These last few weeks, writing my next 'something I have noticed' journal has been a little like mining for gold. I am sifting through drawings, blog posts and moments of 2022 to find the bits that shone the brightest so I can bring them all together in one place and tell the story of the year.
A photograph is an easy way to recall a golden moment isn't it but what about the moments that I didn't catch on camera? They were plentiful too. This question inspired me to start remembering them so every night as I'm falling asleep I ask myself to look for a moment that shone out.
The next day I write them down. Here are a few:
First thing in the morning the crocuses in the garden were pale and covered in frost but in the mid afternoon sun they burst open into a sea of joyous colour. I saw my first bee of the year disappear inside one looking for gold. 13th Feb
We had our bedroom window open to let the smell of the varnish out and were woken up in the middle of the night by owls hooting. Or was it a dream? 16th Feb
I heard the first chaffinch of the year singing his cascading song under a blue sky in a tree by the canal. He just couldn’t help himself. 8th Feb
The gang of long tailed tits descended in our garden. They looked so beautiful as they hung on to the hydrangea stems, their black and white tails as straight as chopsticks. 11th Feb
Me and Moon dog discovered that the first tips of the bluebell shoots were out in the woods above Cragg Vale. Spring is on the way. 20th February
Now these are all pictures in my mind, and these words are the photo album.
Reading through these entries all I see that there are a lot of 'firsts'; first chaffinch, first owl hooting, first blackbird song, first bluebell shoots, first crocus. February is the month of firsts when things start to come back to life again and we can see everything again as if for the first time.
I hope that writing these moments will become a strong habit. What a beautiful way to remember a year.
My second Something I Have Noticed journal will be available in late spring. You can order No.1 right here.
