Day 57

 I haven't got back into the gym yet.  We woke up this morning early in time to go but couldn't.  It is so cold!

I am looking forward to spring so much.  This part of the year is very hard, always.  Although I love how the seasons here are so enormously different, winter goes on way too long.  It lasts about six or seven months, and so March and April are really difficult to deal with.

Slowly, painstakingly, the buds appear on the trees.  They swell a little at the end of each tiny twig, waiting to blossom, and you are seduced into thinking it will happen in a few days time, the delicate newness will emerge, the dead tree metamorphosing into burgeoning LIFE!  But no, then it seems that you wait months and months, all that potential, hovering just out of reach, because, like us this morning, the tiny blooms have no will to leap out into the frigid air.

My very optimistic friend Gene told me tonight that she loves this time of the year, because it can only get better!  But I, having just experienced the beginnings of spring in London: blossoms, daffodils, and everywhere green and damp and kind to the eyes, yearn for it with my whole heart.

Three of my indoor plants have decided that it must be time for spring and have produced copious leaves.  My little azalea has produced the purest of white flowers.  My wisteria is growing wildly up the window, searching for the sun.

Ambitious azalea.

Felicity the fig-tree.

I was quite surprised to learn that most private school students here have incredibly expensive brand name coats.  Apparently many wear Canada Goose parkas, which cost between $700 and $1000, and then they leave them on the floor, or in the passage, or on a table in a classroom.  And sometimes they are never claimed, and go to lost property and from there to a charity.   Others wear Burberry leather jackets which cost about the same.  If you can afford it I am sure it is amazing to have a grand coat like that.  But why buy children such things when they are going to outgrow them so quickly?

When Emma and Jess were little I made most of their clothes.  And I mended all their clothes too.  They had outrageous patches on the knees and bums of their trousers, and embroidered flowers and animals on their pinafores and dresses, which they wore (especially Jess in her inimitable way), over their pants. 

Jess on her third birthday.

My mother sewed small shirts for my brother out of my dad's old shirts when the collars were frayed but the fabric still good enough.  My father fixed old fridges and sold them for extra money (my dad was always fixing something).

It seems to me that we have lost something extraordinary in this new Age, a thriftiness of the soul.

We have a glut of information but we don't have the knowledge, time or the patience to mend things.  For example, we have no idea how to sit quietly and repair a sock. When you have darned your own sock, you put it on carefully, you keep your toenails trimmed so that they won't be responsible for more holes.  You appreciate the sock on your foot, you appreciate your fine needlework, your feel a sense of pride in your ability to keep the sock going for another while.

 This lack of frugality is most noticeable here in America, where you can't even have your shoes repaired, let alone a washing machine or fridge.  Often the part is more expensive or harder to come by than a new model, and your cheapest option is to buy it new, again.  So much landfill, so much waste.  The quality of appliances is deliberately shoddy so that the economy will continue to grow as people have to constantly replace the broken paraphernalia of our greedy era. 

I feel the desire to go and mend some of the clothing from my mending basket.
But first I must sleep.