Watching Birds, Making Room and Being Creative

A time for reflection, a little nostalgia and gentle action: My Analogue February

Hello, I’m Claudia, and Happy Quiet Life is where I share my view on the world as a Highly Sensitive Person. You’ll find reflections and stories about slowing down & living simpler, reconnecting with nature, mental health & self-care, books & reading adventures. Welcome!

Minimising my digital input

I’ve been pretty quiet in February, haven’t I? This is the only post I’ve sent and published this month - and that has everything and all to do with my dire need of being offline most of the time (and actually enjoying it).

I was deeply inspired by Hilda’s reflection questions, they came at a perfect time:

• What is asking for rest instead of action right now?

• How can I offer myself more softness in this period?

• What needs protection within me at this moment?

• What may become simpler?

• What do I especially want not to do this month?

I’ve minimised my digital input, deinstalled most apps and deleted all my bookmarks on my phone to make the device really, really boring (which worked great!).

I also no longer google anything on my phone. I only use my laptop for that. This has become so helpful because it prevents the urge to immediately look up everything that comes to mind. It has to wait, and more often than not, it turns out to be so unimportant that I don’t even remember what it was the next time I switch on my laptop.

I watched next to nothing on TV and even skipped several of my beloved biathlon races (although the Olympics were on).

I haven’t picked up an e-book for months now. Reading e-books felt uncomfortable and just not right for a long time now. So I finally deinstalled the e-library app and don’t look up what I might miss any more. Phew!

I also used my laptop just for one or two hour most days. (Which also meant that my writing became less frequent, sorry.)

I took February (almost) off from screens, but that’s exactly what I needed.

Turns out, I enjoy doing offline things a lot more at the moment. I enjoy being active myself, trying things out, not just watching others doing stuff (unless they are birds or hedgehogs or whatever wildlife finds a way into our garden).

I got creative while it was still cold and put cookie cutters to good (outdoor) use. Simple, but so beautiful.

Watching birds

This winter has been truly picture-perfect with snow-covered landscapes since the start of the year (except for a very few days in mid-January). It’s just stunning and lasted well into the second half of February!

The snow and the cold brought birds in abundance to our small garden, and I’ve set up more feeding stations for them.

Apart from the usual blackbirds, sparrows, blue tits and great tits, I noticed new regulars like chaffinches and bullfinches. The robin only comes close to the house in winter, and I’ve been able to see it most days.

Early February gifted me with the sight of a wren under the corkscrew hazel tree and later under the boxtree hedge in front of the house. (It’s always worth looking out of the kitchen window. Well, usually, if I’m lucky, I see a heron, but this was a very lovely surprise.) Such a tiny bird!

What really amazed me was a flock of fieldfares, 30 or 40 of them, who had discovered the shiny red fruits of the holly in our garden. For three days they came, gathering in the treetop of the maple, flying over one at a time to the holly, until about eight of them found a spot to pick fruits. Then they one by one changed over to the lilac tree to make room for the next ones to fly over to the buffet. (Then to the lilac and back to the maple.) It became an incredibly fascinating circle to watch! I’m so glad that our little garden provided for so many birds, and I was impressed by their coordination and strategy.

A pair of them came back later this month, and one of them was especially taken with the apple I had put outside, usually for the blackbirds, but one fieldfare claimed it as her own.

To be honest, I was lying on my stomach on the floor at the terrace door for at least half an hour, not moving any muscle, and enjoyed watching this beautful bird devouring the red apple. The apple lasted two days. (I offered fresh supply.)

On my walks on a snow-covered farm road between hedgerows I encountered new birds too. I saw (and heard) a jay in an oak tree and marsh tits and coal tits darting in and out of the hedges, sometimes crossing the path right in front of me. I was especially enchanted by these lovely members of the family of tits whom I’ve never seen before.

Making room

Apart from being outside a lot and watching the birds in our garden, I also spent quite some time making room (quite literally).

