I know, it’s shocking that I should be sharing news with you here in my newsletter. But I did say that I wouldn’t be talking about selling my parent’s house unless I had something concrete to report.
And this month I do.
Several estate agents came to value the property at the start of December and provide quotes for their services. Given earlier conversations with said agents both I and my parents had assumed that we’d chose one but wouldn’t officially put the house on the market until the new year.
We were, happily, wildly wrong about that and the house was sold subject to contract less than a week after the first estate agent visit, without it ever going on the open market. Now obviously there is a massive difference between accepting an offer and having the money in the bank but goodness me it’s still the best early Christmas present I’ve ever received!
So I’m hoping my first few months of 2025 are going to involve solicitors, paperwork, a removal firm, and a lot of organisation. Future house updates will - since I continue to not want to tempt fate in any way at all - come once sale and moving milestones have actually occurred. As always your good wishes, good vibes and prayers are most welcome as I attempt to keep everything going in the right direction.
Herding the Words
I loved every second of writing and sharing the Wildwood Advent, which finished not on Christmas Eve but Boxing Day because, obviously, I had to write my own version of Wren Day. If you missed what is basically a forty five thousand word novella in twenty eight short story “chapters” about a tiny bird with a big heart dealing with seasonal depression and a lack of self confidence via community, friendship, and a sprinkling of magic you can find links to the stories on the Wildwood Advent Contents Page.
I don’t know what series of tales the Wildwood will be sharing next but I’m hopeful there might be slightly less of a gap than the eleven months between me sharing the final story in the Flashes of Feathers series and posting the first of the Advent tales.
What I do know is that I am really looking forward to taking part in Kim Moore and Clare Shaw’s January Writing Hours 2025; an online Writing Hour every morning throughout January from 10am to 11am on Zoom. Poems will be read, poems will be thought about, poems will be written. And, best of all “Come in your pyjamas, Come with your breakfast. Come every day - or come when you can - and commit an hour to yourself and your writing”. What more could I ask for?
I already know that won’t be able to make it every day at 10am - I have several pre-existing appointments I can’t cancel - but I should be able to make it at least five days out of seven and it will be good change of pace and focus since I’ve neglected my poetry writing of late.
Wrangling the Yarn
I was gifted a mystery box from Crochet-UK for Christmas so I’m currently making a shawl in unknown colours. Although it’s very clear my Mum made suggestions about the colour combinations to be included since the first two are glorious woodsy greens!
This does mean that I have five crochet WIPS on the go and haven’t finished anything since my “Wear the Lilac” top back in May but I’m giving myself a pass because life’s too short to get upset over the progress of a hobby that is supposed to bring me joy. I’m having fun, that’s the only metric I’m going to measure by.
Living Life
Normally by this point in December I’ve sat down and reflected on the old year and done at least a little planning for the new one. I didn’t do it formally last year, by choice, but this year has just run right away from me and I haven’t even found the 2025 diary I know I bought myself in October when I was being organised.
I’ve decided, instead, that I’m nominating January as a month of reflection so hopefully by the time I come to write my first substack of 2025 I’ll have a better idea of my creative path for the year, what I’ll be bringing with me from 2024, what I’ll be ditching, and what new things I’d like to try.
What I do know, regardless of my lack of reflection, is that I’m really happy with how this year is ending for me and so grateful to all of you who’ve cheered me on re the moving and house sales. I very much hope that 2025 treats all of us well and that by this time next year I’ll be writing to you from the northern border of England rather than the western one.
The One Card Tarot Draw
For the final time this year I have consulted my Prisma Visions tarot deck to see what January might bring us and it has decided that being wildly on the nose is the way to go:
As the New Year comes rushing in you’re going to want to get hold of that energy and make it work for you.
Not by making a lot of resolutions you’ll not manage to keep, I hasten to add, but rather by using the skills and abilities you’ve already honed and focusing on the fire in your soul to let them blaze. You have everything you need to get where you want to be, you just need to get out of your own way and let your mind and body work with the flow, rather than against it.
Or, more bluntly, as we move into January you’re going to grab the bull by the horns and demonstrate your mastery over both yourself and your environment!
I normally end my newsletters with a blessing and I’m not going to break that habit today, however I am going to borrow someone else’s words this time.
I’ve been reading Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg’s work for many years now, finding wisdom and compassion in her words and new ways of looking at, and thinking about, our place this world. Her most recent post about gratitude - which you can find here and is worth reading in it’s entirety - ended with this most beautiful blessing which I was grateful to receive and thought you might all find helpful too:
As who you have been begins to cede way to the person you will soon become, may you grow into even stronger connection with the sacred, into the expansiveness of the great Infinite Everything.
May you grow into your greatest, bravest, most loving self.
May you stand tall and unafraid of the great, exquisite, expansive light within you that is straining to get out.
May you trust that light, and may you hear the still small voice within that whispers to you about what you need and who you can be.
May you follow the light and the voice wherever it may take you—even to places you hadn't guessed, hadn't imagined, that haven't been part of the plan.
May you remain always curious, open, and eager to learn.
May you stay kind and gentle. May you regard others with compassion, generosity, and the benefit of the doubt.
May you be willing to take accountability when you cause harm– as we all do– caring for those hurt and using your errors as new opportunities to grow.
May you find your place on deck in the work for a world in need of healing.
May you be brave in the face of injustice.
May your thoughts, actions and very being be an offering to the transcendent, to the great stream of life of which you are a part.
And lastly I hope that, however you intend to see in the new year, you have wonderful time and I wish you nothing but good things and joys both large and small for 2025.
Wonderful news on the house front, may you be blessed by it all be as smooth and as easy moving forwards.