Will Dig Life

First of all, to be clear: I am not deleting my FB account, because I still find FB useful for marketplace and certain groups I'm part of. But other than that, I will be stepping back at the beginning of Lent, and plan on permanently minimising my use of Facebook - getting out of it what I need, but putting nothing in. How this has come about I have loved Facebook since 2007, because it has allowed me to easily stay up to date with what friends and family in distant lands are up to - and they're all over the place: the US, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Austria, ... it's the little things they post about life, that made me feel connected. It's not the same as a once-a-year Christmas update letter: not the highlights, but the nitty-gritty and their random thoughts and small life happenings. That is what has kept me on FB, really, when various friends have left over the past few years. The other really useful FB feature I got into when the kids were born were the Facebo...

What have we been up to this month, you ask? I'll put it all in one post but I think it has grown quite long with all the pictures so I'll probably go to weekly posts instead after this - would appreciate any feedback on that! I am in the process of stepping back from Facebook. This blog will continue, though, so if you'd like to follow the kids' adventures then this is the place to be... We started the year with a cold and wet fossil hunting visit to Aust We spent almost all our time at home - it's lockdown again, and winter! The body board is still an absolute favourite Christmas present Split his chin open again by running around too hard "Work" An indoor picnic on the body boards! Exercise... Body board training? I cut daddy's hair... ...and we decided to have fun with it! We enjoyed lots of creativity - especially the pottery that we got from a local place, which we did at home and returned to be fired and it came out stunning! Creativity 10pm cre...

Every year, while avoiding the pressure of "resolutions", I try to focus on something I want to improve, change, or grow in that year. 2020 was a year of huge change for us, not just in terms of Covid which impacted everyone, but also a huge shift as we moved churches... I don't anticipate another big change for us in 2021 but I certainly have more than enough things in my life that could do with improving, changing and growing. In thinking about that, I came across an article by Rachel Macy Stafford, who writes books about mothering and life and being present for our children (highly recommen any and all of them!), where she put forward a key word to try and live by: soften . My Vow to Soften by Rachel Macy Stafford I’ve had enough of my hard edges. I’m tired of straining my voice. I’d like to loosen up and laugh a little more, Be a positive rather than a negative. I’d like to feel the upward curve of my lips. I’d like to surrender control of things in which I have no c...

(this is an article I wrote for a home educators magazine about how we lived lockdown 2020 as a family) Lessons from the Monastery by Susanne, Bristol As a marketing manager in my 20’s, I loved the fast pace of my job – juggling many projects, traveling all over the country, it was in equal measure exhilarating and exhausting. After running hard, I occasionally needed a strong dose of stillness. Worth Abbey in Surrey I found that stillness in monastic retreats: I often took part in silent, individual or group retreats at a variety of monasteries, most of them Benedictine. One year, I spent a long weekend every month at Worth Abbey in Crawley. Those times were like skidding to a halt, a sudden and disorienting drop from my high energy job and buzzing mind – into stillness, yes, but not only stillness. As I learned, monks actually do not sit still all day, every day! It was those times I looked back on when the lockdown came in 2020, that unprecedented global skid to a halt, the Great P...