January Books 2026

I haven’t written a post about books for quite some time. Time to start again as I try to be more reflective and careful with my time.

Self Care for Winter By Suzy Reading. Full of practical help and advice if like me you dread Winter. The illustrations are sublime.

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens– a re-read for me. It took me a long time to read this. It is a big book, and you can tell that it was first published in installments in a magazine. It’s one of my favourite novels by Dickens.. my favaourite screen version of the novel with a stellar cast is the BBC version with Maggie Smith and Daniel Radcliffe (years before he was Harry Potter). My favourite character is Betsey Trotwood, who was so disappointed when David was David and not a girl, but who turns out to be just who he needed a few years later. My only issue with her is her dislike of donkeys. I am very fond of donkeys, but I’d probably not like them wandering over my garden either.

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell– bought last Summer from a second hand bookshop. I enjoyed her descriptions of life in Tudor England and medical knowledge of that time. I would have liked more about Shakespeare’s life in London as an actor and playwright as the events in the book led to the writning of the play Hamlet, or at least to his naming of that character. It felt that a vital part was missing. But what do I know- it won the Women’s Prize for fiction and is now a film, which I should try to see.

Not many books but that’s down to my reading several non-fiction books at once and a novel for bedtime reading. Hopefully I will finish one in February to write about.

Eye Op update

Thanks everyone who kept me in your thoughts this week. The eye op happened on Monday morning and one cataract was dealt with. Things went exactly as the literature predicted. Day of the op involved a great deal of sitting around and waiting for eye drops to work dilating my pupil. The op took 10-15 minutes. It doesn’t hurt and all you see is blue lights and the occasional flash of white light. What I didn’t realise was how wet I would get . Yes wet. A weak iodine solution keeps the eye moist and it does go right down your neck. When they advise not to wear white clothing they mean it. Part way through I suddenly thought how grateful I was.. I mean there was a time when this op meant hospital stays and before that nothing could be done, and how skilled the surgeon must be.

First day after the op, my eye felt gungy, and getting into a rhythm of doing two lots of eye drops throughout the day was a bit challenging, especially as I had to eat as well. It felt like a full time job.

Day two- eye stopped watering and I managed a short stroll. The sun was shining and I did need my sunglasses. Checked on every available car that I could read the number plate from the correct distance and was therefore able to drive. I was determined to get behind the wheel before I blew that task into being a big thing.

Today- day three- eye sight now noticeably better than yesterday and all previous days. Could see details on neighbours house minus glasses. Ventured a short distance in the car to local shops. The red on the traffic light was a bit dazzling so wore sunglasses for return journey. Lights in the shop seemed very bright. Noticed that blue and red cars in the carpark were much brighter. It was good to be out and about again.

I have spent the last two days going through boxes of papers, cards, etc I’d kept from my sons’ childhoods and sorting them into individual boxes for each of them. I have loved going down memory lane, reading school reports, etc and even my own diaries from my late teens and twenties. How life has changed. It was an excellent thing to do this week, because not being able to do much quickly palled and I felt bored. Thanks goodness I had prepared for this.

It’s been an odd end to January for sure.

One Word- January 26

My word for this year is Seek. I want to find some answers to the things that bother me and become more mindful of the passing seasons and older ways of being.

The question I explored in January was “Why do I dread Winter now, when it used to be my second favourite season of the year.?’ I had begun to research this in December by re-reading Wintering by Katherine May. What I took from this book this time was that Winter is a time for hunkering down and resting. Not just to recover from the previous year but also to prepare us for what is to come. January is named after the god Janus who has two heads. Meaning endings and beginings, a keeper of doors and one who looks in both ways. So of course people make their new years resolutions or choose their new One Words, make plans, book holidays etc. Hopefully they look back too as I did in my review and reflections on the last year.

As always I now turned to a book. Self- care for Winter by Suzy Reading. The illustrations by Rosanna Tasker are a delight in themselves and will cheer anyone up. Suzy asks some very searching questions in the first chapter which began to let me focus my thoughts. Next came the Seven Steps of winter well-being.. I don’t want to say too much here, but some ideas I had thought for myself and some I had not. It became clearer to me that I am fine in December it’s the slog of January to March I find hard.

I decided to try hunkering down, especially as I had bad cough and had started to anticipate the cataract appointment and operation. I read a lot, I listened to Radio 3 Unwind, I stitched and knitted and I have slept.

I reached page 185 of the book. Nearly the end. A chapter on reflective passages to relieve your mind, stress and emotions.

