2025 was meant to be my year of RELEARNING.

Not learning, as I wasn’t setting out to learn anything new.

Rather, I wanted to review my knowledge base and pick out the bits that I’d skipped over because I could. I felt like perhaps they had left holes in my understanding.

It was a two-pronged plan.

1. Relearning many of the things I had taught myself, like weaving, natural dyeing, knitting and spinning, because when you’re self-taught, it’s far too easy to skip past the things that don’t make your heart sing. After all, why would I need to learn how to make a natural purple dye when it’s my least favourite colour?
2. Relearning who I was. Getting to know the parts of me that no longer felt relevant and feeling out the perimenopausal me as I head towards a life without natural estrogen. (natural, because I will be sucking estrogen pastilles morning, noon and night if they ever become available)

Most importantly, I was going to record my progress. Here, ideally, but somewhere, anywhere that I could, just so I had a record to come back to.

On reflection, some of this did come to fruition, and 2025 was a good year in many ways, most notably with the births of two new grandsons (no estrogen here, either, it seems). Both my daughter and eldest son welcomed a little boy to each of their families, having now become parents of two sons each.

I took a weaving course at the ETB and realised my knowledge base was pretty good after all – massive confidence boost right there, which has reflected in my ability to teach others and pass that knowledge on.

I continued in my role as Chairperson of The Handweavers Guild of Cork and helped organise an exhibition to mark our 45th Anniversary, the first in many years.

I taught four or five people how to spin, which still amazes me.

I finished teaching an art project with young people from the Traveller Community that I’d started the year before and was delighted to see the reactions of their friends and families when their work went on show at the Traveller Pride Event in Dungarvan.

I also managed to tap into myself a little. I kept up with my exercise regimen from the year before and tried to make small changes in my personal life.

There were massive failures, though and if I’m being honest with myself, they were because I felt completely untethered. I felt like I was watching myself through a lens for most of 2025. One step removed from reality. Going through the motions, rather than being an active participant.

I’m amazed I actually managed to achieve the things I did, given how I felt most of the time.

The feeling was all encompassing and along with feeling detached, I couldn’t shake the sense of disbelief at a world gone mad. Seeing images of death and destruction across all of my social media platforms, but not so much in the mainstream news, has left me feeling hollowed out.

Making has always been my happy place, my downtime, my meditation, but not so much in 2025. My head was too busy, too unhappy, to stay focused on anything for too long and even if I did, was it right to document it, especially on a public forum?

The world is on fire and the flames are getting bigger, as the unbelievable events of this week prove, but I think I’ve come to accept that it’s ok to be angry and still create.

It’s even ok to document what I’ve been making.

It’s especially ok to enjoy life as much as you can. It’s no small thing to be safe, have food to eat, shelter and family and friends to love.

I was coming here to write about my intentions for 2026 and put my word for this year on the record anyway, but I wanted to reflect on 2025 first and mention a post I read on Substack this week that resonates with how I feel. It’s by Gina Luker and largely about what’s happening in America, but it’s also happening worldwide, in real time.

Back soon with the knitting, dyeing, spinning, etc. I just needed to get that off my chest.

💙