Thoughts occurring in my brain:

• The time required to make marmalade is about the same as a Radio 4 afternoon play. This does not feel like a coincidence.
• The mark-up on store bought preserves is astronomical!
• I want to learn how to roast my own coffee beans.
• So much so, that for my 40th birthday I may in fact, buy myself this mighty Probat.
• I have given myself permission to dream big. This has resulted in five-baby-rabbits-in-my-belly level excitement for a much simpler, smaller life, that feels enormously freeing. The cosmic joke is not lost on me.
• I am fantasising about roast vegetable soup recipes. Sometimes Often in Board Meetings.
• After months of feeling all churny and trapped, everything feels lighter.
• Based on customer feedback, I could sell my marmalade. This makes me happy.
• Getting to The Place will probably take two years.
•  There are things I can do now. Like sell my house in Welly*.
• Over the next 18 months, I will be spending many evenings and Saturdays at Leiths.
• I have already started writing the business plan. I will need about £75k in seed money. And maybe an investor. So how awesome to get an email last night, which led to brunch plans this Saturday with a fabulously networked hookerupper in such matters. She is probably the most glamorous kiwi woman I have ever met.
• I feel completely in the flow of everything. And gloriously, unexpectedly, my dream appears to compliment exactly, the dreams of others.
• Mr P is very excited about life in the Cotswolds and already has plans for the keeping of bees and the telescoping of cosmos (note to self: I so married the right guy).
• Before I could let this dream in, I needed to find peace in myself.
• I have had a life-long Impatience Disorder. But right now I feel contentedly discontent. This dream deserves time to develop, marinate and grow.
• Its as though The Place already exists somewhere out there, in the Universe. I am already enjoying the journey to there.

*Before breakfast this morning, I negotiated the sale of my house to my current tenant, without the assistance of a member of the Real Estate Institute.

Ahem. So I may be a little bit sugar-rushed form standing over a maslin pan for 5 hours, but I actually felt a little teary when pouring my first ever batch into the cutest glass jars.

Best fun ever on a snowy winter weekend.

‘I came all the way from Deepest Darkest Peru in a lifeboat, and ate marmalade. Bears like marmalade’ ~ Paddington, spectacled Bear and fellow marmalade fan

And then it was time to get to Paddington Station. I miss that crazy cat already.

The twinkling fairy lights in the bay window, are such a welcome sight on this frosty Cotswolds morning. As I walk in my eye is drawn to the floor: a crazy mash-up-mosaic of different coloured tiles, it contrasts with the calm white walls and the occasional framed picture or photograph. Hanging in the eves of one corner, is a massive papier-mâché bird. It’s unexpected quirkiness makes me smile. There are old wooden tables with mismatched chairs, and a big squishy sofa beside a well-stocked wood-burning stove that blazes away.  Indie folk music plays from an impressively discreet sound system. I just know this place has free wi-fi.

The smell of fresh coffee is incredible. I seem to be the first customer as the papers sit unopened on a little table next to a hand-written ‘help yourself’ sign. I opt for a window seat where I can see the fire.

From the kitchen, behind a counter chock-full with pastries, cakes, bowls of salad and a massive coffee machine, a woman emerges. She smiles as she walks over to hand me a menu. Her long curly red hair tied up; she is dressed simply in a fitted white t-shirt and short flowery apron over her jeans. She looks healthy and relaxed. Happy.

‘Coffee?’ she asks expectantly.

As the familiar hiss and grind commences, I realise that this must be the owner I have heard about. She’s the kiwi woman who left London behind to pursue her dreams. This cafe used to be the community library and I think she managed to save it from development. My eye traces the length of the room, there is an old rusty sign: ‘adventures this way’, and another book-lined room is partially visible behind the sofa.

A minute or so later she sets my double-shot long black onto the table and offers to take my breakfast order. The door opens and an impossibly handsome man strolls out of the Toast catalogue and walks in armed with a crate of veges. ‘Mornin’ Sas, here’s today’s lot!’ he says with a grin, ‘there’s fresh butternuts in there, so I’ll be back for my free soup later’. She rolls her eyes and thanks him, bizarrely calling him Mr Photobird.