“To help you let go. Write a letter to someone who has treated you unfairly”

WELL. There was someone. Someone who I couldn’t confront ever because she was my boss, and the person who would write my reference. It’s nearly 14 years ago, but still from time to time I think back to the events. I wrote that letter, I said everything I couldn’t say at the time. And then the penny dropped. This was the year when Winter went on and on. When I was struggling every morning with snow and ice. When both my parents were becoming older, infirm.. I was only just getting over two other family members ill health. And all of a sudden it wasn’t this Winter I was dreading it was memories of a particular Winter that were haunting me.

But could I now finally let go? Back to the ideas in the book that I thought I knew already. Well I did know them I just hadn’t done them this year. I bought myself some daffodils, and dug out my most colourful jumpers ( get colour in your life). I went to the garden centre.. yes they are still clearing out Christmas paraphernalia.. but there some primulas, pansies and snowdrops for sale. I have put them in the garden where I can see them first thing every morning from my window when I open the bedroom curtains. I have gone out for walks.. not raining, I’m out.

This week I have been busy trying to do everything I need to do before the op tomorrow. I tell myself its got a shorter duration than root canal treatment with the dentist… and doesn’t sound half so painful as toothache. What’s more I discovered that it’s perfectly legal to drive a car with just one eye! Oddly those thoughts have kept things in better perspective. I have been a veritable domestic goddess, housework, laundry, shopping done. I have even thought how I can spend sometime doing things that will absorb me..afterwards.

I’m as ready as I can be.

As to February Katherine May wrote of the Gaelic festival of Imbolic or St Brigids day. A day to dust away the cobwebs, a promise of life and change, a time when all that rest brings forth life. So let’s see what that brings.

Has anyone else been treated unfairly? How did you cope with it?

Mid – January catch up

This month has not gone as expected. I expected a quiet time for thought and reflection, but nooo. Between Christmas and New Year I had a cough, a not nice cough which tired me out no end. I’m over it . I did manage to think a lot about my one word though which was good. But then two things happened. The gardeners descended. I mentioned that at the end of last year the fence between me and the neighbour blew down. They got a quote and so did I. The neighbours quote was better (i.e.cheaper) but meantime I had added in a quote to replace my summer house, which I only used for lawnmower storage and when the floor started to rot, it struck me that it was basically a waste of space, and space that got the best sun.

So the first full week of January work commenced.

work underway

bit tidier. Then the fence people started work, and we had two firms on site at once, and a shed was put in on the concrete base for the lawnmower and.. well when the sun shines again I will show what has now gone on that space in the corner, which turned out to have a whole patio under the shed and to be considerably bigger than I thought.

There was a tiny bit of snow here too which lasted a few hours only.

Second week of January I had an pre-operation appointment for the cataract on my right eye. I planned to postpone it as long as possible … Friend C took me to said appointment because of eye drops and not being able to drive. She knew what I planned and that I had postponed things three years ago. When I returned to the reception desk, she was there already.. ”you can have it done at the end of this month and I will drive you again.”

Now after I had got over this, I agreed, because yes she had a point that I would enjoy the rest of 2026 more without this hanging over me, plus this time I wasn’t in the local over- stretched hospital, I was in a nice clinic to which the NHS sub-contracted work. I agreed, and am actually extremely grateful to my friend who took matters into her own hands. Yes I am scared, but at least in ten days time it will be done. And if I am honest I know the time has come really, my left eye is doing the work of two, and is good for a few more years. Strikes me as best to do it now.

So thats why January hasn’t been as expected. And now onto someting much nicer.

I completed this embroidery which I don’t think I said anything about before.

Kelmscott Manor- local house belonging to William Morris and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Designed by a local artist.

One blanket and 8 new born baby hats completed for the Big Knit to be gifted locally to the hospital and the homeless etc. And 32 squares for the next blanket- just 24 more needed.. something I hope I can do whilst wearing an eye patch.

Back in the Autumn I started to attend a patchwork workshop in my local fabric shop to learn some new skills.

I have just completed the last block and started to do sashing. Can’t believe this is supposed to be a beginners quilt.

But there we go. How’s your January going? As expected or all over the place? I tell myself a day at a time, and I am so glad I read Wintering by Katherine May, as I had done some hibernation immediately before Christmas.

One Word 2026

Way, way back in early September 2025 the weather switched from long ,hot, dry sunny days to slightly cooler, shorter ones. Autumn was coming, and Winter wouldn’t be far behind.

As a child, and indeed until really quite recently Summer was my least favorite time of year- all the heat and sweatiness and inertia. Yuk. Roll on September. Autumn was my happy time- back to school or adult learning classes, friends back from travels,catch ups, new beginnings, crisp walks through glorious woods, bonfire night and Christmas on the horizon.