We started clearing out and sorting through the basement in my parents’ house.

While I have been pretty consistent in decluttering and getting rid of things in my own household for several years now, there are still many things that remained at my parents’ house after I moved out 30 years ago, or that my husband and I stored there in the meantime because there was more than enough space. (Certainly more than we ever had.)

It was time to look at all these relics.

I went through old toys, my early diaries from when I was between 10 and 16 (embarrassing!), lots of photo negatives whose prints I had already thrown away, and was moved by letters and cards from friends at school. I even found evidence that I used to be quite athletic, such as badges and certificates. (Definitely another era, haha!)

I’m not a sentimental person and so I didn’t keep much.

This action was not an end in itself, but had a specific reason. My father, my husband and I are refurbishing the basement room as a kind of sports room. The table tennis table had been completely hidden from view for years (great storage space, ahem), and there had long been no room to play table tennis around it anyway. We want to change that and also install a new dartboard. It’s a great project that we’re all enjoying.

A family event watching old slides

It wasn’t all work though. My parents and I dedicated an afternoon to watching old slides that my late grandfather took in the 1960s, mostly of my grandparents’ house and their beautiful garden which was my favourite place as a child. There were also pictures of my grandfather building a swimming-pool in the garden, which he dug all by himself and by hand, of course. After all, it was 1960. (I wasn’t born until 1975, but in the 1980s I had a great time there as a kid and it’s a pity that none of it exists any more. The pool is gone, so is the garden. It had to make room for another house.)

It was an awesome afternoon down the memory lane. I had never seen those slides before and it’s hard to describe how I felt when I saw pictures of the house, the garden, the swimming-pool, my grandparents, great-grandparents and my very young mother, later on my also very young father (my parents have been together for 60 years this month) and some parties and celebrations. It made quite an impression on me.

We laughed so much and enjoyed pointing out details to one another. It felt good to be together as a family, the small family we are now, and looking back together and telling each other stories. Easily my favourite day this month. ❤️

Books & inspiration

I’ve also read a lot this month, just for fun and very broadly.

I enjoyed the modern adaption of Cinderella, Cinder & Ella by Kelly Oram, fast-paced and romantic.

I had fun with some children’s books (once a librarian, always a librarian). I especially liked Danger at Dead Man’s Pass (Adventures on Trains Book 4) by M. G. Leonard and Sam Sedgman, definitely the most thrilling one of the series so far and I loved that it’s set in Germany’s Harz mountains. (Although it’s been a while since I’ve been on board of the Brocken railway.)

I learned more about birds (no surprise) and the forest (my new special interest).

At the moment, I’m really into Guy Shrubsole’s books. I’ve finished The Lie of the Land, and I’m currently reading The Lost Rainforests of Britain and Who Owns England?.

I also enjoyed visits to the library for some inspiration on crafting with nature materials. That’s something I’d really like to try more next.

I don’t go into a month with a precise plan, but instead try to be open, and this turned out to be a good approach this month, so I’ll try and have fun with it in March too.

As I have spent too much time on one side (technology, screens) for a long time, I feel it’s necessary to spend more time on the other side (nature, analogue) for a while now to feel what I have been missing, so that I can later find a healthy equilibrium.

At least, that’s how my nervous system feels after years of being out of balance.

So this is what I’m doing right now, spending more time on the other side, and so far it feels relieving, soothing and rewarding.

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The weather conditions have changed considerably overnight. The snow has almost gone in one single night of rain, storm and mild temperatures. Maybe spring is on its way after all. What better time to send this post with the very last snow photos of the season?

Looking forward to spring with a very different colour palette!

The neighbours’ cat left his pawprints as a calling card very neatly at our terrace door. (Isn’t it adorable?) We weren’t at home, so he went his usual (catwalk) way straight across the patio, around the corner and home. I love snow! It tells stories.

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This is where it all started …

A Kind of Quiet Rebellion: My Analogue January

Pause & Reflect Instead of Snippets & Scrolling

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