The times they are a-changing…

… I’m going to be stepping down from Brownberry Yarns and handing over the reins to a lovely friend of mine, Lisa, who will be taking over along with her mum Judy towards the end of May.

Yes, it was a big decision. No, it wasn’t lightly taken. Yes, it’s something that Jon & I talked about from around this time last year (for various reason which I’ll go into another time) so it’s not a new, reacting-to-grief thing.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the shop, ya’ll know I do! But I love TheBoy more

And I could not be leaving the shop in better hands. Seriously. Lisa & Judy are so committed to giving you guys the best customer service (yes, I’m handing over my sweetie stash AND giving them the name of my supplier ) and the best yarns too that you really won’t notice I’m gone. And I’ll not be gone-gone. Lisa lives half a mile away and we see each other every day. I mean it; I wouldn’t hand the shop over to just anyone.

So, do stay in touch – email me soon-ish ( at sarah at brownberryyarns dot co dot uk) and I’ll give you my new email addy; I’m still on Twitter as @woollybutterfly as always; or if you ask nicely Lisa or Judy will always put you in touch with me; I won’t be far away.

And I’ll keep this blog too. Hey, it’s personal. It’ll move though, to woollybutterfly.wordpress.com, in the next couple of weeks, I’ll give a heads-up when I move it over. Do still subscribe, if you can bear my ramblings*!

* This is the next thing I’ll be on about I reckon; the Aurora shawl by Easyknits in seriously the most divine dk yarn from John Arbon called Knit by Numbers. Yup, I treated myself at Wonderwool to three shades of this indescribably beautiful yarn. Sadly I’ll be rattling on more about the way it desperately hurts my shoulder to knit than how simple and beautiful the pattern is nor how the yarn is soft as butter and so pretty it hurts your eyes. Any tips on shoulder-pain-free knitting cheerfully received…

Uphill

Over Easter B and I went for a rambling cycle around a corner of Anglesey. Over the course of 15 miles we pedalled up a fair few hills; pretty steep some of them too, way more than I’m used to round our way…

… they got me thinking those hills.

When I got into cycling recently I went at the hills in a right gung-ho manner; probably born out of years of trying to get a single speed BMX up a hill where momentum and enthusiasm are your only allies when it’s you vs gravity!

Taking advice from more experienced cyclists I learnt to pace myself up those inclines, keeping my pedals turning at an even walking pace and working my way down the gears. And so about half way up the second or third half mile slope of our jaunt I realised how perfectly cycling uphill matches how I’m feeling about life’s recent events. Somehow it helps to find these little things, these metaphors that make it all describeable and a bit more shareable with the outside world.

Some of the hills are visible for miles, dreading them doesn’t make them go away but nor does it mean they’ll be as bad as they look; you can be halfway up before you realise… the few weeks following Jon’s admission to hospital were like this; it should all have been massively awful but there was some kind of shock absorber around me with everyone I knew drafting me along so before I knew it the worst of it was over. Or at least what I thought was the worst of it; the funeral, telling people who didn’t know, the household finances and convincing the woman at Sky that my husband had been the telly watcher in our household, that I really really didn’t want Sky anymore and no, neither did my son. Man, that was a fraught conversation. I think the pedals turned out of sheer habit during those weeks.

Some of the hills sneak up, kind of hidden along a tree line or round a corner; these are hard, you can’t prepare so well, resulting in a mad tangle down through the gears, feet skidding off the pedals, all your momentum gone in a heartbeat. There have definitely been hills like this; thinking there was No Way I could raise TheBoy was a biggie, and suddenly feeling desperately alone was another; “sure I know you’re all out there” I’ve muttered ungraciously to myself “but you’re none of you In Here are you??!”

Well actually last week some of you were right here with me, sitting with me in shifts and I really can’t thank you enough for not leaving me alone and for between you talking me up a pretty steep bit. (TheBoy was with Ma&Pa, so I had a welcome respite from towing him… and then they took me in too and fed me; turns out I hadn’t lost my appetite, I just can’t be arsed cooking, but you all knew that right? ♥ you Ma&Pa ♥…) At times like this it’s almost ~almost~ impossible to move forward one more inch; I’m so tired, it hurts so damn much, I absolutely can’t do it.

But do you know what? I want to get to the top. I want to see the view and I want to free-wheel for miles and stretch out my legs and ease the burn and be ready for the next hill. And I’m gonna. I’ve earned it, I deserve it and I’ll get there. Sure there’ll be distractions and tumbles and pit-stops and help but I’ll get there.

I do know that if the next big hills are not in my path but those of my friends then I’ll be there with renewed energy to draft them along, hand out the sugary snacks and offer wise / cajoling / chastising words as appropriate. And I know that one day Ol will be big enough to help out on this journey instead of being towed (aw, he does help now, with his cuddles and funny words) and maybe one day, not just yet, not for a while yet, we’ll get someone else on our little team and be not alone anymore. Maybe.

