The only place to be at 5 o’clock in the morning.
I had an emergency C section 2 days ago on the NHS after a pretty long, fairly painful. Many of the careful and skilled hands that looked after me and baby magpie belonged to an immigrant. We are both doing well as a result.
Under the new points based system proposed by the UK government many of these people would not be considered skilled at all. I’m not sure what is going on, but I’m pretty sure stripping the NHS of essential staff is not what most people voted for. Just putting that put there.
reasons to be grateful
Reasons to be greatful: lazy afternoons in the park
It’s been really hot in London the last few days. I’m not great with the heat and tend to really struggle.
This morning I swam with my sister and then my partner met me at the park with a picknick. We grabbed a spot under some oak trees. He has gone off for an ice-cream and when I look up this is what I can see. Not to shabby huh?
Reasons to be grateful: being able to change my living situation.
It’s been a while since I’ve been here on the blog. After a lot of disruption we’ve finally managed to move into a new area in London and have even unpacked some of the boxes. Â There were a few months when we were looking and looking, but it turns out that just before Brexit is not the best time to move, and there weren’t many flats available that would work for us. But we did manage it in the end. We’ve been in for about two weeks and have some interesting new views to look at, as you can see in the picture above. The change of location has really made a difference to our life style, which I’m pretty pleased about. I have managed to claw back an hour of free time in the evening through the move, and am able to walk a good chunk of the journey to work now (although some mornings my legs are not so happy about that). I would like to say I’ve immediately put that hour to use by making art, but I’ve only been mildly successful there. One of the reasons for this is that we have welcomed some new additions to the Magpie Nest.
Yes, we’ve adopted two rescue cats. They are older cats, and have arrived with us in a somewhat ‘plump’ state, shall we say. For followers of this blog you will know that we spent the last year trying to deal with infertility, and that there will be more fertility treatment a bit later this year. While we have not been successful so far in conceiving, we have been successful in expanding our little family to create a home for these fellas, who have settled in quite quickly to their new surrounding. In the process I am rapidly transforming into someone who can sustain long and meaningful ‘conversations’ with her cats. I am not sure what this will mean for my art, but I do feel pretty happy about it.
I am hoping now we are at least partially settled that I will be able to resume a more consistent blogging schedule from now on. Hopefully it will be something like once a week, with some extras here and there. I think I’ll be getting back to the Objects with Meaning project, and will be sharing a bit more art as well.
I hope everyone who reads this blog is well, and that I will hear from you all in the near future.
With Love
Magpie
Reasons to be grateful #9 – misty winter sunsets like these
I’m at home with my parents this weekend. We headed out for a walk in the woods rather later than I would have preferred today due to various reasons and for the first few moments of the walk I was kind of annoyed.
But if we had left earlier we would have missed this wonderful misty wintery sun setting over the Severn estuary in the Cotswolds.
So we were lucky to be late today.
Reasons to be greatful #8 – autumn sunshine
It’s been a bit quiet over here recently. I’ve been trying to manage some pretty rubbish fatigue, which I think may be linked to my on going efforts to try to balance out my hormones and manage my PCOS through changes to my diet and exercise. At the moment it feels a bit like trying to deal with infertility strips out many of life’s pleasures. At least the kind of pleasures that you put in your mouth. I’ve almost stopped boozing completely (and I was a very British drinker), coffee is on its way out and cakes and chocolate have to go too.
But there is an upside. Autumn is here, bringing with it some light, crisp days that make everything beautiful.
This is also the season of rich red colours. Turning leaves and ripening berries abound. And delicate mushrooms too.
Last weekend I was in the Cotswolds with my parents and my fiance. We were able to get out into the woods for the afternoon, to stumble through the leaves and catch a few hours of that delicate warm sunshine.
Some people I know find autumn and winter a depressing time. The light is fading. The leaves fall and begin to decay. Personally I love autumn and winter. Creatively, I find much more to be inspired by in autumn, than I do in the heavy hot days of summer. I feel it is a time of creative and natural renewal. The falling leaves create a thick and rich mulch in preparation for next year’s green shoots. I am greatful for the fresh cool air and crisp bright sunshine of autumn in the British country side.
