grateful

portrait of a woman and autumn hydrangeas

From our front garden, dusty rose and cream dried Autumn hydrangeas ...

Hydrangeas that have yet to be chewed and nibbled on, plucked at with paws and then dragged to the floor by kittens, little dried petals crushed under soft black foot pads ... you know who I'm talkin' about ... uh huh ... Oliver & Gus. Because surely these dried beauties were gathered and brought inside purely for the entertainment pleasure and Curiousity of my two inside cats. For some reason fresh flowers also hold the same fascination ... and if the vessel that holds the flowers is transparent and the water inside can be clearly seen ... well, it seems to a cat, or to my cat's anyway, that that is just way too much temptation and that water vessel must be eventually tipped over. It 's some sort of game with them almost like a child's way of thinking - Hmmm I wonder what would happen if we did this ?

The light in Autumn is amazing. Most early evenings of late I'm back at the teak topped desk after having a suppertime stroll With Miss Winnie Dixon. We'll walk down into the park and along the harbours edge, down onto the crescent beach and if it's low tide, we'll walk the length of the beach and we'll stop to sit on a big rock in front of the sweet old white cottage. We'll sit and ponder awhile, breathe, pause a moment to be grateful, say a little prayer or two, gaze up at the sky and out to sea ... and then we walk back. She'll find herself one of her raw hide treats and she'll join me in her bed (and den) under my desk. The sun has been setting each evening around 7pm in these parts. And every night, a new ritual with me it seems, I watch the sun set over our little harbour outside my studio window. I'm usually working away at something, or I've fallin' yet again under the lure and spell of the internet - of sitemeter, or etsy, or I'm catching up with a friend's blog and I'll happen to glance to my left and see a burst of colour.

A burst that makes me stand up, throw open the big window so that it's just the screen between me and the outside world, I lean my elbows on the wide window sill, chin in my hands and I marvel at the latest sunset. Like snowflakes, each one unique and always different than the night before. Last night was just a streaky burst of the hottest bright pink, coral, magenta I could imagine against pure blackness and the night before the sky was layered with ribbons upon ribbons of pastel lavender, aqua and the palest of pinks. Wow I always think to myself ... and each night as I stand in the open window I feel very grateful.