• Home
Tag:

Scapa

A pre-schooler sits in the centre of the frame, looking to the side, holding hands with a baby who is laid to her right, and with one hand resting on a black dog which disappears out of the frame to the her left.
Crowditch

Poor, Misunderstood Fog

by Lydia March 21, 2023

Well, spring has sprung. I had grand plans* to manage to do a handful of Things every day of this delicious season. Needless to say, the first hurdle was not cleared yesterday. Them’s the family breaks.

But it was a glorious day first thing for those precious moments when the rest of the house was peacefully sleeping. Then the fog rolled in, and then came the rain. Am I the only one who finds fog beautiful? At least, the fog that we get here, rolling in from the woods. People often (rightly) talk about delicate, gentle mist – but surely fog is just mist which has properly committed to the task in hand, and gone that step further?

*Not grand at all. Modest plans, hardly-anything-really plans. But, nevertheless, plans that my wonderful, marvellous little family still managed to send flying sidewards.

March 21, 2023
FacebookTwitterPinterestTumblrEmail
A close-up of a sleeping baby.
CrowditchThoughts

Elfi

by Lydia January 11, 2023

In the beginning, there were Japanese microseasons. The first post on this site was made when, depending on your translation and reference source, “dew glistens white on grass”. Now, “springs thaw” and soon, “pheasants start to call”.

The site had been a thought in development for several years by the time it first went live. We had chosen the name Elosa for our shared home before we moved in, way back in August 2017, being as it was a shared representation of our names at the time: a half-initialism, a half-acronym. Euan, Lydia and Osa. It’s what we call our current home, and it will be what we call our next home.

In the years that followed, our family changed shape. Osa became Ghost Osa, remaining an ever-present entity in our family. Scapa and Araucaria, or Auri for short, came along. By pure accident, as I realised later, their names moulded Elosa into a true acronym, based on all of our initials.

Now, we are Elosae. Elowen arrived on the 8th of December, thoughtfully letting me attend her sister’s Nativity two nights previously before kickstarting proceedings with my waters breaking at midnight. A day and some later, there she was: bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and bigger than her sister had been when she arrived (nearly four years ago, now) by more than a third again. Our little Elowen, or Elfi for short.

Auri adores Elfi, which is fortunate. So far, she has resented none of the changes made to accommodate her new sibling, and delights in showing her off to anyone and everyone, certain in that way that pre-schoolers are that everyone will be as interested and besotted as she is.

When the tree and the Christmas decorations were taken down last Friday, we moved my desk into the sitting room. Not simply an aesthetic choice, though I love my hand-crafted, bespoke desk: during my maternity leave, I will be spending the majority of my waking hours in this room with Elfi, so having my desk and all its accompanying paraphernalia to hand for any snatched spare moments (as this one is, right now) was a practical choice, too.

As I type, Elfi is asleep in her crib next to me. She is already filling the Moses Basket more than Auri did a few months in. It’s strange to see her in clothes than Auri wore when she was so much further along.

Now, as I type here, I can glance down at my sleeping baby. Wander across the sitting room – suddenly spacious after the good madness of Christmas – and finish off my cup of tea in a kitchen slightly smoky from the treacle-burnt ham fresh out of the oven.

Notebook, 7th January 2023

When Auri was born, she was definitely a Bowditch. So many people commented on how much she looked like Euan or members of his family. On my side, she most closely looked like two of my sisters, Holly and Diff, though I see me in her when she smiles her mischievous smile, full of devilment. Straight out of the family photograph album.

Elfi, on the other hand, was born the spitting image of me when I was a baby, complete with dark hair, so she is definitely a Crow. Out of all my siblings, I am the one who has always taken most after my mother, and members of my family have said how much Elfi looks like my Granddad George (my mum’s dad), so she is also very much a Temperton.

Looking at photos of Auri in the same basket, though, Auri and Elfi share so much in how they look. It’s so strange, noticing all these differences and similarities as they each forge their own way, announcing and stamping their own individuality on the world and all who sail in her.

It seems strange that Elfi, a day short of five weeks, is already living through her eighth microseason. Bears have started hibernating. Deers have shed antlers. Parsley has flourished.

So much, so soon, life comes rushing at us.

