April

Waiting

April has been quite some month!

We are moving house and shed (and therefore business) and were set for an April completion we thought and were told, but here we are, surrounded by boxes waiting and waiting for solicitors to send replies and get to that all elusive exchange.

My nerves are wrecked. Moving in the Uk is the most ridiculous antiquated system. We have been making up stories of solicitors only working on the day of Mars. They can’t work on the Moon’s day as that is a day of reflection etc. Whole religions around their slowness to do anything. Passes the time!

One of the reasons for moving is to be closer to family. My son and his wife are currently right now at the birthing centre, about to welcome baby number 2 into the world. Our toddler grandkid is a huge joy in our life and we were hoping to be up there in time to help. But here we are waiting for moving news and now today waiting for safe delivery of baby news! Walpurgis or Beltane baby? hmm I wonder.

The cat has been to the vet 3 times for various illnesses and bites and injuries, the most recent this morning, where I got news of contractions and estate agents chasing up replies while waiting for him to be seen! It all always happens at once eh.

We are mostly packed ready to go, the house is boxes and bare shelves and walls, the shed is no longer the full to the brim place of beauty, but a slowly stripping away of bare walls full of memories and my voice echoes in here now.

People keep telling me I must be sad to be leaving my beloved Shed, but I find I am not. I am ready for a new beginning, it is time. I am grateful for it, and all that happened here but I am so excited for new mountains and walks and wildness and fresh starts.

Things started to break and and I damaged a few things while packing that have had to be repaired. I realised that I hadn’t told the house and shed why we were going. I have been longing to move, hoping and wishing that we would hear news each day and stressing over delays and waking at 2am to worry our buyer is pulling out and all those thoughts that appear before the day burns them away.

So, today while waiting to hear news of babies and houses, I have been talking to the house and shed. Telling them we are so grateful for everything they have given us, how we have loved living with them, and we don’t dislike them, but it is time for us to go and be with our family and it is time for a new person who loves the house to come and fill it with music and cats and joy. I have been telling the house of the new person and how they will love them. I have been thanking the house.

I have a little Tomte who guards us. I decided to make the new owner their own tomte to look after them and the house, to leave as a gift when they arrive here.

The two have been sitting together on my desk, I have been asking them to talk to each other, to pass on the house and love and allow us to go.

I have been thanking the woods and telling them it is time for us to say goodbye now.

It feels the right thing to do. It feels right to thank the house for seeing me through some of my darkest days and into a new light and joy filled world. This is the longest I have ever lived in a house which seems so odd to me as it seems like a blink since we came here. It was temporary. A place that would be ok for my other half if I wasn’t here anymore (having cancer treatment when we bought it, it was a way to pay of debts and set up for whatever was to come with me there or not.)Yet we stayed and I got well and we stayed longer than we ever thought. I have plotted in my head other lives and existences but they were for another life, not for this one now, but then we realised it didn’t have to be and maybe a little of that change could come, so we have filled skips and packed boxes and been to the charity shop so very many times and the tip smile and wave at me now too. And we wait.

I am usually really good at calming my nerves and worries but this has got to me and I’ve been tight chested and tearful and over reacting and doom spiralling over nothing or rather no news and no control. So many stern talkings to myself and I am slowly starting to convince myself all will be well and all will be well.

So today I write to you to distract myself while I await news of a grandchild and a house move.

I am a year older than when I last wrote to you too. We decided to celebrate our birthdays after we had moved, neither of us could think about presents when we are packing and trying to get rid of stuff, no room to sit round the table and babies due on birthdays so no plans to be made, but now we wait and promise we won’t forget and will make a point of celebrating. My other half says I don’t want to celebrate getting older, but I say I want to celebrate the day you appeared on this earth because that was a fine day and it is a joy to have you here and it needs celebrating.

So we will celebrate with a new one born too to add to the list of Spring birthdays.

I haven’t written much or done many films or new work as I have been wrapped up in packing up the house and filling in endless forms and waiting and waiting. I hope you are all ok to wait too and apologies to those who pay to subscribe and there’s little to show for it. You have helped give me a few moments to pack or have a sit and a coffee, for which I’m so grateful. One of the ideas when we move is more time to do things like write and experiment and I hope to be in touch more. Soon.

Today is Valborg in Sweden. Walpurgis night, May day eve. We light fires and celebrate the change to the light half of the year. It feels a good day to be born into, though I’ve been joking they will get a Beltane fairy changeling tomorrow! And maybe we might hear news of moving too.

So while I wait, I am trying to plan some work for tribe membership renewals and gift choices and setting up emails and such so it is all ready if we move later than planned.

I am going to London in June for the London Children’s Literature festival. Two days of workshops making little Gift Gatherers books of joys with children and their carers. I’ve been trying out ideas of which books everyone can manage to make etc. I’ve not been to London for about 12 years! Yikes. I hope we are moved and unpacked before then!

Everything is on hold, as things disappear into boxes and I keep thinking oh I’ll make that and then remember I’ve packed it. But I need to earn some money too so a few little creatures are being made amidst the chaos and I will have a tiny Beltane collection in May at some point I can’t plan yet till I know where I’ll be and when! So, I invite you to wait with me and distract me. Tell me some small joys in your days.

I can’t wait for the new place, 4 mins drive from the grandkids, walking distance of our family. I’ve never lived walking distance of family ever, I love the idea. The thought we might bump into them in the supermarket or they can pop round for a cuppa. What an utter joy. My family are far spread in Scotland and Sweden and Wales and my heart is so joyful at the thought of having some family near by. What a delightful new experience. I wish my parents in Sweden were the same, it is so hard not seeing them for months and months and wishing you could pop in to help with little things and have a cuppa and a chat.

I hope we can have virtual cuppas and chats too in the virtual world. Pull up a chair and tell me some joys from your days and I’ll try not to be distractedly checking for messages and emails of news!

Maybe next time I write I might, I hope be in my new ‘shed’ which isn’t a shed so I need a new name. Hmmmm. Can one have a room in a house called the shed? Perhaps so.

Thanks for waiting with me and I hope to be in touch more soon when our the other side of this mayhem. Full moon Beltane seems a good day for new things, be it babies or houses!

With love from the shed

Karin x