A weekend playing hide 'n seek with the sun meant a slower pace, very useful for recuperation but not so good for the coffers.
A bright spot was the arrival of some new Otter Ferry postcards specially made for us. Although the photographer had a grey and cloudy day, she managed to make this little spot look peaceful and atmospheric.
They have been well received by customers and the first batch has almost sold out – always a good sign.
The patient is taking it easy, needing occasional reminders to not take the stairs two at a time and only having to be dragged from the workshop once ;◦) Although this has not been our first experience of cardiac crisis (in 1994 M had an Angioplasty), we certainly hope and pray it will be the last. To this end, we have wound down the work a bit and adjusted diet and exercise once again and I was shocked to see how far away from the old guidelines we had strayed.
Living out here we should have slowed down a lot, but like workaholics everywhere, we dived right in concentrating on opening the shop, setting up the carpentry workshop, trying to manage Internet sales, all spare time spent finding interesting stock. Since last Friday when time stood still, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about quality of life; old wisdoms that previous generations lived by; the worsening economy, the lack of time, the erasure of basic survival skills (like being able to cook wholesome food) and above all, the lack of joy in our daily lives. Some of the new links lead to web pages written by women who have found a quieter, more considered way of life and found great satisfaction along with it. And I suppose this means that I’m still on a journey, albeit a detour on the way as the destination shifts and changes. A destination glimpsed now and again…the oasis through the sandstorm…
Hope is that thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops... at all.
~Emily Dickinson
