The first day of a shiny New Year seems as good a time as any to crank this old blog back to some kind of wheezing life. The Old Year was a difficult one, particularly in the autumn, when I sank into one of the worst bouts of depression I’ve endured for years, largely down to the looming prospect of having to sell the cottage and face an uncertain future. However, I managed to drag myself out of it and am starting 2023 feeling remarkably positive, despite everything.
After a creative slump, when I felt as if I’d never create anything original and pleasing again, I began making a new range of little creatures who have cheered me up during the dark winter evenings and are proving popular, quickly finding new homes and so helping me to stay in mine.
I tend to withdraw into myself when things are going downhill, hence the quietness here. When Andy and I relocated to Shropshire over ten years ago, it was supposed to be the next exciting chapter of our lives together and as many of you know, it was completely the opposite. The trauma of losing him, just three months after we moved into the cottage has taken it’s toll and I don’t think I’ll ever recover from it. What I didn’t know then, was that I was also starting the menopause, which brings its own set of difficulties, especially, in my case, mental health ones. I was also unaware that I have severe ADHD. I was finally diagnosed in May last year. It didn’t come as a surprise, but it has led me to reevaluate the way I live and to realise that all of these things made my time here the most difficult period of my life, which has not been the easiest in the first place.
I’ve no idea what the next ten years hold, if I’ll be here this time next year or even this summer. I am, however, feeling stronger somehow and more like my old self than I have done since leaving the Cotswolds. I’m older, more tired and achey, but I’ve managed to find a little nugget of courage kicking around in a corner, just when I thought I was all out of it.
