Ridgeway Cottage anyhow

There comes a time in your life where you have to seriously think about the direction you are going in. As you get older, life changes you and the things that were once important no longer matter to the person you have become. When I started my blog, it had a specific purpose. I wanted to focus on something each day that made me happy. I wanted to ensure that I saw the wonderful world around me and did not forget the beauty of small things. The reason was that in November 2009, I lost my baby Jack and my life changed forever. I have his footprints around my neck, a picture carefully hidden in my wardrobe and a tiny grave. I never wanted my blog to be about depression, I wanted it to be a reflection of what I could achieve despite the darkness that rest heavy in my heart. However as time has gone by, I have not recovered and life has got harder for me to manage. On Monday of this week, I was signed off work again for anxiety with depression and I cried for everything that I had lost,...

Last Sunday, in fact it was the last time I wrote my blog, I was filled with ideas and inspiration. This was going to be a highly successful week for me. I had made my plans, set myself targets and had everything I needed to fly through the week, with the wings of a reading angel, ready to read six books in public in a week and raise a large amount of money for Comic Relief. If success is measured by my money, then my week was highly successful. My fund raising team made over £500 for Comic Relief, which exceeds my expectations and makes me deeply proud of my students. My daughter was inspired by our efforts and made her own contributions and my son came into college to meet my students and donate money on Friday. In terms of learning outcomes and working together as part of a group, everyone now has a wealth of experience to draw upon. The despondency is being replaced with an amount of infectious enthusiasm and love of what we do. Nothing is more true now than do what you love an...

Mostly I do not like to watch the news, it really is just too depressing for me. I am sensitive to the plight and pain of the rest of the world; the images haunt me and events that change people' lives for ever can't ever be expressed in words. It does upset me that I hear this time in our lives as being the age of austerity, as it is just not true. People will loose their jobs, many will cut back on luxuries, people will have to spend money in this country on holiday instead of flying abroad, but few people who talk of this age of austerity will never know the hardship that it originally described. Between 1945 - 1951 many people had to try and rebuild lives that had been irreversibly destroyed. Each day I struggle with my own demons, tragedies that have altered my smile and the very core of my soul, but I am luckier than most. I have more than a huge proportion of the world could ever dream of and I have the ability to recognise my good fortune. I can express myself throu...

I think that a lot of my knitting projects have been beyond my skills but I would love to be able to Knit a Royal Wedding and how sad to think that this is likely to be my only opportunity to undertaked such a fantastical task. Prince William will be the King of my Grandchildren's generation and what greater crazy old lady heirloom could I bequeathe to them, especially as he bears a stricking resemblance to my brother. This is neither Prince William nor my brother. Inspiration and ideas completely stolen from the wonderful book ' Knit your own Royal Wedding ' by Fiona Goble .

I am immeasurably bad at knitting and it is more of a science than an art in my eyes, with the addition of maths to make it even more complicated, very similar to baking a cake . In order for knitting to be relaxing for me it has to be a rather simple combination of stitches that are the repeat over and over again. So many of my knitting projects are laying unfinished because I have got to the part where you need to look at the pattern and follow the instructions. I am also very bad at following instructions, I would rather just have a go at stuff, try and work it out, see what happens, be creative. This approach works beautifully with art, I look at an image, become inspired and recreate an interpretation with confidence and panache . This does not work at all with knitting, if you do not follow the pattern to the letter (which are mind blowing codes that you have to flick back to the beginning of the book to decode or watch videos about how to do them on Youtube to decipher) the re...

I don't believe that I could live without books. There isn't a day ever where I don't look at one, read one, pick one up from the floor, buy one, order or collect one from the library or write in one. The written word is such an integral part of my life, I could not image how it could ever be any different. I love to write, either my blog, messages to friends, in my diary, the written word is everything to me. As a literacy teacher I spend a vast amount of my time working with words, trying to inspire the reading and writing of words, often to those who either don't have regular access to books or sincerely do not wish to engage with text (other than on their phones or Facebook). However these young people are my new inspiration. Each of the teenagers in my class know that today is World Book Day and everyone of them took a £1 book token. Quite a few of them have even bought books with them, but as always there are those who surprise me and truly make me feel proud to...