September
I have been wandering about through my September photographs. 2009 seems to have been a great season for mushrooms in our garden. It's interesting how the harvests vary from year to year and how easy it is to forget. This year is the season of damsons and tons and tons of autumn raspberries.
In September 2010 I find we were visiting our friends in Provence, driving through the Camargue and wandering the glorious stone buildings of Avignon. I find bulls and white horses and stone streets and a brightness of light that is rare here in North Wales.
In September 2011 our then nearly two year old grandson was busy playing trains. What has changed? He and his family have moved house and acquired land and pigs and he has grown tall and gone to school. He still likes trains as a nearly five year old but the trainlines have become extraordinarily complex!
Oh look, in 2012 I went to Nant Gwrtheyrn, the Welsh language centre on the beautiful Lleyn peninsula, and did a week's intensive Welsh course. My Welsh has been neglected over the last year with other family commitments. I must revive it. Perhaps another visit would be the shot in the arm it needs!
In 2013 the dahlias were glorious. I left them in the ground for the winter for the first time ever and was gloomy in the spring when nothing seemed to show for a very long time. Then suddenly in the summer the dahlias sprang into life just when I had entirely given them up. Now we just need a long, warm autumn. I have buds but no flowers. Are we too high and too far North to leave it so long?
This September comes around without my mother and my father in law. How life changes. And yet how life goes on, as this year we have new babies, ten month old Eliza, represented by the little Elizabeth Zimmerman jacket, and three week old Ted, represented by the Debbie Bliss crossover cardigan. I have just had a big birthday.
Seize the day. Feel the sun on your skin. Hold the damson jam up to the light. Hug the people you love.
I am sorry to have blogged so much less over the summer and not to have been out and about connecting with the blogs I enjoy reading. Thanks so much to those who read me for sticking with me. I think I am back now! Time to dive back in again.
I hope I can keep blogging long enough to be able to look back like this- so interesting
ReplyDeleteOne of the great things about blogging for a length of time is the way it allows you to look back on your life and remember things which had got lost in the busyness of time passing!
ReplyDeleteHello! It's great looking back through the years. I think it's good to have a break fir a while, then you come back refreshed. I love the Debbie Bliss jacket, wondering if/when daughter# 2 might ever have children, I am looking forward to knitting baby clothes again. My grandchildren are 4 and 8 now so knitting for them takes a little longer these days. Ronnie
ReplyDeleteThe Debbie bliss pattern is from a book of baby and small child patterns which is full of beautiful things. I have rather lost the patience for adult sized knitting now. Spoilt I suppose!
DeleteIt's only when you look back that you can see the path of life. Love reading your blogs.
ReplyDeleteYes, it's funny how you can forget the detail of things in the rush of time. Really enjoy the way having kept a blog for a while now let's me remember things I had forgotten.
DeleteI find your blog fascinating, a different hemisphere with some garden plants I know and some I haven't a hope of growing. As I get older and less able to look after my large garden I am saddened but can enjoy your ups and downs and have some empathy with them.
ReplyDeleteThanks penny! I love the contrast of your seasons and mine.
DeleteThanks for sharing the memories and the inspiring thoughts in this transition month, September. Look forward to reading your blog. Happy weekend! Marsha
ReplyDeleteTransition month - that's a good phrase for it!
DeleteElizabeth, I'm a September fan, perhaps because it's also my birthday month. Next year's b-day will be a very big,,,startling really, accumulation of years. I think that I'll be using the next year's worth of days to the fullest, trying to keep all the muscles, brain cells and so forth moving forward.
ReplyDeleteI loved seeing your reviewing of some past Septembers in your own life. Lovely knitting! Lucky little children.
xo
I'm a September birthday too Frances! I hope part of your plans for celebrating your big birthday is a trip to the uk!
DeleteEbb and flow - it's just the nature of life. Glad to see you here again.
ReplyDeleteThanks anny. Ebb and flow, yes.
DeleteLovely post and it's great looking back on what you were doing in September in previous years. I have never dared leave dahlias in the ground over winter so I am glad yours came back after a slow start. Great knittting! I took it up again some winters back but then I got into photography and the knitting got forgotten again! Knitting is a much warmer hobby for winter. :-)
ReplyDeleteKnitting is very much my winter occupation. Can't be bothered to sit down for long enough in summer but in winter it us the perfect reason to sit by the fire.
