Plenty to be going on with…

Easter Sunday was a loose-limbed kind of day without a definitive start, end or purpose, a bit like last week's writing, just plenty of sitting and reading.

Not my garden but love a wooden bench, green foliage and stone wall combo. Photo by Carol Saliba on Unsplash

We walked Bella as the cloud lifted, the sun warmed our faces and we played the ‘Yep, I’ve definitely got too many layers on again’ game. Back home I drift in and out of the house. I worked Good Friday and Saturday afternoons, congregants from Christchurch on The Grove handing out hot cross buns to shoppers and passers-by, me included.

Easter Sunday though I spent mostly moving around the garden with a succession of mugs of tea and Ron Rash’s The Caretaker. A new to me author thanks to Mel from Griffin Books in Penarth, a recommendation in passing when I was there the other week.

By the time we get back from our walk Easter eggs have been claimed from the lucky dip line up I left on the kitchen side. I send Easter egg money to the oldest who’s stayed in Newcastle. He’s done enough train travel these past few weeks with a camera in hand and he too needs to be in his home.

This time last year he was a month away from handing in his final university assignment and starting this job. This April he’s been in Aberdeen, Glasgow and London filming for Torvill & Dean’s Last Dance, editing for the London Landmark’s Half Marathon and the Junior Boat Race.

His head is just about catching up with his body.

Middle child is home from university, spending most of his time out with friends. He’s home on Easter Sunday though watching TV in between asking if we’ll be his proxy vote in the May local elections and searching for food.

Andy heads off to do some beekeeping with a friend mid-afternoon. He’s completed his beekeeping course, built a hive and is amassing kit including his beekeeping suit. No bees yet though.

An Easter biscuit from Betty's, knitted chicks by the tarn and a reading spot in the garden

Memories of Easters past

Faint memories of Easters past circle in the sun. Easter weekends used to be bookended with church. The long Good Friday mass that I’d spend mostly worrying about the veneration of the cross. Tripping up the steps, head butting the crucifix, where was I meant to aim my face, my lips? Easter Sunday joyous, light, a long breath out. My ability to sit still I trace back to all those Sundays spent sitting in pews.

I thank my primary school headmistress Sister Mary Cyprian for introducing me to Jesus Christ Superstar back in 1980-ish, unexpected from this fierce thin-lipped nun. Something about that soundtrack still gets me.

And then there’s the year (1992) I spent Semana Santa in Malaga as a student. Nothing could have prepared me for the seething mass of people, the hot sweaty bodies swaying as the costaleros carried the weight of the tronos through the city passing below the balcony of my flat in Calle Larios.

Then there are the photos that pop up of Easter egg hunts with my three children and their cousins as pint-sized toddlers in my parents small courtyard behind their Cardiff terrace. My sister’s meadow in Somerset years later, mum and dad no longer with us.

Now I leave a line of Easter Eggs on the kitchen side, the youngest first with a text that pings while we’re walking the dog. ‘What’s the deal with the easter eggs? Can I choose one or….’

I choose silence and or birdsong this Easter Sunday, a tame robin perches on one of our garden chairs.

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Staying grounded during exam season

Life keeps turning, changing, evolving. The countdown to my youngest’s GCSE exams is on. Monday 12^th May almost within touching distance. Home is a place for calm.

Hot chocolate, pasta, requests for enchiladas. Being around but not too close. There’s late evening clattering in the kitchen and she pops her head round the door where we’re watching TV. She’s made cookies.

Her 16^th birthday this Saturday. Born the day of the London Marathon in 2009 keeping me guessing as to whether she’d be a Sunday baby or not. Born at home at 11.56pm, twenty, maybe thirty minutes earlier we’d agreed the midwife could pop back to the hospital a few minutes away because we weren’t sure anything would happen.

But sudden waves of intense contractions came seemingly from nowhere and she was born in her bedroom, her brothers fast asleep in their bunkbeds next door. She’s kept us guessing ever since.

This is our third turn around the GCSE merry go round and it doesn’t get any easier. Each child different, another mix of subjects, yet all three study Macbeth. Me too for English O Level back in 1987. I despair at the volume and breadth of knowledge and understanding these young people are expected to produce at an allotted time and day in May and June.

The youngest is approaching them with her head screwed on. ‘Trust me’, she says as she troops off to school at 7.15am for another Rise and Revise session before the school day starts. I’ve stopped raising an eyebrow, trust? She’s 16...

An A3 ‘Summer of 2025 bucket list’ lies on her carpet floor covered by media study notes, English literature quotes, Spanish vocabulary lists, discarded gym kit and teetering piles of bowls and mugs. She understands that these results open a set of doors, to approach them with pragmatism. Personal pride drives her, wanting to open the envelope in August knowing she’s done herself proud. She has already.

“Is the spring coming?" he said. "What is it like?"...
"It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine...”
Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

A very April read, blossom hunting in the park and wild swims

I figure I’ll stay still while she, and the rest of the family keep moving. I dig my bare feet into the earth and tilt my head to the sun as Rachel my reflexologist suggested the other week, ‘I feel like you need to ground yourself, root yourself to the ground and open yourself up to the sun.’

She’s right. I plant my bare feet on grass and earth, the sun’s April warmth making this possible.

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This writing life

Thank you for all the love for my last post on wild swimming. My swimming kitbag is filling up and plans are emerging for a first dip and a special beach sauna and sea dip in Saltburn-by-the-sea on Saturday 24^th May to mark mum’s tenth anniversary. We were living by the sea in Bournemouth when she died and it feels right to head to the sea again a decade on.

I’ve created new sections for one new writing project The Black Metal Tin, and I’m moving my Moor Communication Writing for Creatives freelance work here too. It’s time for me to tie my different writing strands together and Substack feels like the best place to do that.

I’m also in the early stages of developing content for paid subscriptions so watch this space. If you want to support me and my writing in the meantime, you can hit ‘Buy me a coffee’ as a one-off. I love sharing my writing but it does take time so if you’ve enjoyed this post or any others I’ve written please consider the ‘Buy me a coffee’ tip, I’d be thrilled.

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What’s helping to ground me?

Jo Thompson’s The Gardening Mind, generous posts packed full of gardening ideas that even I can follow. Between Jo and Virginia, my garden designer sister , they might just make a gardener of me yet.

Jo Hutton’s Yoga for Tired People, this neck release exercise is genius, as are Jo’s other yoga videos and chat.

Lindsay Johnstone’s Writing for Better Health (Pennebaker), second time doing this course and it starts tonight. I can and do write onto the empty page on my own and feel the benefit but it’s good to have company and a guiding hand.

I love Sarah Raad’s Gather & Grow weekly writing prompts and guidance for living a creative life gently.

There’s Mob One providing the recipes for family meals and the food I dished up on Thursday for a group of friends. There’s nothing like having a table full of friends, food and drink. Souls and stomachs filled. I opted for the Italian baked meatballs from page 151 and the Preserved lemon and ginger cheesecake from page 250.

On Wednesday I start a creative writing course with Writing Room. Booked long ago, a date long inked into the diary, I’m excited to see where these 12-weeks of writing will take me.

I think that’s plenty to be going on with, how are you? Feel free to pop into the comments or message me with any thoughts. I’d love to hear from you.

Thanks for reading, Harriet