Clarity

In one of our latest Geocaching forays, Ian and Ruth and Jon and I went to find some church microcaches. It was a lovely sunny December day, about 5 degrees with sparkling blue skies and cool clear air - lovely day to be out and about. I was very interested to see that there has been some new carving done around the church's door - not the main entrance with the porch, but the door shown on this picture:



It's lovely to see such sympathetic workmanship of this quality on this piece of heritage.

I don't think I've ever had such a lazy and enjoyable Christmas Day. It was decided that Jessica would host the dinner this year ably assisted by her partner Neil and my Mum. Despite repeated requests, they did not want any assistance, and especially no assistance with the clearing up afterwards! So we spent our time playing with Cameron and Spike the little dog whilst hard work was going on in the kitchen.



It was all wonderful and extremely festive. Everything came together beautifully and tasted delicious. The best part was the sheer volume of vegetables - all cooked to perfection, not a soggy sprout to be seen.



Binky apparently has a love of roast dinners despite the fact that they're still pureed for him. He was very well behaved and had a lovely time - my favourte memory will be of him crawling around the floor after Spike the dog, laughing his little head off at goodness knows what.



Opening pressies between dinner and pud was fun - we all had a great haul and Cam had some excellent toys. A good time was had by all.

After my excellent experience in Romsey Abbey, I have figured that I need to find a place more local to me where I can go to clear my head and think. I know that many people have the mental discpline to be able to reach this state of mind in their homes but I need the help of good quiet old stone!

I have a lovely old local church which I shall visit and see how it feels.



It has many quirky and interesting features, the most interesting of which is the carving that reputedly inspired Lewis Carroll to write of the Cheshire Cat.



I will be very happy indeed if it has the same calming effect as Romsey Abbey.

I was hit by a number of ideas for a story whilst cycling to and from work late this year. It was inspired by an old house (circa 1700s) that I go past on each journey. I now carry a notebook with me at all times as I seem to want to discuss ideas at the most unusual times, usually whilst having meals to the amusement of my other half!

How to get away from distractions is something that's puzzling me though. If I am to develop these ideas and start to write, I need to be able to create a quiet and creative space or at least mindset and I seem to be finding it hard to do this at home. I think there are too many distractions - websites, forums, TV programmes, DVDs, housework, emails to be answered..... there just seems to be an endless number of things that I should/are encouraged to do instead.

Something occurred to me this week. I had a couple of spare hours in Romsey before I needed to be going to my Mum's to collect her as we were attending a family party that evening. I had an idea that sitting/wandering for a while in the Abbey might help me to clear my mind and show me how to get into the peaceful state that I seem to need in order to be creative.

It was wonderful!! I sat myself in St Anne's Chapel as the light was fading outside and just allowed my thoughts to freewheel in the quiet. The Abbey is always quite warm and comfortable and to my mind has always had a very welcoming and open atmosphere for all its grandeur.



I came up with more ideas in those two hours than I have in the few weeks that I have been musing on my storyline. They were quite dark, gothic ideas and add a depth to the plots that I had been missing previously. Not sure if I'll use them all, but they felt like a gift.