ice cream from the van which came at the end of the day, with the most delicious raspberry sauce ever. Strange how flavors remain so vivid in our memories.
This year, we planned a family Brunch. A little bit of deviation from the ongoing Corona rules, but there are certain circumstances, which I will not go into here, that made us all decide if we are fit and well, let’s go ahead. It was that same smell of raspberries which were on my chocolate pavlova that took me back once more to that same childhood memory.
Easter Monday was a bit of a shock weather wise, with gale force winds and snow! I mean come on its supposed to be spring, isn’t it? The words for the famous song are: ‘I am dreaming of a white Christmas’ and Easter is not included in that at all. Even though we know, April weather does what it wants, and anything goes. I was just about to pack away my winter clothes to be honest but the forecast this week is really cold weather coming down from the Artic North, so I think I will postpone for a week or maybe two!
And guess what the Easter film was on the British TV – yes you are right: The Sound of Music.
But yesterday evening I watched a documentary on Netflix called Seaspiracy. It was so shocking I almost wanted to switch off. For those of you who have seen it, I am sure you agree and for those of you who have not, I would highly recommend that you do. It is such a sad eye opener and believe me I will never be eating tuna again!
So, a new short week begins, and whilst the snowflakes are pelting down again, a moment for reflection for me. I am working on a new book and several chapters are done. It’s going to be a joint venture with a friend of mine, Scarlett de Bontin, and picking up from something, we started way back in 2017 and put to one side. But suddenly the story came back to me in a dream. A strange dream all about Rome and then the inspiration for the story line. So next morning, laptop on and making which I call the ‘backbone’ of the book. Just a basic list of begin, middle and end. And then it’s all about the ‘let go and trust’ moment that the inspiration will flow which is does some days and others not. Chapters are often not written in a sequential order; I must admit that I often write the final chapter before I have hardly done the introduction. But that is all the fun, weaving all the threads (chapters) together at the end and making it into a book. That is my plan this week, to touch base with Scarlett through a Zoom session and brainstorm our ideas and make lists of who is doing what… it is an exciting feeling.
So, hope everyone out there is doing well. At some stage I hope that this lockdown will come to an end and that normal life will begin again. It will even though it doesn’t seem that way, but I often think some days, that things happen for a reason and maybe we all needed a moment in time to stop, slow down and prioritize. Look at things that were really important in our lives, instead of the continual automatic challenge of the rat race. Being more within, being more at home, not able to rush about from ‘a to b’ and most of all having time which is something people constantly complain about not having enough of. It is challenging, and it has been challenging, but it is important to keep focused on that ray of hope that soon it will be different. Will we be different from the experience? Very probably yes. Will we think different about what our dreams really are? Our dreams and not what someone else expects of us. Freedom and not being constantly told what to do, when to do it and how to do it.
For me this week, it’s back to the ‘drawing board’ as they say and getting on with my ideas (and Scarlett’s of course) for this new book. That is my passion, writing … so on that note, have a good week everyone!
IMAGES: GOOGLE
