Well, there’s not been exactly nothing doing, but I have not been very active with making since my last post.<\/p>\n

Brian the dachshund<\/a> has been with me most days and has kept me reasonably busy: I have been walking and entertaining him – and his antics have been entertaining me – those little legs are deceptively fast, and that nosy little snoot gets into everything!<\/p>\n

He also likes to try to sit on my lap whilst I work, which is very cute, if somewhat limiting on the production front – not nothing doing, but close.\u00a0Anyway, I tried, but found it surprisingly difficult to produce a cat lady to accompany the cat lords I made previously.<\/p>\n

And not just because of Brian.<\/p>\n

I went to see the movie The Favourite<\/a> the other day – the one about Queen Anne with Olivia Colman and Emma Stone in it.<\/p>\n

As well as being really entertaining, the costumes were just fab – and I wanted my court lady cat to be equally fab. But my fabric stash is limited in terms of silks and satins and brocades and all the other sort of frills and furbelows required to outfit an eighteenth century lady cat.<\/p>\n

Not to mention the trials and tribulations of reproducing this finery at miniature size.<\/p>\n

Although I was<\/em> quite pleased with her shoes…So as you can see, there is<\/em> a lady, but everything about her took flipping ages to make and at the end of the process I am only partially happy with her.<\/p>\n

Which has stalled my creative process, because the plan was to make a fair few ladies, but I’m not sure that I want to repeat the process of eighteenth century outfitting if it’s going to be quite as painful as my first attempt.The other thing that has slowed me down is that my niece returned to Australia this week, having come to the end of her gap year, a good proportion of which she chose to spend with us.<\/p>\n

As you may know if you have been reading my posts for any length of time, I live in a house of males – partner and teenage son. Even Brian the borrowed dachshund is male. I think my doll-making may in some ways be a response to this. A kind of reclaiming of something feminine (other than housework!) from a life often dominated by sport on telly and smelly socks and blokes who are lovely in all sorts of ways but have basically no interest in “women’s stuff”.<\/p>\n

When my niece asked if she could stay with us I thought about the prospect of having two teenagers in the house. I wondered about queues for the bathroom and potential emotional ups and downs. I thought about her friendship with my lad, cooking and shopping for four instead of three, the trips we might take and the fun we might have as a family of four. What I never even considered was how wonderful having another female in the house would be – and a young one at that. How this energy would change things. How people who can sometimes be set in their ways and a bit thoughtless (me included) would be inspired, by her presence and her personality, to up their game.<\/p>\n

In short, I have loved<\/em> having her here. And now she’s gone. She’s off to university in a few short weeks, where I have no doubt whatsoever that she will be incredibly successful. She plans to return, so hopefully she has enjoyed her time with us, too.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I digress. The point is that I am missing her and all she brought to our home and my life.<\/p>\n

I find myself in a creative slump, unable to motivate myself to make things, or apply for things, or sell things. It’s like wading through treacle. I feel guilty about this, because it’s not like I can really afford to be unproductive.<\/p>\n

Brian is currently my salvation, because you can’t ignore a dachshund when he’s literally<\/em> bouncing up and down, desperate for a scamper around the local park.<\/p>\n

Not that you would guess that from this picture…!I often struggle at this time of year… it’s like that line from The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe<\/a>:
\n\u201cIt is winter in Narnia,\u201d said Mr. Tumnus, \u201cand has been for ever so long\u2026. always winter, but never Christmas.\u201d<\/p>\n

That’s how it feels at the moment. It’s stupid to feel like this, I know. But it’s possibly more stupid to deny it.\u00a0Christmas is over, done and dusted, spring seems months away. The aching bones and grey days of winter seem to stretch ahead forever. Nothing doing about it. It seems to get worse each year as I get older.<\/p>\n

What do other people do to get themselves through the winter months when there’s nothing doing, to retain their creativity and their sanity?I keep reminding myself that “nothing blooms all year round” and to be good to myself, and to plan for the future. But really I just wish I could hibernate until April.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, as far as that goes, there’s nothing doing.\u00a0\u2665<\/p>\n

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Well, there’s not been exactly nothing doing, but I have not been very active with making since my last post. Brian the dachshund has been with me most days and has kept me reasonably busy: I have been walking and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20105,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[5,1],"tags":[267,1231],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\n