Newsletter April 2023

Spring is arriving in the Northern Hemisphere and I hope those of you who celebrate Easter and Passover have had a lovely time.

Emily made a set of butterflies for me years ago and with each house move, it feels like home when they fly on a wall. Since this move, I hadn't been able to find them for a couple of months, as I'd tucked them away in a safe place. Just as I am finishing a complicated knitting project, I discovered them at the bottom of my basket. Then they sat on the side for a few weeks because I could not make a decision on where to fly them. Tim and I were putting ourselves under a great deal of pressure with our talk on this being our forever home, which added unnecessary weight to our choices. So, we've stopped doing that and have found our natural flow again. We can be like the butterflies and fly free, without creating a cocoon of pressure. Em's butterflies are flying on our Railway Room wall, beside us both as we work each day.

We changed cars yesterday, as ours had an unfixable leak for months and we were both fed up with getting wet feet and clearing the condensation. The car dealer was surprised when I didn't want to keep the inherited, personalised number plate. I was clear that this chapter was ending and I was happy to embrace a new plate and car. He double-checked and stated that he would want to keep it.

'Why?' I asked, 'it's just a thing. I am good at letting go.'

He looked hurt and I reassured him that my choice was no reflection of him and the choices he makes. Privately, I had the clear thought that I stand beside coffins most days and they are not full of the clutter of life.

For each ceremony honouring a loved one, it is the small things that create heart memories. A soft pink hydrangea nestled among pale pink and cream spring flowers, because that was the lady's favourite flower in her garden. Carefully chosen words and sayings which have special meaning. Talk of feathers, robins, and rainbows because our loved ones in spirit let us know that their loving bonds remain. A photograph capturing a moment in time. The expression from poetry and music when those who are grieving have no voice.

A loving light is not extinguished by death, yet lives on in the stories and memories shared.

'For every joy that passes, Something beautiful remains.'

Loving energy is nurtured as Tim and I create our shared workshop in the back garden. We can see each other in this space of warm, soft green walls and rustic wooden paneling, looking out across our garden to the trees, listening to the birds sing, making hot drinks, planning what we're going to eat for supper, and making new plans for a railway garden, rockery, and raised vegetable and herb beds. A shared vision holding much loving light.

Tim has brought light into my life in so many ways and one is through the electrical skills he learned way back in his apprenticeship at Rolls Royce, and from this, he has re-wired and placed new loving lights and shades in our home and workshop.

Sending loving light to you all.

Jane & Tim x