It was an exciting time for us. We had bought a new house. It was larger than the flat we rented. It had a front and back garden, two living spaces and an area which I could set up as an office for when I was working from home and writing my PHD. It was a project house that no one else wanted. But we did. We could see past the terracotta tiles that were cemented in throughout the entire ground floor. We could look past the textured wallpaper and seriously stained carpets. We could even look past the utility room where the dishwasher lived alongside a lavatory and a bathroom sink. The house had so much potential that we knew we could make a good life in it. We moved in mid November when it was cold and dark. We unpacked, moved furniture, and cleaned.
And then Danny, my husband, died. Just two and a half weeks after we had moved.
Devastating doesn’t even begin to cover it.
I decided to create this website for a number of reasons. One of them was to share what I was doing with the house, because I needed to share it with someone now that the only other person with a vested interest had gone. Another was to share my creative side, so there will be blogs about quilting and crafting. The other was to give me another project that I could focus on when I was too tired to work, or it was too late to work and make noise. Perhaps, in the future, I will write about other things like politics and grief, and add other things to the website such as a podcast or links to products, but for now, it is just about the house and crafting, because they are my therapy. But most of all, it’s a letter to the man I love, the man I lost. I have no idea what happens after death, but if Danny is here, hanging over my shoulder, then I’m sure he would enjoy correcting my punctuation and syntax.
And grief, because that’s where it all stems from. A need to manage my grief.
At this point, I would like to highlight a few people that have helped, and will continue to help, with interior design, the house, my creativity, and my life. I never do anything without passing it by them first. Amy, Wendy, Karen, and Ishbel are my interior design masters, and they help me make every decision. My mother is my quilting guru. Her creations are amazing and her ability to combine colours in a way I would never think of, continues to amaze me with every quilt. My father is a constant support, and he’s the one I go to when I need advice about big ticket items such as roofs. My awesome friend Si is my academic and podcasting companion. And my amazing daughter, who continues to amaze me on a weekly basis, and who has been so incredibly supportive, has given me a reason to live. To watch her grow into her chosen profession will be a constant joy that I will never take for granted.
Finally, why did I call my website Books & Blankets? Because this was what I wrote on so many moving boxes. We, or rather I, have a lot of books and a lot of blankets, and I loved the combination of these words. They make me want to snuggle down, get comfortable, and relax. While I don’t expect my blog to be particularly relaxing, I do hope it is something that you will enjoy reading.