Winter joy list update

It’s been a couple of weeks since I last wrote here on the blog, because I’ve been busy organising our lives before selling our flat and moving house. My exciting news is that we’re moving north to Inverness, in the Highlands, at the end of June. I have a new job up there and we’ve decided to give smaller city living a go for a few years. I want a big garden, to grow veggies and keep chickens, but still within walking distance of cafes and bars, and that is not really possible in Edinburgh. We’re in that stage of organising where everything is in boxes, we’re scrambling to finish all the DIY, cleaning, and renovation projects before the flat is listed for sale, and I’m coordinating estate agents, solicitors, joiners, cleaners, trips to the charity shop & B&Q…it’s all quite overwhelming. For every one thing I tick off the to-do list, three things seem to appear.

We will never have such a beautiful view from our garden again!

In amongst it all, quite late but still valid, I wanted to write an update on my Winter joy list. My aim was to have these things done by the end of February, but given everything else going on in my life, the end of April feels just as much of an achievement.

ICE AND EAT MY CHRISTMAS CAKE

I managed this one not once, not twice, but three times over! I baked and ate my own homemade vegan Christmas cake. Then my Gran gave me the remains of her cake, with around half of the cake still left to be eaten. And then my mother-in-law bought me a fruit cake, which I iced and ate almost wholly by myself. My Christmas cake cup runneth over and I loved every minute of it.

VISIT DEAN GALLERY

I’m pleased to say I managed this one. Having lived literally round the corner from Dean Gallery, a modern art gallery, for 8 years, it would be a travesty to have never visited before we move away. Andrew was away for a week in March and it was the perfect opportunity to spend a quiet few hours wandering around a gallery by myself. It was a lovely sunny, albeit cold, spring day, so it was nice to be inside in the warmth, but to be able to see the spring flowers from the windows. One of the exhibits I saw featured an artist (Do Ho Suh: Tracing Time) who had made beautiful, intricate, delicate sculptures out of fabric and paper of every day objects from various houses he’d inhabited throughout his life. It felt particularly poignant to me, at this moment in my life when I’m moving away from a beloved city and home. I see Dean Gallery are advertising their next exhibit as a collection of feminist art, so maybe I’ll be back before we move house.

TAKE BADGER ON A SOLO DATE

I’m embarrassed to admit I only managed this one in the past couple of weeks. Between Badger being poorly and our house moving, it’s been hard to make time to walk the dogs separately. The ideal opportunity presented itself recently and I took the old man for a donder and a swim. We actually walked through the grounds of Dean Gallery, where there were fritillaries and wood anemones flowering. It was lovely to spend some time alone with Badger and he was delighted with a swim and a chase after the ball.

FINISH MY HOBBIT ROBE

My hobbit robe is an ongoing project you can read about here. Essentially, I’m piecing together sentimental wool fabric scraps, to create a quilt topper, which I’m then having professionally quilted onto a brushed cotton base by Dastardly Line. Once the fabric is quilted, my plan is to cut out and sew the Wiksten Unfolding Jacket to make a hobbit robe or dressing gown. I’ve finally finished the quilt top (the photo above is of around 50% of the finished quilt topper) and I’m booked in with Deborah for the end of May for the quilting. I will FOR SURE take a million photos and videos of the process of quilting this project. I’m super excited for the next step so will definitely be reporting back here in June.

GO OUT FOR DINNER WITH ANDREW

I’m pleased to say we managed this one! We go out for coffee a lot (too much?) but almost never make the time and money available to go out for dinner together. We’re definitely more of the take-out-and-Netflix kind of people, for which I have no complaints. I love a glass of wine, a fancy pizza and a boxset, if only because I can knit with my feet up in joggies immediately after finishing my food. But it is nice to get dressed up and go out for dinner occasionally. We had a voucher to use for a local restaurant, which wasn’t our top choice to be honest (it’s quite a tourist trap) but it was still a lovely meal and nice to have a wander with my favourite friend through the city streets home. We went to a quiet bar for a drink after dinner and it was nice to have the time together to chat. It’s easy to feel like life is just one giant, never ending to-do list sometimes, so it’s important to make time for these quiet moments. I just need to stop and take my own advice from time to time.

I’ll be back in the next few weeks with my ‘leaving Edinburgh joy list’. It seems silly to make it a seasonal list right now, given we’re halfway through spring already and by the summer I’ll be in Inverness. There are definitely some things I would like to do before leaving Edinburgh though, so I think a manageable joy list that I can fit in around organising moving, would be a nice way to encourage me to enjoy those quiet moments.