On 8 October 2021 I posted:
I love colour.
I mentioned the other day to The Captain that I thought that deep teal blue might work on the wall in the bedroom.
So he painted. Then we bought fabric. And lampshades.
And now our bedroom looks different. Hurrah!
I still love these colours. But I don’t know if we’ll carry them through to our new home… yes, everything is seen through the prism of how we will live in our new home.
It’s interesting that for a long time I couldn’t imagine Mum and Dad’s house looking any different to how it always did. But over the last couple of years we’ve removed many bits of furniture and of art, and to be honest the place looked pretty shonky when we first moved in, piles of books everywhere, groupings of furniture, depending if it was for throwing out, for taking to a charity shop or for someone in the family. And so many boxes and boxes and boxes of dusty old books. Books which in my heart of hearts I know I will never ever read, but which seem so very familiar as they have always been on the shelves. Many are German and are inscribed to Dad, in the 1930s
Now, when I walk in the door, I can see the potential more than I can see what it used to be. And this feels deliciously hopeful and exciting. The Captain and I will be creating our own new home in this space. There might be aspects of Mum’s life woven in there, in the way her genes are part of my DNA, but the house will, eventually, be so very different.
In further evidence of my love of colour, but also of experimenting, I see that a few days after I posted the pic of the new colour palette for our bedroom I posted about a latest project:
Yesterday I used about a year’s supply of discarded (but saved) onion skins to dye a white shirt. I am now the owner of a shirt that looks like it’s been dipped in builder’s tea. And then you’ve dribbled more stronger tea here and there.
And because I love experimenting, I threw another shirt into the dye vat as soon as this one was out.
I threw both shirts out – they were hideous. I’ve stopped saving onion skins for the moment and have decided that home-dying is not my thing, not for now anyway. I’ll no doubt come back to it some day. When we were packing up to move house, I discovered a box of dye materials: natural madder, indigo dye, weld, all purchased during that first lockdown year, before I realised how Mum’s mind was blurring and how all our lives would change. Perhaps I should have thrown the whole box out, but it’s here with me in our new home, waiting for a day when colour is the thing that will nourish me. No idea where it is though, we have two rooms piled high with boxes, most with enigmatic labels like ‘Office Last Bits’ or ‘Craft and books’. But which craft? And which books? And where will I put them when I find out?
I hope 2024 is treating you well. It’s not being the best of starts to a year so far, but I’m taking the view that it can only get better from here on in. Let’s see, eh?
***
Thank you for reading this.
Mostly I blog about my relationship with Mum and her dementia, so if that might be your thing, then you could start here at Taking smock of the Situation. Or just dip in. After all, if I’ve learned anything this last few years it’s that chronology and time are less important than we might believe.
Finally, if it’s not too much to ask (I know, it is, apologies) I would really appreciate it if you could make a donation towards Alzheimer Scotland. They’re doing stuff that makes living with this more bearable for so many people. Thank you, thank you, a thousand thank yous.
Shewolfinthevalley 
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