More people arrive: most greet her by name and she takes the time to visit each table and ask after ill family members, school plays, the controversy over the parish church flowers. A young woman of about 18 races in, and shouts ‘Sorry Sas!’ ties up her hair and immediately starts serving.

The coffee is strong and hot and the crema silky. I order another after my poached eggs. By now the place is full of locals and tourists. Children with cafe-branded book bags slung over their chairs are given crayons and paper to scribble on; apparently The Storyman will be in the library room in the afternoon, this news causes much excitement. A group of pension-age ramblers offer up thermoses to be filled with the butternut squash soup and take a loaf of fresh sourdough between them. They promise to be back in a few hours when the scones for afternoon tea will still be warm.

I look around me at this place and realise I don’t want to leave. I stare at the red-headed woman as she jokes with a middle-aged couple and hands them a box of cake. This is her place, and its magical.

She catches my glance and her eyes are sparkling.

Badger: then and now

The purring starts as soon as she is within sight of a person. She sleeps on her back with all paws skyward. She likes to lick tissue paper. And get into bags, cupboards, drawers. When we open the blinds in the morning she rushes up with purrs and mews as if we somehow turn on the world just for her, each day. She loves Rex so much that even when he steps outside for a few moments to take care of some important catty business, he gets Just Returned From The War level smooches. Badger is fearless.

And she is one of my favourite beings ever in the history of the universe.

After x-rays, blood tests an MRI and lumbar puncture, the vet says Badger has ataxic hind legs. Its a bit like cerebral palsy for cats. By all accounts she is likely to live a long and happy life, marred only by the weakness in her legs and her drunken-sailor walk. It takes her about 4 days to get down the stairs and she falls over quite a lot.  He favourite game of Rex Chasing is sometimes slowed by tripping over herself and sliding along the wooden floors. She doesn’t seem that bothered.

We are trying not to call her Spasticat.

The thing that happened last weekend, somewhere between the smudging of sage and the juicing of kale, was that I remembered myself. On Sunday morning I went out to get the papers and took a slow drive through frosted country lanes to Cirencester: no deadlines, both phones were unblinking with no-reminders, no expectations, no to-do list. Peace. I pulled onto the verge to take a photo of a stone wall and the fields beyond. It was freezing outside, shockingly cold. And I looked around me and took a deep breath and felt my whole entire mind, body, spirit and soul just relax.

I am so fucking tired. Of not loving what I do but resigned to the fact that this pays well and I am quite good at it. And who am I in this economy to want more? But I can’t shake the feeling of being a little trapped, of knowing that I am not creating anything that is mine.

Ultimately this current gig ain’t exactly smokin’ my tyres.

Later on Sunday afternoon I was lucky enough to have half an hour tucked up on the sofa in front of the fire: just me and Emma. We talked about what we had dreamt of for ourselves when we were little and how easy it is to end up somewhere without really consciously choosing a path. It was a giggly dreamy kind of conversation that didn’t seem all that life-changing. But since then squllions of right-brain neurons have been firing off in all directions.

I have been remembering and reflecting on all the bloody scary-brilliant growing I needed, to get to here. How I have managed to start again a couple of times over (in a couple of different countries). I have pushed myself, educated myself, paid off my student loans myself and managed to not get myself in any more debt. And I have learnt to be kind to myself, to be consciously amazed at my very own body.  I have glimpsed at despair and managed to haul myself out of the hole several times. I have had my heart opened up on an operating table aged four-and-a-quarter, and then continually broken and mended until I closed it up for business for a while. And then I let myself fall in love again. And because of all of these things and perhaps because 40 is winking at me from around the corner, for the first time in my life I feel whole.

I feel like I am finally getting it: the big IT: my purpose on this here rotating orb. I have been thinking about the things that make me tick, that are central to the very core of my being, without which I will wither to a dry husk.  These are five very simple, un-extraordinary things: ideas, words, food, connections – all fuelled by great coffee. And this realisation is forming into a plan for my future that feels so real I can taste it.

It makes my heart beat and my eyes water just thinking about it.

