Thank you so, so much for the host of kind, compassionate and wise comments, messages and emails that you’ve sent me in response to my previous post. The personal stories and experiences that have been shared help me enormously, and such a kind outpouring of friendship and support from everyone has buoyed me up no end. I will go back and read over the comments on that post, as I often do with the comments on similar posts that I’ve written in the past, and I know that every kind and heartfelt word of advice, encouragement and support will help me with future challenges too and guide our thinking as we go forward.
What a wonderful thing the internet is in this regard – that it can connect people and provide a space to reach out to one another. Some of the best and most useful advice that I’ve ever received on parenting Toby over the years has been graciously given in comments here on the blog, and I’m so very grateful to everyone who has taken the time to write. Thank you, thank you, a thousand thank yous xx
Toby remains settled and content with school still underpinning his weekly routine and I’m currently giving myself some time off from things that require lots of concentration, like paperwork and pattern writing, and instead going with what takes my fancy at the time. I suppose it’s a kind of holiday-at-home. I’ve been reading more and listening to music and sometimes just sitting in the garden doing nothing other than cloud watching and listening to the birds. It feels good.
We share our garden with lots of visitors and I take a lot of pleasure from their visits. In the past we’ve had orphaned hedgehogs, blackbirds, friendly robins and more recently a couple of squirrels, a family of blue-tits and our resident fox, Kit. She’s really made our garden her personal space and though she doesn’t visit every day, she’s often to be found waiting for me first thing in the morning, either sitting outside the back door, napping on top of the woodshed or stretched out sunbathing on the garden table. I feel very privileged to have been adopted by her.
I have been knitting a little too and making bodies for many of the dog heads that I knitted up for the pattern photos. I’d like to have a giveaway with some of those, so I’ll be taking some pictures and posting about that soon. And tomorrow I’m off to Surrey to spend the day with Amy – she went back to her uni accommodation last month after spending the winter lockdown here with us while she finished her final pieces for her degree. While she’s waiting for her results she’s getting herself sorted out for the next stage in her life, which will hopefully include a job soon.
Thank you again for allowing me to share a little of life beyond the knitting here, I’m never fully sure before I click ‘publish’ on such a post how it will be received, and am quite overwhelmed still at the enormity of the kind response, you have my deepest gratitude x
little cotton rabbits 
Thank you for sharing all of your life. You are so very generous with your knitting and with your life, and both are a wonderful gift for us. I’m wondering when we’ll see a fox pattern? Kit is so lovely and also looks wily just as foxes should. With gratitude.
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Thank you so much for sharing your garden and life with us. I just love seeing Kit each year as she is growing. She/he is just beautiful and to have been adopted by such a beautiful creature speaks volumes as to who you are. As a spectrum parent, I appreciate and understand your worries and anxieties and am glad to hear you are getting some down time, as I know you need and deserve it. Enjoy your time and know that we keep you and your family in our thoughts and as always truly love your patterns.
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I’m beyond impressed by your strength and fortitude. I struggle with an emotionally disturbed adult child and it’s uplifting to know there are others out there in a similar struggle. I’m 73 years young and dealing with some minor health issues but they do add to my pursuit of happiness. In addition, I’m in awe of your creativity and knitting abilities. I’m blessed to have found your soul and have it touch mine. You are right, the Internet brings help and joy to our lives. Thank you for all you do!
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The blog community can be wonderful, can’t it. I’m glad you have a little time to yourself at the moment, it is very well deserved. Fantastic photos, Kit is amazing, brilliant to see a wild animal so close up. There are foxes around here, but they are quite shy, we just glimpse them at dawn and dusk, slipping across the road and up the lane. CJ xx
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This is such a beautiful post, both in terms of what you said and the photos, especially of Kit. Thank you1
Thanks also, as ever , for your wonderful patterns. I managed to contract covid, though didn’t feel ill and whiled away the 10 days by knitting up two little badgers. Two months later, my little grandson came to stay for five days as his single daddy had a work related course but came into contact with someone who also went down with covid so can’t come home. Billy and Betty Badger have gone a long way to comforting him as five days has turned into three weeks almost. So thank you again! I may have to make one of your fabulous dogs up, or try for one of yours as I, perhaps foolishly, told him about the other animals!
