Journal | January 2022

The turn of the year came with hope. Hope for the pandemic changing, hope for a different feel to the year and hope we would all continue to stay well and covid free. We’ve experienced nearly two years of life feeling limited and restricted. I think back to the worry we had in 2020 about getting food from the shops, when to schedule in our one outing for exercise, not being able to hug people and not able to have people into our home. Then I remember the wait to be vaccinated, double vaccinated and then Omnicron arrived at the end of 2021. Two very blurry years, two years parenting and working in a different way, and what feels like two years of waiting. The experience of the past two years feels so close, yet so far away. On the turn of the year I hoped for something different. This January felt more positive and hopeful than other years previously.

January started slow for me, in the first week of January I had two days of annual leave as my time to rest and get a few projects worked on at home. The big project was working in our garden to replace the rotten reclaimed scaffolding planks we had installed in our garden about 6 years ago. We’d ordered timber sleepers for the garden in November with the hope of doing some Autumn gardening. It didn’t happen and so I saw my two child-free days at the start of January as the perfect time to get it sorted. Chris was working at home so I got on and nailed parts of the sleepers together, using the same E formation we used last time. I knew this would be the easy bit, moving the soil and rearranging soil in the space where the old planks were was going to be where the time would be spent. Chris helped me carry the sections into place and helped me line it up. I then had a few hours of moving soil, plants, bulbs already in the soil. It took me around 4 hours in total to get it looking like the photos below, taking the odd moment to slurp some hot tea and I carried on.

Once the sleepers were in place and I was happy I got to work planting all the bulbs I had been wanting to plant in the autumn, knowing in my heart that many may arrive late. I had a picture in my head of clusters of flowers filling the space. Over the years I’ve spent a considerable investment in bulbs. For years I just had bulbs in pots and when lifting them at the end of the season forgot about them and they went rotten. Last year I did something different, lifting bulbs from the pots and adding them to cotton net bags and hanging them to dry and keeping them in a dark dry place. I’ve added more colour to our garden over the years, originally wanting pinks and blues, reds crept in with gladiolus, yellow daffodils and a whole mix of shades. The sleepers in we still have a few things to sort, mainly trellis to give our low wall some privacy (mainly so our neighbours have some and Juno can’t leap over the wall!), adding replacement stones around the planters, lawn edging and adding in our small pond which I bought at the end of the summer. I had a pond in our family home for many years and would love for Chloe to experience perhaps seeing some dragonflies and frogs. These projects will slowly be completed over the coming months. A few new colourful glazed pots, a hydrangea, wisteria and a miniature cherry tree are on my list for the final few plants I’d like add into our space.

I returned to work on the 10th of January and I got my booster jab that afternoon. I spent the next day feeling hideous. I’d been really unwell after the second jab and this one I was hoping would be different, it was, there was a 12 hour or so delay before I was unwell rather than under 2 hours with the second jab! It floored me and it didn’t start my week back to work at all well.

The month of January was the start of reading more books and spending more time away from a screen. During December I had a few fleeting moments to read novels and I loved the freedom and escapism. I read three books in January and loved having a mix of non-fiction and fiction, a mix I haven’t leant into for a while. I read three books - Taste by Stanley Tucci, The Salt Path by Raynor Winn and The Temptation of Gracie by Santa Montefiore.

Chloe was invited to her first birthday parties as a guest. It was a lovely rite of passage as Chloe hadn’t been to any parties and she dressed up for one in a party dress and the other was a soft play party at a gorgeous cafe and small soft play space. Seeing my little girl running around and playing with her friends was wonderful, she’s daring, energetic, excited and keeps going. I felt relief to see her experience something a little more normal than the past few years. Alongside her friends, they dived into the cake and giggled together, enjoying the small party bag balloons, packet of seeds and cake. Simple but all a three year old would want.

During the month I started a better walking routine, before work I made time to walk a loop of our local park, which after a few weeks dropped off and wasn’t quite as regular. Misty frosty mornings in the park felt wonderful, I captured the details in nature and felt topped up ready to start the day. Having time to pause on a walk and capture photos of the weather felt nourishing and something I want to get back into.

I walked in the park and spotted the early signs of snowdrops and a week or so later they were there ready to flower. Noticing plants and the park coming back to life felt like I did inside.

I made an effort to focus on nourishing myself with yummy food each week. I made a tomato soup from a recipe found in a magazine. It was simple and delicious and definitely rivals the comfort you get from a can of Heinz tomato soup, and had more depth of flavour and freshness.

Later in the month I ordered a craft kit from CraftPod and made an owl shaped scissors case. It was a gentle and simple project to make. It kickstarted my year of making progress with small projects and doing some more hand sewing.

Chloe and I baked cakes one afternoon. Our imperfect chocolate cupcakes with a simple thin icing and sprinkles on top were perfect with a cup of tea. Baking is something I want to do more of with Chloe. I want to teach her what I know and also learn with her with new recipes to try.

Late in the month I had an evening out with friends for drinks and a meal at a restaurant. The food was divine and the company perfect. We talked about challenges of motherhood, held solidarity over the lack of energy, decisions we are all making and the mental load of being a mum and working. We laughed about so many things and oohed over the food. I felt so incredibly topped up by seeing friends and was one of the first evenings out I had in years where I felt relaxed and savoured the connection time.

Running has become very much part of my wellness practice over the past 7 months or so. I ran during January in all weathers and I’m getting closer to the end of the Couch to 5k programme. I’m slowly building a playlist I like, grow in stamina and enjoy running the more I do.

When I look back at January it was a simple and slow month, and one which brought real joy. I felt I had at long last started to reset after an incredibly draining two years of the pandemic, with a mix of my life passions, seeing friends and getting outside to garden or walk made January feel wholesome, balanced and nourishing. I will miss the frosty mornings where the grass is covered in tiny ice crystals, the late sunrises and the crisp air as we move further into the year but know they will be back to experience again next year.