I have a long day ahead of me with work, in fact a long six weeks of tough deadlines to meet, but I made a decision to stop at the end of it. I’m not taking on anymore commissions and I will begin a new way of working. I will build an online shop so that people can buy lampshades I have already made and all the profit will go to me instead of the middleman – the interior designer. I currently work for well below the minimum wage, I have to work from home to be around for my son but I know I am worth more. It’s very common for women who work in home based jobs as seamstresses and makers to earn very little. I’m becoming resentful of the beautiful and skilled work I’m doing for little reward. I’m starting to dislike making lampshades instead of loving it because I’m constantly time pressured on deadlines and I’m working to earn the interior designers more money than myself. I want to go back to enjoying my craft, not feeling stressed and creating something that contains joy instead of blood, sweat and tears. So this day is one step closer to that goal. I simply have to knuckle down, grit my teeth and move closer to my goal.

The rebirth and renewal of spring, it’s my favourite month; everything is lush and green and colourful, life is springing abundantly all around, that which seemed dead is pulsating with life out in the woods. Birds are singing their joy at the beginning and end of each day and promise fills the air as the earth awakens from its winter slumber. We have a beautiful weeping shrub called The Bride in our garden and it’s in full blossom mid to late April every year. It’s a stunning sight, and always brings me great joy. It was a wedding gift from a friend 24 years ago on our mid April wedding day. We have moved house in that time and took it with us when we moved 19 years ago to no ill effect. It’s so beautiful in the spring sun and also at dawn and dusk, the blossom really sings out at dawn and dusk.

In many ways the pandemic brought out the best in people, they became kinder. My residential road, which was already a friendly place to live with people looking out for each other, started a whatsapp group so that we could connect instantly if we required help. I actually had covid just at the start of our lockdown which due to the quarantine rules, meant no one in my household could leave the house to get provisions, so neighbours brought us shopping which was lovely, the group still exists and people are even more friendly and caring than they were before! In my town a Facebook support group sprang up and an army of volunteers were shopping for the elderly and vulnerable unable to leave their homes, leafleting homes with a contact number for help, to reach those not on the internet. The activation of this help was almost instant compared to the weeks and weeks it took our local council to start offering support. The kindness felt as contagious as the pandemic. But sadly not all were infected with kindness, I also witnessed some appalling behaviour by a tiny minority, but I tried to be kind in my thoughts, and attributing their behaviour to fear, stress or hardship. I was incredibly lucky during our lockdowns, we still had money coming in because my husband continued running his engineering workshop – he was making parts for ventilators. We have a comfortable home and a small garden to sit in. Others had lost their jobs, had little to no money, were trapped in small flats with fractious children and little food, some perhaps trapped at home with an abuser. I was very aware that my lockdown was very different to many others. Generally though, I do think people became kinder during the pandemic, Covid generated a pandemic of kindness.

Life – life, all life is a gift and it is a gift that is eventually taken away, whether human, animal, plant or the planet its self, I am grateful to be here and conscious of this moment. I have grateful awareness for the people in my life right now, for the nature outside my window, things that will eventually no longer exist in their current forms. The beautiful roses my son-in-law gave me last week as a thank you are now starting to fade and I have spent time each day looking at them and appreciating them. There are spring flowers fading in the garden but new buds are coming into existence beside them and I take time each day to look, admire and appreciate and I do the same with my family and friends and my now elderly dog. Even if I am not with them, I take time to think about and feel grateful for family and friends past as well as present. Life, that word contains it all; love, beauty, joy, sadness, loss, birth, existence, awareness, creativity, being, death, and so much more than is possible to list or quantify.

Where to start…? I have known so many inspiring and enriching people throughout my life and feel that I am continually learning and growing from encounters and friendships. We can take something from the briefest of interactions if we are open to it, I do love to talk to complete strangers, something that used to drive my children nuts when they were little because they were both so shy.

I’m not outgoing or the life and soul I am quiet, I used to find people terrifying when I was young, but once I had left school and started working aged 16, little by little I started to find people interesting and fun. Now, something I used to fear more than anything, I love, and that is going to a party, workshop or an event where I know almost no one, because I love meeting new people even though it still takes some courage to make the first contact as I dislike drawing attention to myself, one place you’d never find me is on a stage in front of an audience. But I came to realise that people can be so interesting and can introduce you to new ideas and concepts and all sorts of things you never knew existed.

I think we all need the new beginning each day brings in terms of learning and growing and maintaining. The frantic and sometimes unexpected busy-ness of daily living gets in the way and blinds us momentarily from paying attention and being in the moment and we become reactive by which I mean acting without thinking first. I’m repeatedly learning how to bring myself back into the present whilst swimming against the tide of daily work deadlines, time pressures and unexpected events.