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I really look foreward to your posts esp knowing Toby is more settled for now. Kit is truly a special animal and she looks so quizzical at times. Your photos do cheer me. Thinking of you and yours and best of luck to Amy for a job. Love from here.
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I’m so glad you’re feeling better. 🙂 Your animal visitors are precious. Kit is just beautiful!! I would love to have a little fox visit my yard! Thinking of you and wishing you peaceful days. 🙂
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So glad you’re finding time for some relaxation Julie and those beautiful garden visitors are sure to help! Kit is so, so, lovely.
And what a cute basket of pups!!
Take care,
V x
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Here I am sitting in my sunroom in NJ watching a fox run down the side of my house, and I am reading your blog admiring your
beautiful fox who has become a member of your backyard friends! 🦊 I love seeing photos of your gorgeeous English countryside and
its flora & fauna! I’m so glad Toby is settling back into his routine thus providing you with some creative and peaceful moments.
Thanks as always for your generous spirit! ❤
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Julie, we are the ones thanking YOU – thank you for sharing your thoughts with us through your posts, for giving us a glimpse into the beauty of the natural world through your photos, and for giving us your creativity through your patterns. No matter what you are going through, please know that we are stretching our arms through the internet to form a circle of friends around you.
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Thank you Julie for sharing and so good that Toby has settled. I love your photos and how special to have adopted Kit . What a beautiful looking fox.
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Your photos are amazing! I have a love/hate relationship with foxes. I love that they are beautiful, wild creatures but I don’t love them so much when they kill and run off with my beloved chickens. Sigh.
I’m glad that you have time for yourself at the moment. Sitting and enjoying nature is very healing.
Love to you, Julie, for all you share with us.
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Thank you for the beauty of your blog. I wish you strength and peace of mind as you continue your life journey. Best wishes to Toby too, you must be very proud of him xx
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Such beautiful pictures as always… especially that basket of pups!! It’s good to hear Toby is settled for now and that you’re enjoying some relaxation time. Thank you for all that you do and for the virtual friendships I’ve made through finding your work. Love and best wishes to you all. xx
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Hugs I have three sheep made and now to pick what clothes they want to wear I made them the lace removeable shoes quite fancy dress for sure thank you I am addicted to your patterns and have quite a collection of them they are all kept in a rather large binder.
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Be as gentle as possible on yourself while Toby is back at school. And have a wonderful time with Amy.
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Eu amo ler suas postagens, as fotos e o tricô tão inspirador. S2
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Dear Julie, I can’t say enough times how much joy your patterns bring to me and the people in my environnement!
I read your blogpost and I see the troubles and worries you have now. I hope you can find a way to handle it all, where you can find peace and some space for yourself because you know that Toby has good care as well. You are doing an immense job with a lot of challenges. I am so happy you find wome ways to refill yourself with the power to go on.
With my deepest respect
Lieve
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How lucky you are to share your garden with such sweet visitors! Hello Kit!
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I love your garden photos. These ones put me in mind of The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. It was one of my favourite books when I was a child.
Enjoy your summer.
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Dear Julie, it is us who should be grateful, your talent, and your generosity in sharing your patterns and setting up the Facebook group has helped all of us so much. I have knitted your patterns since the first one was released but have never needed that calm that comes with crafting more that this year. Just to be able to concentrate on something and get some respite from the awful situation outside was brilliant. I have found the last year so hard, and I am on my own with no-one to worry about apart from absent family, so I can only imagine how difficult things have been for you. Sending you very big virtual hugs, never be afraid of sharing how you feel xxx
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Wow – it seems so recently that you were posting about going with Amy to look at Unis, and now she’s finished. I am sorry that she’s had such a strange uni experience, and wish her the best for her results and job hunt.
So happy to hear that Toby is settled and content, and that you are enjoying the quiet.
The internet is such a strange place. At the same time so full of awfulness, and love and support and friendship. And strange to feel like you know someone you’ve never met, when they don’t know you.
Kit is a beauty – I am envious!
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Oh my goodness….I now have a need to be adopted by a fox. Kit is beautiful and clearly feels very at home with you. How wonderful!!
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Your photos are always beautiful and do us good. And you have immense talent. You are an artist. You see beauty in all things, you create beauty, and you share it with us. It is we who thank you.
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