In which I return triumphantly. With excuses.

Magic.

Woo-woo.

Witchwork.

Yeah, it went by the wayside this year. 

I have reasons… but frankly, they are just excuses.

As Witchlet Two is fond of saying, “Don’t give me excuses, GIVE ME RESULTS!”

(She’s going to be a complete diva, that one.)

I’ve been a witch for over 25 years, and this year was the first time I’ve let my woo-woo lapse.  No divination, no seasonal celebrations, and no serious Witch Work.  This was the year I let it all go.  Let it slide away.  The Witch gave way to The Frazzled Working Grown-Up.

No walking.

No growing green things.

No foraging.

No brewing.

No hooching.

Lots of working though.  Working within the school system.  Studying to be able to help those students with extreme literacy problems.  And then sliding headlong into to the wall labelled MANAGEMENT OF SCHOOL FUNDING which meant that although the funding was there to pay me (a pittance) to work additional hours, I didn’t get to spend the hours with the kids that would get the most of those hours.  Because of Ofsted, you know.

(As you can see, I’m more than a little hacked off about it.)

I didn’t throw witch-work at it.  I moaned, groaned, whinged – and got on with it.  No, it didn’t get better.

And in October, this happened.

See that?  It’s a house.  And guess what?

I own it. 

Yes, you heard me. OWN IT.  NAME. ON THE DEEDS. IT’S MINE (and The Hubster’s). 

And although the process of getting the house was incredibly stressful and expensive, now I’m sat here on my old tatty sofa in my new lounge, it was worth it. Financially, a warehouse operative and a teaching assistant in their forties can’t raise enough money via mortgage to buy a house – even in this relatively cheap area – and we were extraordinary lucky enough to get a loan from my parents. We are, and ever shall be, incredibly grateful.

So, it’s a new beginning.  Goodbye rented house, with a landlord that wasn’t willing to spend any money raised in his last re-mortgage of the property on the place.  Goodbye endless cleaning off black mould.  Goodbye back boiler that our lovely gas engineer nursed for ten years, warning us every year that this one could be its last.  Goodbye laminate floor laid directly on concrete.  Goodbye bent guttering, pissing water down the walls.

And yet… and yet… I leave behind a garden and plants that were my friends.  I leave behind bees in the chimney, bats in the attic, hedgehogs and mice under the shed and so many birds who visited every morning for toast crumbs, fat and seed balls, to hang off the thistle seed heads upside down gorging themselves.  My friends.

But here I am.  New house.  New start.  It’s time to dig out the woo-woo.  To rediscover the magic.  To find the witch I need to be in this new home.

Wish me luck.

Witch clipart found here: