March: good reads, creative moments and a whisper of spring

March has careered past in a flurry of high winds, lurgies, good reads and the merest whisper of Spring around here.

Last month, I read The Trouble with Goats and Sheep by Joanna Cannon - a fascinating story centred around a strange disappearance, but also taking in childhood friendship, loss, loneliness and suffocating life in a small street in the 1970s. I loved it, definitely worth a read. This month I am scaring myself somewhat with Black-Eyed Susans by J Heaberlin, I will let you know how I get on with it and how much it made me want to hide behind the sofa! The friendly Laura from Circle of Pines blog runs a lovely reading project called The Year in Books, it has a jolly twitter chat once a month too so do check it out if you are a bookworm.

It has been a creative month too, spurred on by mymindfulyear project by Sas Petherick, which had us looking especially at creative moments. It has made me realise that a creative life is really an attitude more that finding isolated creative moments to enjoy? Those organised activities are great, and my job is a creative one after all, but actually with an open, questioning, noticing mindset much of life becomes engaged creatively, whether walking, talking, cooking, making something, sketching, photographing, writing and so on? Even a simple conversation can be creative if we are really tuned in to it, noticing how the other person is feeling, reacting, if we reflect as we speak, find new connections and understandings? It really is about being aware of oneself, our surroundings and the people we meet - all those little noticings of what is going on seems to wire us into the moment in a creative way I think? I have also come to believe that the quality of creative output is relative in some degree by the quality of inspiring/nourishing imput, there is definitely a correlation, no?

Spring has been so slow to arrive here, biting winds and late frosts keeping it at bay. I have taken comfort in the tiniest buds of blackthorn appearing in the hedgerows and the bursting of birdsong now and then. I'm craving the full-on Spring that I can tell is just around the corner!