Making time

Like many of you, I've been keeping an eye on Silverpebble and ThriftyHousehold's Making Winter bloghop. It's full of busy-ness: mitten-knitting, muffin-making, beeswax-melting, putting stuff in jars. Over here, though, there has been little making - unless we count the very basic job of feeding everyone (lately it has been VERY basic), and an incredibly rudimentary Rapunzel costume.

What I have been trying to make, however, is time. The last few weeks have taken a lot of energy, and the present is still very fraught. What we need around here is calm: but you can't make that on a stove or a sewing machine.

For me, the answer is usually to go back to yoga. A few years ago, when I had ME, I relied very heavily on the very approachable Elizabeth Irvine's meditation podcasts for mothers (she no longer updates, but all the archives are there to download for free) and the slightly less down-to-earth Jean and Jesse Stern. There are a lot of meditation podcasts out there, but some of them were a bit too New Age for me to handle - I can't honestly keep a straight face if someone starts calling me 'pilgrim'.

Picture of a candle that I didn't take

The thing about making time for yourself is being realistic about how much time you actually have. I'd love to go to a yoga class once or twice a week. Maybe I could go for a swim! And have an hour or three, lazing in a cafe, reading a book... I'm sure I'd be much calmer then. In the real world, I'm promising myself five to ten minutes of candle gazing a day, and a short yoga practice every other day.

If you've done yoga before, I'd really recommend these seasonal yoga podcasts, recorded by Sonia Welch, a very lovely yoga teacher whose classes are among my favourites when I have the time to actually get to them. The podcasts aren't really for beginners - you have to have an idea what you're doing - but they come with comprehensive notes on the postures as well as advice on the best food for the season (I never manage to eat the right food for the season). The winter podcast is lovely and gentle, and after making a habit of it for a short while I can feel the benefits. A bargain, I think, for £6.50.

I doubt that calm will ever fully be felt in The Coffee House. But I'm making an effort, at least.

Two final things:

1 If you do know someone with ME who is looking for a way forward, my best advice would be to direct them to the yoga teacher Fiona Agombar, whose book, CD and weekend retreat were among my lifesavers.

2 On a more trivial note, have you seen Blogger's new threaded comments (below)? This is the most exciting thing that has happened so far in my blogging year. Luckily it is only January.

The new Normal

This morning, Eldest went back to school for the first time since early November. Just for the morning; so as not to tire her out. It's a gradual getting-back-to-normal process.

Things are settling down: now Eldest is no longer confined to bed, we are eating at the table instead of perching around her with dinner-trays on our laps. The other day I went to Dunelm Mill and spent a gazillion pounds on cushions, in an attempt to pretend that the electric hospital bed in our tiny living room - still needed for daytime physio - is actually a perfectly acceptable day bed. The metal cot sides detract from the look, but you can't have everything.

The children are back in their own room. (Littlest refused to sleep in the bunk bed alone, and slept on the sofa next to her sister for six weeks. Any fears we might have that sleeping in the same room would wear off in a couple of weeks have been delightfully unfounded.)

A lot has changed due to Eldest's surgery, and though we can glimpse now what the benefits may well be, there's a lot of road to travel yet. But life is often topsy-turvy; it's time to start focusing on what's normal, not what's not.

And to thank you all for your patience and your kind words during this particular Winter of Weird. Receiving comments from people I have never met, showing such affection and hope for our family, has been incredible.