It's been an incredibly busy time here. My soap business has grown wings and taken flight off into the sky, and I'm flapping about underneath trying to keep up with it - measuring, making, cutting, wrapping. It used be something I did in the evenings after the children went to bed, now it's a full time job. It's an honour and a privilege to be making soap for families all over the world, and I've learnt a great deal about soapmaking and all of the amazing ingredients that I use every day. But still. Sometimes, we need to go slow.

My family have been to visit me this past week and it was magic. We had so many ups, so many happy moments, so many shared laughs and hugs. I feel so responsible for causing the distance by moving away to pursue other opportunities, but it makes the time we have together full of love. Parting is such deep sorrow though, and I think that's when the distance feels impossible.

And so - I've slowed right down. This week I'll be finishing off all of my outstanding projects and deadlines at work, and then I'll be taking stock and considering what needs to happen and how. I'm two modules away from completing my diploma in reflexology which has been a much-needed escape, and then my aromatherapy diploma starts not long after that. I've been reading everything I can find on folklore and herbalism, circling back to my degrees in fairy tales and the role of the women in communities. It's so funny to come back after ten years of living outside of books. It was inevitable, I think, that I would find solace and self-time in the pages of second hand journals discovered in charity shops and elsewhere.

Next week, I'll start my embroidery tutorials leading the some 20,000 downloads of my "life is beautiful" embroidery sampler through the different stitches and colours that I used to create this little sampler. I think that some scheduled down time, working with my hands away from soap, may be just what's needed.