At the beginning of this year, I stopped reading and browsing news. I have had breaks before and it improved, well, everything. This time, I hardly even feel guilty about not being engaged, not being aware or informed. Family and friends will let me know if there is anything I need to know. And, if they don’t, I’m sure it will work out. My energies – and their energies, too – are better spent elsewhere.

That – alongside re-evaluating my relationship with my somewhat needy mobile – has meant I’ve already been reading more. Currently, one of the books I am reading is Tove Jansson: Life, Art, Words, the authorised biography by Boel Westin. Reading about her family, you can see the blueprint for what Jansson might become was scribbled from the start, from the earliest of days – but nobody would suspect she would forge, announce and stamp herself on the world as she did.

It is such a responsibility, growing young women: so hard to get right the balance between encouraging, inspiring, providing opportunity and advocating a little too much for a certain path. Auri is so sharp, so observant, blowing out of the water with her analytic curiosity all those phrases we use which don’t really make sense, and making me look at everything afresh and reconsider all that has become engrained over the last four decades. Elfi is at that early and delightfully honest stage, all snuffles and contented murmuring, and then scrunched up faces and immediate vocalisations of discontent if she is not entirely happy. I am learning and re-learning so much from both of them. And, as long as that is the case, perhaps that is what will ensure I, too, grow with the seasons.


This post isn’t what I thought it would be. There were other Things To Say, perhaps announcements to make. If I’d had the chance to sit down and write it in one sitting, blindly type in a furious fit of literary passion, perhaps it would have stayed the way I originally envisaged it. But that would also mean that I would have lost something, that I wouldn’t have let time and reflection reshape what I thought had to be written and guide me in a different direction.

This feels important, this observation and diverted path bringing a sense of relief. It emphasises the strength in not-knowing and growing.

After all, as the beloved Too-ticky once said, “All things are so very uncertain, and that’s exactly what makes me feel reassured.”

Merry, Merry New Year, one and all. May 2023 treat you and yours kindly.

January 11, 2023
FacebookTwitterPinterestTumblrEmail
A decorated Christmas Tree with warm lights stands in a corner of a room. To the right is a table with a small Araucaria heterophylla and a hand-made snowman made from a glass jar and cotton wool, with a green knitted scarf and a paper top hat.
Crowditch

Croymas Has Begun!

by Lydia December 5, 2022

Scapa has just returned from her walk and, noticing I had a blanket ready to put over my knees on the settee once I’d settled down with my cup of tea, pointedly stood there staring at it and me until I ended up opening it out and lifting it up so she could curl up under the blanket herself. No room for me.

There was a thick frost on the ground this morning, and it still hasn’t entirely shifted as we step into the afternoon. We are due snow this week – Wednesday, apparently – which is all very exciting. Auri, who at nearly four entirely equates snow with Christmas-time for obvious reasons, can’t wait and keeps describing the snowball fights we’re going to have. There are a series of seasonal milestones that are all wonderfully jumbled up in her head right now: Pip being born; Tonton Neeps, Tatie Aurélie and Baby Cousin Ailsa arriving; Christmas; snow. There are probably more. I was trying to explain the concept of ‘Christmas-time’ as opposed to ‘Christmas Day’ to her this morning, when she asked why we already had our tree up if it wasn’t Christmas yet.

We bought our tree and decorated it on Friday. Auri chose it, and a grand job she did, too. Fortunately, Scapa has never been too interested in Christmas Trees other than sniffing them and paying attention to certain ornaments; unfortunately, she has no idea what her tail does at any given time, so there have been a handful of ornaments brought down already due to pre-walk excitement.

So, Croymas has certainly started! And it is a particularly special one this year. Crowmas will officially begin on the 23rd December, when we drive up to Stempster for a few nights. All in all, we have an exciting month ahead of us.

December 5, 2022
FacebookTwitterPinterestTumblrEmail
A woodland scene, a close-up of the trunk of a tree and lichen in the centre of the picture. It's just ever-so-slightly out of focus.
#TheMistySolitudesCrowditch

Auri, Photographer

by Lydia November 9, 2022

On Sunday, Auri wanted to borrow my phone to take photos on her walk with Euan and Scapa.

