A new chapter …

Hi Guys

I hope everyone is well!

As we find ourselves in Week 13 of Lockdown 3. It does feel very much like we may all be ready for a new chapter in our lives. Who feels ready for the next one? I have to confess, I am still feeling quite reclusive. However, I think that may change once things start to open and I actually go “out out”.

This week I have decided to take time out from my usual blogging style, of my mindful walks with nature, to share with you the books I enjoyed, during my lockdown time. (Lockdown 1 provided lots of different ways to share and re-home books. Leaving in Phone Boxes, Bus Shelters, Benches to name a few. Some of my books have been regifted).

(I also probably need to point out that I am doing this as a personal blog, not a paid promotional one!).

Personally, having gone from loss to lockdown. I have learnt that with the best will in the world and definitely during a Lockdown Pandemic, you cannot have people with you all the time. I actually call my friends, my rocks, because like all good friends, they have been through so many different life changes with me. The one thing Lockdown has taught me, is that sometimes, we just “have to be” alone. I truly believe it helps us to grow and become more resilient. This is where a being a bibliophile helps. The chance to curl up with a good book. Shelf-help, as I now call it.

“alonement - when being alone isn’t lonely, it’s alonement: finding joy and value in solitude”.

Francesca Specter

I have quite actively called myself an Exclusive Reclusive for the last year, because we have remained in a very tight bubble and I have finally learnt to relax into my own company and I was lucky enough to have the luxury of reading some beautiful books.

In my previous life, even after swapping our city life in Winchester (my birth place) for our coastal life here on the Isle of Wight in 2016. I was always playfully called “Social Secretary”, which basically meant filling up our diary and fill it up I would. So I guess my desire to read was possibly much lower key than it has become.

So, as we move to our next new chapter, the diary is now out. I guess like lots of us, I am both excited and apprehensive about the next stage. We do live on the Island of Festivals and I find myself starting to jot them down, who knows what will happen next?

Hands up, do you look at empty spaces in a diary with sheer panic or sheer pleasure? Currently we are very much living in the moment. Watch this space!

2020/21 has definitely taught me that it is good to read, a good book offers pure escapism and they are of course endless founts of knowledge. I love books. I always have, but sometimes, buying them and reading them were in fact two very different entities.

Permission: the action of officially allowing someone (self) to do a particular thing. Consent, authorisation.

I like many others probably do find it quite hard to give myself permission to sit alone and just read or be creative. Even in our bubble of two adults and two purrs!!!

I really have enjoyed the books I have read and I certainly feel more knowledgable than a year ago.

A good book is like a good friend!

Here are some of the books I have enjoyed during lockdown; there is also another pile on my resources page. I will leave it to you to find reviews for these, but I do look at them all very fondly, they have all taught me something very special and I look forward to re-reading (perhaps in the Autumn).

I hope you have enjoyed my selection. Some of these are ‘dip into’ books, which I absolutely adore and some are ‘just curl up with’ books, all life changers. Above all they have provided new information and distraction from my own thoughts!

My final book is one of those that has been chosen for me by a well known book seller, based on my previous choices. I have to say, they know me well !

I am learning about the psychology of colour. So the feel good factor continues.

“I do believe something very magical can happen when you read a good book”

J.K. Rowling

Here’s to good books and good friends everywhere.

Also this week, the lunar calendar brings us a New Moon on the 12th and we also move into the next phase on our national road map out of Lockdown No3.

I do hope you enjoyed this blog.

Until next time.

Stay safe.

Jules xx