December Blossom

I went to London this morning for lunch with Valentine Warner to celebrate all that is great about British game. It was a fabulous lunch and I am looking forward to sharing it.  But I will write about that in a day or so. 

Before I left I took a close look at one of my cherry trees and was quite shocked to see it in flower.  The delicate pink blossoms are somehow almost Japanese.  Whilst I appreciate that it is not normal to flower in December they are so pretty I had to pick some and I popped them this gorgeous jug.  Now I am concerned about my tree, and despite only being here for a few months now I feel quite emotionally attached to my trees already. I hope it will be ok.

I hate travelling back on the train and I was really especially pleased to get home tonight.  Home. The children were waiting for me to tuck them up in bed and my husband had lit the fire. This is what we have worked so hard for, dreamt, planned, prayed and waited for.  It is everything I had hoped and more. 

Although there is so much to be spent on the house to put it right,  I won’t be able to splurge and buy everything on the children’s list this year. The children's bedrooms need decorating, carpeting and new curtains to replace the 30 year old threadbare ones they have right now.  Mr K joked earlier that he halved my housekeeping and doubled my housework.  Actually it wasn’t so much as a joke as a statement that could only be said laughing for it is actually the truth.  And although earlier this evening he said that I really don’t need a new freezer (mine broke last week) being as we are living one. He went on to waddle about in a comical manner saying he now appreciated what those emperor penguins we have been watching on Frozen Planet have to go through. Yes … I will admit it’s cold, and that the roof, that I didn’t care about in sunny June, really does leak, and the 140 year old original glass in the windows despite being pretty, is still single glazing and yes is still seriously cold… but I am happy, and the single glazing stays.

Each year I light the fire, pop some festive music on, make mincemeat  and decorate the tree.  I savour each moment.  Each little trinket I hang has a moment attached to it.  The silver stag from an old school friend, the scarlet old-fashioned plane I bought in Calgary and the little hand made delicate ones my children have made each year. I hang each slowly and deliberately.  This year I looked back and remembered how as each year passed in my last house I felt somehow more unsettled, as though I was supposed to be somewhere else. I would unwrap and wonder if I would get to where I was supposed to be by the following year.

So although I am not very religious this feeling of being settled is quite strangely spiritual.  I am exactly where I am supposed to be.  I am finally home. It feels so right, and I am really looking forward to Christmas.