Then came snowy days in Winter. If we were lucky over the Christmas holiday, if not after school- hours outside on our sledges, cold, wet but oh what fun.

And then I got older. Back in 2012 I think I had been removing frost and ice from my car every morning for six, ok I exaggerate five months , and I cried, I hated Winter with a vengence. It was cold and the ice was treacherous. I was not happy. Fortunately for me later that year I changed job and worked afternoons only. Then we moved house , and the weather here is milder, and I am retired and don’t have many early starts.

But, in the following years Winter has become a slog again, not so much snow and ice, but endless days of damp, cold, cloudy, mood- sapping blah.

Last year I tried so hard in Winter. I embraced every day that the clouds gave way to the odd hour of sunshine. I found outings to go on- inside of course, and got through. And then sometime in April the sun came out and we had Summer and I loved it. Until September and I started to dread the coming greyness of Winter, which is only marginally better than endless ice in a country that just doesn’t cope with it.

Appreciate was my word last year, and I tried so hard not to look too far ahead; to stay in the moment as the advice goes. The change to my Christmasses as I’ve grown older I think I have dealt with in a positive way , and I now really love the things I do.

But something felt out of kilter still. Could I use One Word to help me? I pondered for a long time on the word Growth , and I really thought that was it. As you may have noticed I like a doing word. I like positive action.. problem..how to solve it. But something was lacking in this word, but what?

And actually it was the postive action bit that was wrong. It doesn’t go deep enough…aaargh, What is missing?

The solution came to me.. what was missing is that my word assumed that what I needed to do now was grow (not actually grow since I have spent nearly 10 months in shrinking) but…..

I have been re-reading Wintering by Katherine May. Buried quite deep in there was the kernal of something.

I am out of sinc with the seasons. I have electric light and lovely gas central heating. Hot water. Food outlets which ,I could ,if I chose ,walk to within 5-15 minutes. I have books, craft supplies, radio, TV. I could stop home and avoid all the yuk of Winter, or any season/weather etc that gets me down. But instead I choose to try to carry on with “normal life” as if nothing outside is happening. And then get cross because I can’t get the lid off my new tin of de-icer spray for the car, and there’s ice on the road.. first world problems for sure. Who the heck do I think I am?

So my new word for 2026 is SEEK. I am getting older, my time is limited, I need to think more, reflect more, change a bit maybe , prepare myself for what I know is to come, one day and hopefully not for a long time. I want to ask questions, what wisdom did our ancestors have that we have forgotten? This year will be one lot of questions. And the one that looms for January, is what exactly is going wrong in my mind set that has me dreading for no real good reason- Winter- way back in September.

SEEK- Definition- Make search or inquiry for, ask, aim at, pursue as object, a person, advice..

And where can I look for answers?

There’s no where to link One Word posts this year but if you have written one, then please feel free to use comments to point us to your blog.

Happy New Year.

I thought the first day of a new year might just be the perfect day on which to share all the terrific quotes I noted that meant something to me in 2025.

From the book Less by Patrick Grant

“we’ve gone from needing very little to wanting lots of everything”- oh gosh my stash of Not Yet Stared Projects!

” what we need is less of material things and more of life’s simple pleasures” Clearly I thought craft materials didn’t count, unless as one of life’s pleasures.

Don’t know where this one came from.. “If not now then when”

Richard Sennett quoted by Patrick Grant- ” the craftsman is proud of what he has made and cherishes it while the consumer discards things that are perfectly serviceable in his restless purstuit of the new”

From Akenfield by Ronald Blythe ” We attempt the difficult, there is no virtue in what is easy” Me at the patchwork workshop!

From Tidelands by Philippa Gregory ” things are better when you are well..it looks different when you have had a good sleep and a good meal…we have to get through one step at a time. Sometimes we fall back, sometimes we press forward. But we keep going. You’ll keep going”

I don’t know where the next two came from but “This is what I like about photographs. They’re proof that once, even if for a heartbeat, everything was perfect”.

” You know what the difference is between a dream and a goal? A plan”

From Wintering by Katerine May ” acceptance of my own limitations.. not invincible at this moment but it won’t last forever..learn to rest and surrender- to dream”

” This isn’t about fixing you..but.. about living the best life you can within the parameters you have”

and finally from Self Care for Winter by Suzy Reading ” We know nothing blooms all year, so why do we humans expect to have the same energy and performance all year round”

I wonder if anyone has a favourite quote or saying that has helped them this year? Love to know your thoughts.