I also make art. You can things with my designs on at my shop here. Could even treat yourself if you wanted to. Just saying.
Reasons to be grateful #6 – swimming with my sister
There hasn’t been a huge amount of activity on this blog for a week or more as I’m a bit exhausted and taking a bit of down time. However, Laurie from the lovely blog Meditations in Motion posted this post a few days ago which included a very kind write up of me and the magpie blog. It reminded me of the picture above which I had wanted to post for a while, mostly with her in mind. She writes very well about her experiences of running distance races. I’m not a distance runner, but I am a distance swimmer.
I started swimming longer distances last year, at a similar time as I began looking having tests and treatment for infertility. It was also about the time that my sister and I started swimming regularly together. The photo above is from the Great East Swim at Alton Water which happend back in June – it’s of me and my sister, finishing a 2 mile swim together (I’m the bigger, more sausage shaped one!). My sister is faster than me, but I have the edge when it comes to stamina. In that swim in particular she flew off at the start but I caught up at around the 1.5 mile mark and we swam the final half mile next to each other. In these group swims everyone wears the same coloured hat, and it can be difficult to find another person if you dont start together, so we got really lucky. At the end we got out of the water together, and finished just one second apart. We had a great swim that day, mostly becaue we got to finish together.
My sister and I swam a lot as kids, but during our early adulthood we lived in different places and I certainly took big breaks from swimming at times. My sister lived abroad for 4 years, and moved back to London two years ago. Soon after that we began swimming together regulalry when we could. Its been really great as we never really spent that kind of regular time together as adults before. She was one of the first people I spoke to about my infertility, which was kind of suprising because I’m not really a talker when it comes to difficult things. I am greatful that we had swimming to come back to together. It made me think about how it is worth spending the time establishing yourself in a physical hobby or sport when things are going well. Having something physically challenging (that you enjoy moderate progress in) to indulge in when things feel a bit dark is a very helpful thing indeed. I have just signed myself up for a 9 km swim next year in the Big Welsh Swim. This will be the longest distance I have to date. I am looking forward to traing with her for that.
I am also greatful to Laurie for prompting me to write this post and for her supportive messages over the last few months.
I also make art. You can things with my designs on at my shop here. Could even treat yourself if you wanted to. Just saying.
Reasons to be grateful #5 – walking in the woods with my best one
One of the things I’ve been doing with this blog over that last few months is trying to keep track of some of the things I am grateful for, following this post about gratitude. I thought it would be fun to build up a little collection of doodles to capture these. Finding the time to do this has been a bit challenging, but I have enjoyed thinking about what to draw.
Over the last few weeks we’ve had some unpredictable weather here in the UK, swinging rapidly between spring sunshine and flurries of winter snow. We’ve been lucky enough to have time to go for 2 really nice walks in the woods, in between the snow showers and rain. I find being in the woods particularly relaxing and refreshing, and love the curving unruly forms of nature. A few weekends ago we came across some beautiful mosses, which were intricate in form and all kinds of vivid greens.
My fiancé (still getting used to calling him that) frequently have our best, most thoughtful conversations while out walking and not distracted by other things. It is often in the woods where we discuss what we would like to do together in the future, or scheme to create a joint project. So I am grateful to have that time and space with him whenever possible. I also find that when I am walking I have some of my best ideas. I think there is something about the rhythm of walking that may make different connections in my brain in comparison to just sitting in front of a screen or with some materials. So I am grateful for that different kind of ‘head space’ too.
Like what you see? I also make art. You can things with my designs on at my shop here. Could even treat yourself if you wanted to. Just saying.
Reasons to be grateful #4 – Freshly washed pyjamas
I started doing this series of line doodles after dumping my thoughts about gratitude into this post here. Have a read if you want to know more.
Like what you see? I also make art. You can things with my designs on at my shop here. Could even treat yourself if you wanted to. Just saying.
Reasons to be grateful #2
Reasons to be grateful #1
After writing my post on gratitude on Friday I was able to enjoy a really lovely swim, where for most of the session I had a lane to myself. I thought it was worth a quick doodle.
The Magpie at Midnight 