Gosh. It’s actually sunny outside for the first time in what feels like months. Now that I’ve written that, of course, a dirty great black cloud will feel it incumbent on itself to slorm over here as fast as the quixotic zephyrs will permit, just in order to throw it down all over me, doubtless, but hey, at least in future years, I can look back to this post and say ‘look! there! it was sunny for at least ten minutes!’.

Anyway.

With the bright morning comes a brighter mood. Thank you for the lovely comments and suggestions on how to rediscover my inner creative mojo; I shall be attempting to put my money where my mouth is over the weekend, and I am already adopting witch of oz’s suggestion that I reframe my view of my current activities and start trying to see them as creative in themselves (cooking, making wine, sorting out the house and looking after the tiny daughter). What an excellent way to look on things which the drudgery of which might otherwise threaten to overwhelm. There is no doubt in my mind that simply working our way through the day in a cheerful, careful, interesting manner is, in relation to the tiny daughter, really rather important work in itself, but sometimes I need to remind myself of this, and to think that, actually, it’s OK if the only thing I do ALL DAY is keep her happy and healthy, because at the end of the day, that’s pretty bloody good going. And most days, she is indeed happy and healthy.

And I think I also ought to acknowledge more often the work that I do which is either creative (baking, cooking, wine-making), or which goes towards allowing Quercus to get on with the big, visible work on the house. I have spent a lot of time recently feeling mildly shifty for not being out there with him, chucking things in a cement mixer and getting covered in a mildly corrosive substance from head to foot, but then I realised the other day that someone has to keep us running, and basically, that’s what I do – with the witchling to look after, someone needs to be clean and presentable (or, at least, as presentable as I ever manage), and as I’m needed for feeds throughout the day, it’s probably the most sense for that someone to be me. Someone needs to make sure there is food in the cupboards, and there are bowls to eat it out of. Someone needs to keep the bathroom clean, and the rugs washed. Someone needs to feed the cats (who have hollow legs at the best of times) and clean out the chickens. Ideally, someone needs to keep the small patch of garden to which the tiny daughter has access, surrounded as it is by woodpiles and cement mixers, free of the usual bedlam, and full of things to look at (currently, lemonbalm, mint, courgettes, potatoes, runner beans, Jerusalem artichokes and sage).

So, my new resolve is to remember that it’s creative to cook meals which mean convenience food never makes it through our door, and it’s creative to think of meals ahead of time so that there are frozen bags of smugness for the witchling’s dinner, and it’s creative to think of next year, when we will be drinking plum wine (three gallons started yesterday), elderflower wine (nine gallons started about three weeks ago), or honeysuckle wine (two gallons started about a month ago). And it’s at least a part of being creative to make sure that the house is clean and clear, because otherwise I get so bogged down in the need to clear and clean that knitting or sewing or making or doing gets shunted so far down the list that it’s not even funny. Maybe this is my fallow period, in terms of actual tangible creative products – and I suppose that’s what I’m missing, really: the knitting project finished, the stitching bound off, the end result toted around by one of my lovelies as an outward and visible sign of my love for them – but that doesn’t mean it’s a fallow period in the bigger picture.

Anyone out there doing alternatively creative things? Found a way to look on the washing-up as all part of the artistic process? Let me know. In fellowship, there is strength (or something equally  communist-sounding), and the knowledge with more people searching for it, We Shall Overcome The Crap And Find A Way To Justify Knitting Instead Of Housework.*

*Obviously your mileage may vary on this one; feel free to substitute a loathsome occupation of your choice for housework, and the scintillating freedom of whatever you choose for knitting.