And from beyond the intellect, beautiful Love comes dragging her skirts, a cup of wine in her hand ~ Rumi

Dearest bloggy readers, I ♥ you. Thanks for taking the time to comment or tweet or email or facebook and say ‘me too’.

It seems the last few months of twenty-eleven were really HARD for loads of people. This being all growed up shit can be just so full of blergh, right? I feel completely ill-equipped much of the time. And then comes the spiral of sleeplessness; the fretting about what hasn’t been done, the demands from others, the expectations, the need to please. The old shames. Fears. And then Mars gets his entire red-ringed arse stuck in retrograde.

I spent my Saturday making my way through the papers before climbing Laundry Mountain. I ironed all the things and watched a craptastic John Cusack offering. I baked a carrot cake with lemon icing. This afternoon is all about the candle-lit bubble bath and the new (to me) book.

Everything seems slow and quiet, as though the entire universe has arranged itself perfectly to suit my state of mind. Maybe I am just able to move into the flow of it when I adjust my pace?

In five more sleeps I am off to the countryside to nestle in the bosom of my posse. Things are looking up.

One of my oldest and dearest friends left a comment to say ‘Love. Be Loved. Go and find yourself a piece of lawn, and spread your toes into it’.

Amen sister.

* apt tweetage from @hisptermermaid

I can’t think of my word. I feel as though I am made of glass. The world feels too big and too loud. I am scared at how scared I feel. I wanted a clean-slate, a fresh-start, a do-over, but I feel like I am back in the hole. I can’t sleep. My dreams leave me breathless. I can’t let go. I wonder if he ever thinks of me. I wish I didn’t care so much. Sometimes I wonder how I got here. Doing this work. I don’t feel very good about how I have handled some things. I know I am stressed. I am trying to figure it out. I know I need to stay in the moment, take each day as it comes, trust it will be ok. Know I am not alone.

I have found myself praying in the wee small hours: tell me what to do.

Something comes back, always the same.

Just breathe.

my favourite image from 2011 by Mckinley Rodgers Photography

Over the course of the last 365, I have gained a husband, a family and a new name. I stepped off the Carousel of Contracting and took a punt on my first permanent job in 10 years. This has proven to be a mixed bag of pros (pension contributions, funded training, paid leave, relative job security) and cons (less money, less autonomy than expected, the Human Remains Sausage Machine of Woe). I tried some new things: like attending beginner ukelele lessons (I need to practise much much more),  I helped to fundraise $20,000 for Christchurch, and I picked up a gun for the first time in my life and turned out to be Dead-Eye Dick.

I managed to continue the process of nourishing my body. And then in August it showed me exactly who is boss which took months to fully recover from.

We ate A LOT this year: the big table was moved into the living room for many soirees with loved friends. And we got a BBQ. We enjoyed a few travelley-trips, mostly around England: to a Northumberland Ducket, Cheltenham, Porthmeor Beach, Brugges, Rye, and a between-jobs-staycation. One weekend was just a cab ride away.

After a soul-searching Skype with Randi and many more in real life with Ash, the prospect of parenting has slipped further and further down to the very bottom of our to-do list. And while this feels so right for us, there is a small part of me that grieves a little for the little llife that we might have made but that will never be.

I mused on things like assisted dying, and nail polish. I reached 1000 blog posts.

Out in the world its been Crazy Times. It started with the monsoon rains in Bris Vegas, then horrific scenes from Christchurch and Japan. For a week in August there were riots all over England. And the sovereign debt crisis in key Eurozone countries continues to baffle most of us with the squillions of zeros required to bolster economies. I am sure I am not the only one with a sneaky sense that they still don’t really have the answer.  And then the Occupy Movement picked up the gauntlet of our fears and frustrations and the sheer injustice of the economic melt-down. I am full of love and admiration for those who are present in the protest. It gives me hope that the questions being asked will force us all to rethink capitalism and to shift the rules of how we want to live.

I don’t think that the planetary alignment or lack of a Mayan calendar, will result in 2012 being The End of Days, but there does seem to be shifts occurring. Perhaps next year will come the realisation that small really is beautiful?

There is much to be thankful for.