But in case you’re wondering Ol’s thoughts on this are… “mum? can you get married soon so I can have a brother or sister?”… simple huh? I sure do love that boy ♥

(The Hipstamatic lens shows you exactly how I’m seeing the world, concentrating very intently on one little bit at a time and letting everything else blur until I can make the time or energy for it; this helps a lot!)

Strength

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.*

So, I’m pretty tough. Particularly on the outside; over the years I’ve developed a fairly thick skin for a bunch of reasons that some of you know and some of you don’t. And mostly the thick skin does a good job of protecting my ridiculously soft centre… well, soft with occasional crunchy nutty bits, like a caramel with chunks of hazelnut… and so I’m glad I have it, as much as it would be lovely to relax and let it go. Maybe one day.

The toughness has made me strong though and as you can imagine I’ve needed that day to day; battles of will with a 6 year old don’t cease just because you’d rather not have to deal with them! But it turns out that inner strength waxes and wanes. Who knew? It’s a shock to the system when a few weeks of confidence and calm are followed by a handful of days when you just cannot do it anymore. At these times it’s the responsibility of raising TheBoy that weighs the heaviest; I don’t feel grown up enough / calm enough / strong enough to achieve this massive, hugely important task on my own. The small things like emptying the dishwasher and cooking dinner and cleaning the house crowd in round the sides until I think that I might just stay right there in my safe and cosy armchair and not do a single thing**. For days.

I won’t though. Even when I feel at my lowest ebb there is always a spark of sheer determination nudging me to get up and get on with it, phone someone, or just do one positive thing to make me feel I’m in control again. So I treasure this spark as much as I temporarily hate it for making me move from the chair and I guess this is the strength I’ve been nurturing all these years ‘just in case’.

To back up that spark I’m drawing on the strength of others too, and it’s so freely given that, although I wonder how I don’t, I really don’t feel selfish for leaning so heavily from time to time on those closest to me. There is something very wonderful about being able to help a friend; I know this to be true yet I’m still overwhelmed by the support I have around me each day, friends and family waiting to catch me in a warm safety net as and when I need it; you’re all amazing…
yet another massive thank you… <3

* from Desiderata by Max Ehrmann; my inspiration for many years now, I urge you to look it up.

** Sunday afternoons are the worst time; cheery texts, phone calls or emails most welcome at this time of the week

Being “OK”…

Ok, so here is a blog post that’s been in my head a while… I want to talk about routine (again), being ok, depression and coping… and hopefully in a way that is positive and maybe even helpful to someone out there…

You can imagine that a lot of lovely people are asking me “how are you? Are you ok?” and of course it’s wonderful that folk are asking but it makes me think each time. Am I ok? What is ok? Should I be this thing called “ok”? Is it, in fact, ok if I am “ok”?

So, I think, yes, I am OK. I am happy at times, sad at times, variously in love/cross/delighted with TheBoy; he’s ok with this, it’s normal for his mum to be both snuggly and grouchy in well, let’s say, not-quite-equal measure; snuggly wins, most days. Truth be known, it feels wrong to feel so ok…(and yes I know I might have a ‘re-lapse’…)

Routine helps; I’ve chattered on about this before, it’s the little things that you just have to do, because you did them yesterday and the day before and the day before that, that keep you going sometimes. These things are a no-brainer; feed the cats (they’re asking so you have to), make a brew (it’s what you’ve done first thing every morning since about 1990), get TheBoy to school (it’s frowned on to allow your children to abscond and, let’s face it, who needs them underfoot 7 days a week?!), go to work (all the tea you can drink and friends to keep you sane), collect TheBoy (it’s not a boarding school), feed cats, TheBoy and self, TV, sleep until 7.05am. Repeat. Routine helps.

Right, so here is something else I want to share. It’s about depression. I’ve managed depression for a few years now; the stigma surrounding depression is being gradually eroded and I’m glad for it… we need to talk about it. A doctor told me once that it’s like having diabetes and needing insulin; you have a chemical imbalance in your body and the drugs help make it right; that helped me a lot to get my head around what was going on when this weird out-of-control feeling got a hold. I know now what makes me low, what it feels like when I’m heading down there and how to pick myself up; invaluable.

Depression is very selfish; I know that – unfought – it would keep me in bed, dozing and feeling dozier for it; keep me home during the day in an air-less lonely house; keep me from meeting people, travelling, getting on with my life. I would feel as though I were indulging myself by staying in this bubble; allowing myself permission to hand out excuses for not doing all the things I really want to do if only I could just grab life and shake off the depression.