DeleteIt is good to look back at our precious memories. Indeed, how our harvest varies from year to year, and from region to region. I love the autumn colours in that sweet jacket and really should take up my knitting pins again ~~~waving~~~
ReplyDeleteHi Deborah. It always surprises me how much our harvests vary from year to year, partly to do with what we plant but also simply refelecting what wants to grow.
DeleteAutumn is always a time for reflection, I think, as the year gradually slows its pace. Good to see you back blogging and glad that the losses have been balanced by the wonderful new people in your life.
ReplyDeleteIt must be even harder if you have loss without new life. I know we have been lucky.
DeleteWith each grandbaby, I've promised myself to make a Zimmerman Baby Surprise, and yet it hasn't yet happened. With two more due in the New Year (February and April) perhaps . . . Meanwhile, yours is sweet and inspiring. Also inspiring is the mushroom photo --- think I'll get out with my camera this weekend and see if they're popping up around here yet.
ReplyDeleteI really loved doing the Zimmerman jacket. It was real thinking knitting and kept me puzzled and focussed to the end. Do have a go. Would love to know what you think!
DeleteYou reminded me of late August and September when my mother and I would go out to the fields for the mushrooms.
ReplyDeleteI love your baby patterns, is there a source? I was thinking to stockpile a few of these treasures.
And nostalgia, yes, I'm there myself.
XO
WWW
I use ravelry a lot for patterns and the ravelry wiki and BSj group was a huge source of help. The Debbie bliss is from a book of patterns where practically everything is tempting!
Deleteyes indeed Hug the ones you love. I love that gorgeous stone work in the house and wall. such beauty from natural materials!
ReplyDeleteand a Happy Birthday!!
DeleteWe have a stone mason at work maintaining one of our walls at the moment. Great to see someone who really knows how to use stone.
DeleteI'm in a looking back, and looking forward, mood - as we pack and sort. Counting down the weeks!
ReplyDeleteAlways find September feels like a new year for me, must be the new school term thing!
DeleteLovely post! I've just returned from a trip to see my mother for her 73rd birthday... she lives so far away, and it's almost harder to go and visit because I know how much time with her I'm missing when I come home again. Thanks for sharing, and OF COURSE we're still here reading! Looking forward to more of what you have to share.
ReplyDeleteI do understand about the tensions of visiting those who live far away. It has to be better to go, even if you miss them when you return!
DeleteOh, I enjoyed this look back over the years! Truth to tell, I'm so glad I'm not the only one who occasionally lets life take over and puts the blog on the back burner - but I do so enjoy yours! Lots of loss in recent months - so glad those delicious babies are there to be enjoyed. And your knitting is beautiful -it looks like something out of a catalogue. Mine is always sort of uneven and lumpy. I probably need to take some sort of a remedial course. Take your time, we will all still be here looking forward to the next post! x
ReplyDeleteThe problem with putting the blog on the back burner is the coming back to it. Somehow when it is part of the fabric of my week I have no problem writing it at all. Leave it too long and I begin to feel I have nothing new to say!
DeleteLovely post. It can almost be frightening, the speed at which life changes, but exciting too, if also very sad at times.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on your birthday and on the new addition to your family ... my husband is called Ted, it's such a lovely solid name.
Great name isn't it? They were also considering Stan. On the whole I am glad that Ted was the final choice!
DeleteI've been thinking about the passage of time too - and enjoyed your September thoughts and photos very much. Happy belated Big Birthday!
ReplyDeleteMust be the time of year to contemplate time passing Chris!
DeleteWhat a lovely review. I must look out that Debbie Bliss pattern book now I have an excuse. I knitted that Elizabeth Zimmerman jacket for my son without realising that was what it was. Happy Big Birthday to you.
ReplyDeleteThank you Lucille. The Zimmerman pattern is fabulous. I am plotting to make it in larger sizes now!
DeleteBelated birthday greetings to you Elizabeth. A new babe in the family - how exciting!
ReplyDeleteThe nearly one year old had her christening last weekend. It all passes very fast.
DeleteHappy Birthday! Lovely to see you writing again. We spent our summer as always back on Anglesey and the pull to come back for good just gets stronger. For now I can enjoy your photos and stories of life not too far away.
ReplyDeleteNext time you go to Anglesey come here on your way and say hello!
DeleteWe have new babies in our family too, it helps balance the deep sadness of loss, not that it ever really leaves, but I hope next year is a less "challenging" one for you. And good luck with your dahlias!
ReplyDelete