A woodland scene, a close-up of the trunk of a tree and lichen in the centre of the picture. It's just ever-so-slightly out of focus.
November 9, 2022
FacebookTwitterPinterestTumblrEmail
A pre-schooler curls up with a black dog while the dog sleeps. The pre-schooler is half-sprawled on top of her.
Crowditch

The Best of Friends

by Lydia November 2, 2022
A pre-schooler curls up with a black dog while the dog sleeps. The pre-schooler is half-sprawled on top of her.
November 2, 2022
FacebookTwitterPinterestTumblrEmail
A black dog points her nose upwards to knock a hand away from a computer mouse at the edge of a desk. The image catches her mid-act.
Crowditch

Persistent Scapa

by Lydia October 19, 2022

I really enjoy homeworking. I can get so much more done, and (especially right now) it’s nice to be able to relax properly during my lunch break. But one of the tricky things to deal with is Scapa. Mostly, she curls up somewhere nearby after her walk, and is quite content and peaceful. But, if she wants strokes, she has a habit of knocking my right hand upwards until I stop using my mouse and pay her some attention.

A black dog points her nose upwards to knock a hand away from a computer mouse at the edge of a desk. The image catches her mid-act.
October 19, 2022
FacebookTwitterPinterestTumblrEmail
A Baby Box, full of clothes and other things needed for a brand new baby, sits in the middle of a room. A preschooler and her dad are looking through the contents and reading the books together.
Crowditch

Baby Box

by Lydia October 17, 2022

Pip’s baby box arrived today, and Auri loved opening it and unpacking everything inside. I swear Scapa looked at it as if to say, “Hang on, I know what that means…”

A Baby Box, full of clothes and other things needed for a brand new baby, sits in the middle of a room. A preschooler and her dad are looking through the contents and reading the books together.
October 17, 2022
FacebookTwitterPinterestTumblrEmail
The programme Bagpuss is showing on a laptop screen. At the corners of the image can be seen the back of a preschooler's head as she watches the programme, her parents, and a black dog sprawled asleep on the settee.
Crowditch

Introducing Bagpuss

by Lydia October 8, 2022

The other day, I introduced Auri to Bagpuss. And, despite it being a different pace to some of the gleam and glare these days (which I constantly try to avoid or mitigate), she absolutely loved it. Earlier today, she opted to watch Stoppit and Tidyup.

The programme Bagpuss is showing on a laptop screen. At the corners of the image can be seen the back of a preschooler's head as she watches the programme, her parents, and a black dog sprawled asleep on the settee.
October 8, 2022
FacebookTwitterPinterestTumblrEmail
A black dog pokes half her head out from underneath some bedsheets.
Crowditch

Ridiculous #1

by Lydia October 5, 2022
A black dog pokes half her head out from underneath some bedsheets.
October 5, 2022
FacebookTwitterPinterestTumblrEmail
A close-up of a black Pointer/Lab cross dog, with her head draped across a laptop that sits on someone's knees.
Crowditch

Good Morning

by Lydia September 29, 2022

Usually, most mornings, Euan and Scapa get up early-early and go for a walk. They come back, Scapa has her breakfast, and Euan goes back to bed for an hour or two. I get up not too long after this.

This morning, I was up before them, which resulted in Scapa deciding to eat her breakfast with me. She took a mouthful of kibble from her bowl in the kitchen (chicken munched promptly first), came to sit next to me in the sitting room, chomped it up, then went back for more and repeated this process.

Then, she proceeded to refuse to let me do anything except stroke her. Writing, shopping list, everything else be de damned. Eventually, she settled down like this.

A close-up of a black Pointer/Lab cross dog, with her head draped across a laptop that sits on someone's knees.
September 29, 2022
FacebookTwitterPinterestTumblrEmail
  • 1
  • 2

Elosa

Take one Southern and one Northern. Throw in a determined preschooler, a hot-off-the-press baby, and their four-legged guardian and partner in crime. Immerse in the Highlands.

You can sign-up for a regular email recap of recent posts and goings-on here. Probably monthly, possibly more often if life and happenings merit it.

#ElmHunt #ElmWatch apples artists Auri Autumn beach books Caithness Christmas creativity Crowvus Croymas culture dogs Elfi elm Euan fog food fountain pen friends garden George Mackay Brown habits Japan Lydia microseasons mist news notebook Osa pencils reading research Scapa seasons sky snow Stempster Tove Jansson trees weather woods writing

@2019 - All Right Reserved. Designed and Developed by PenciDesign


Back To Top
  • Home