Grief is exhausting and I don’t mind admitting that the last few weeks have taken their toll; sure I feel ok now, but there were a lot of days when all I wanted to do was give in to the tiredness, stay in bed and generally idle around the house. And yes, I’ve had days where I’ve not left the house. They are few and far between and by mid afternoon I crave fresh air and exercise. The stay-at-home day begins as an indulgence and ends up a trap.

Busy. That’s what has kept me in one piece, both now and on and off since the depression first arrived. Busy sticking to my no-brainer routine and busy filling the gaps by making things tidier, prettier, cleaner, more efficient. I love that the busyness leaves me with more energy than when I started my tasks and I love that I’m wupping depression’s backside each time I get something done.

So in summary; I’m leaning on my routine like it’s a crutch and I’m keeping busy to ward off the gloom. Every now and again I look up and wonder what happened; how did we get here and where did the last few weeks go; is it real? The answer might hit me like a sledgehammer one day; until it does you’ll find me on my little treadmill, doing OK.

Words…

Sticks and stones… we all know this one; it’s not true though, words can be very hurtful. We should always be careful what we say, where we say it and to whom.

Happily, in contrast, words can also be incredibly healing and powerful things. Just a few of them strung together in the right order can brighten your day, keep you going, make sense of chaos and give you hope. And let me tell you something, if any of your friends are having a bad day / crisis please don’t underestimate the value of a few words; don’t think “a text won’t cut it just now, I’ll wait until I can phone / visit / write”. Send a text, send one every day.

Does it help? Yes. I felt, from the day Jon went into hospital and over the course of the days that followed, as though everyone I know* came and stood around me shoulder to shoulder, gradually forming a circle and keeping me right in the centre; protected, comforted, safe. I’m still in that warm bubble and I can’t begin to describe how much this means to me, how much it’s helped and will continue to help. Thank you ♥

*and some I don’t. So many of my lovely customers sent kind words too…

Over the weekend just gone I was at ma & pa’s and listened to this a lot with TheBoy. He loves it and, finding the lyrics online and singing together, I’ve come to love it more than I did before; all these words are from me to my little boy, can you hear me singing it to him on a cold December day?

I’m gonna pick up the pieces
And build a lego house
If things go wrong we can knock it down

And three words have two meanings
there’s one thing on my mind
It’s all for you

And it’s dark in a cold December
but i’ve got you to keep me warm
If you’re broken I will mend ya and keep you sheltered from the storm
that’s raging on now

I’m out of touch, I’m out of love
I’ll pick you up when you’re getting down
And out of all these things i’ve done
I think I love you better now

I’m out of sight, I’m out of mind
I’ll do it all for you in time
And out of all these things i’ve done
I think I love you better now… now

I’m gonna paint you by numbers and colour you in
if things go right we could frame it and put you on a wall
And it’s so hard to say it but i’ve been here before
now i’ll surrender up my heart and swap it for yours

I’m out of touch, I’m out of love
I’ll pick you up when you’re getting down
And out of all these things i’ve done
I think I love you better now

don’t hold me down
i think my braces are breaking
and it’s more than i can take

And it’s dark in the cold December
but i’ve got you to keep me warm
If you’re broken I will mend ya and keep you sheltered from the storm
that’s raging on now

I’m out of touch, I’m out of love
I’ll pick you up when you’re getting down
And out of all these things i’ve done
I will love you better now

Moving towards Christmas…

I feel now as though we’re in some kind of protective suspended-in-time bubble; it doesn’t really hurt yet and it’s not quite real. I know that will change and there will be some dark weeks ahead…

Just now though me and TheBoy are thinking about Christmas; The List for Santa is being tweaked every day; the Christmas cards are starting to outnumber the comforting sympathy cards arriving in the post and we’ll be putting the tree up any day now. So we have some brighter days to enjoy now, whatever shade of reality catches up with us in the darkness of January & February…

And I’ve decided to put Brownberry Yarns back online this weekend… I’ll see how it goes and I know you’ll all bear with me ♥

Sarah x

December 12th: RIP Jon Snape

We held Jon’s funeral today.

I was completely overwhelmed by the number of people who came to the crematorium; it was awesome – in the true sense of the word – to see how well loved he was. I spoke at the service; everyone said I was brave but I didn’t feel it… I just knew with all my heart that I couldn’t let the day pass without saying a few words about my hubby. We had our moments, don’t we all, but I sure as hell loved the stubborn sod.

The wake was… good… Jon always said he wanted us to have a party if it ever came to it, and I think we did him proud . I really was awed by the turnout by Jon’s colleagues, past and present, and the wonderful things they had to say about him… Everyone has promised to share their stories of Jon with Ol and I so that we can read them together over the years, and hopefully we’ll keep in touch too with many of the folk we met today.

Thank you so much to everyone who came today, thank you for all the hugs and cards and messages and promises of ongoing support, it means a huge amount, more than you can imagine. Thank you ♥

Sarah xxx