A summer's work
School summer break 2021 turned, inescapably, into another staycation. [There is a Swedish word for this, too: "hemester", an amalgamation of "hem" (home) and "semester" (vacation).]
With the border to the UK still closed, our second vaccinations not scheduled until the very end of the kids' time off, and being kind of unable to keep up with changing travel regulations in Belgium & France anyway... There is no doubt that, with every month that goes by, the heartache of not seeing family and friends abroad only grows. I don't know what to do with that loss - none of us do.
But if all that sounds very down and pessimistic, in reality our summer was filled with abundance too. A different kind, not one of a carroussel of places, faces, and suitcases bulging with things-we-must-bring-back. We've had to work a little harder to find joy close to home. Another thing I guess many of us have had in common, throughout this pandemic {I saw someone call it The Motherf*cking Panny, which I think is thrillingly accurate}.
We found it, of course we did. Maybe most of all me: As someone who instantly wilts like a sad flower in heat, nowhere is more perfect than Sweden in summer. I've dragged everyone else along, up the trees laden with tiny cherries, into freezing cold lakes, and through forests heaving with both mosquitoes and blueberries. The garden has given us handfuls of sweet peas, French beans and all sorts of tomatoes. The heavy clay sod I got Mr E+L and the neighbour to shift in June? That's now the beginnings of a community garden, a strip crammed with sunflowers and runner beans and insects. Soon we'll dig up the potatoes and foist apples onto anyone who passes.
I'm not always sure that everyone else shares my enthusiasm, equally reserved for fruit picking and the pulling on of knitted socks during an inevitable August (and July too, if I'm honest) cold spell. Although...
Last weekend the 8yo came blackberry picking with me. Or rather, he held the box while I wrestled with the thorns. But at one point he looked around the thriving meadow and said gravely, "Mum, are we in the middle of nowhere?". I laughed and pointed out the noise of the nearby ring road and the 3-minute cycle ride home.
"But is feels like it, doesn't it Mum. All I can see is green and it's kind of magical."
My heart did a little leap.
You get it, I thought. Though I'm not sure whether I can take credit or whether you're just being your usual amazing You, though you might prefer to leave off from the juice-stained fingers and tuck straight into the finished crumble... You know how much this is all worth. And I hope, my lovely child, that it goes some way to making up for what you've lost as well as give you something to fight for.
Over the coming two months I can finally reveal the patterns I’ve been working on this year, starting with this piece of bright & woolly bling:
Dawn to Dusk Shawl, out now in issue 139 of Inside Crochet Magazine. Photo taken by my 8.5yo!
