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Snapdragon blog

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I spent a lot of the weekend in the studio - sorting more, painting more, gently transforming it into what will be a light-filled creative space. ⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ Part of that is getting all my fabrics out of the boxes in the shed/garage/attic where they were banished while the space was a production workshop.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ I was wondering whether you would be interested in seeing it as a work in progress, in all its unfinished mess? ⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ Or whether you like to just see the pretty finished, tidied, end result?
A couple of years ago at a festival, I was chatting to someone about food and he told me that his family had recently decided to eat meat only at weekends. It seemed such a sensible solution, so civilised and doable - to move from the tokenism of ‘meat free Mondays’ to tip the balance the other way. Since then that’s pretty much what we’ve done too. As my personal meat consumption has gone down the opportunities to buy carefully reared local meat direct from the farmer have increased and now, as well as an excellent local butcher in Drymen, we can buy beef from our immediate neighbours @duncan.family.farms, slow reared pork from Craigievern farm across the road. I get amazing hogget from my friend Sarah @mogwaii_design who sends it by Royal Mail from Lismore and goat from my friend @katgoldin in Port of Menteith. I say hello to this bull most days as we walk past - he usually stares back for a few seconds and then returns to gazing out over the hills, part of the landscape.
Do you have a favourite door, or is it just me? ⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ I see this door most days - it is on a neighbour's disused barn, the door from the barnyard out onto the farm road.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ It seems perfect to me - just enough weathering, just the right colour. It always makes me smile as I pass.⁠⠀
There is a weather warning out for the weekend - gales and rain are forecast. ⠀ ⠀ Today I will be doing 2 things. ⠀ ⠀ I shall be bringing some snowdrops into the house to appreciate them in the dry. ⠀ ⠀ I shall be taking a flask of soup⠀ On a long walk at lunchtime. ⠀ ⠀ What are you doing today?
Simplicity is what I'm craving this week - how about you?⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ I feel like that springy pause on the ball of a foot before jumping.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ Green glass and white flowers in low spring light.
Do you remember the flower fairies? Cicely Mary Barker’s floral figures, each with a poem? The snowdrop one was called Fair Maids of February. My Mum was very into the flower fairies, a bathroom was wallpapered with them, the painted walls hung with decorated flower fairy plates. For a lot of my childhood she was working on a cross stitch of the ‘bramble fairy’. Decades later I saw a beautiful blotchy lithograph in a friend’s kitchen - also called Fair Maids of February- by the early C20th artist Lily Blatherwick which I found via google images last night. At the moment my snowdrops certainly look more like her hail blasted ones than the demure fairy.
What do you have planned for February? ⠀ ⠀ I said at the beginning of the year that February was going to be my January this year. I knew by then that January was going to be an emotional month, a cluttered month, a bit brain foggy as I tried to work my way through shrinking Snapdragon down to its core. ⠀ ⠀ And I was right. I’m typing this sitting in a hotel bed in London after an amazingly restorative couple of days with Euan and my girls, listening to music, meeting friends, seeing art and eating so, so well. It took me right away from all the stuff in my head. ⠀ ⠀ Sitting here with my coffee, I am completely clear headed and can exactly see where I’m going. And it is exciting. It is very exciting. ⠀ ⠀ The photo is of my reclaimed machine embroidery threads newly sorted into old wooden seed trays - for years they had been jumbled and tangled into random boxes unusable, unseen. ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀
This weekend I head down to London - to see my girls and to watch the inspirational @marychapincarpenter sing at The Cadogan hall.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ On our hall wall we have written in big block letters her words - 'Why Walk When You Can Fly?'. ⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ It is what I see as I head out for the day. ⠀ ⠀ The word I have chosen for the year is 'Soar'. ⁠This morning things feel scary but also as though they are coming together in some way. ⁠⠀ It has been a weird month, it has been a weird year if I'm honest. My ears are ringing. ⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ Things changed a bit at work yesterday and now I am back to being a Company of One.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ I am cool with that. I'm refusing to see it as a diminishing. I feel that I'm doing my best work ever - bigger is rarely best. ⠀ ⠀ Snapdragon Life continues - just with fewer coffee cups on the rack.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ I wrote about the story of Snapdragon for a newsletter that goes out this morning and now I'm packing up my train snacks, walking the dog and am headed off to spend time with the people I love best in the world.⁠⠀ ⁠⠀ (you can also catch a lot of the story in an episode of @me_and_orla's Hashtag Authentic podcast that was broadcast last year)⁠⠀
snapdragon.life
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About Snapdragon

At Snapdragon we gently guide you through bringing the changing seasons into your daily life, helping you slow down, so that you can experience increased well being, calm and creativity.

Through our communities, both free and paid for, through Jane's writing on the blog, through carefully hand crafted gifts and activity kits, and through our online and in-person workshops we aim to bring people back in touch with the rhythms of a seasonal life.

Learn more about why here

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