Stress loads and paper

Every morning I drive through a broad road. Now, this is worth noting when you live in England and in my city where many streets are very narrow, traffic quite intense and an average street is heavily parked on both sides. This may not be a natural state of affairs if you live in open spaces where front gardens are not obstructed by tall vans and houses are built on somewhat raised grounds. Here, we primarily see the cars but when I drive to a more affluent part of the town I can actually see the houses and have my own side of the road for myself. It feels airy, calm and informative – in a sense that you can actually see the trees and notice that that the seasons have changed.

Anyhow, back to the topic of a broad road vs the narrow road. I must admit I find it hard to handle the claustrophobic city planning. It makes me unhappy. It is not cosy. It feels like aesthetic deprivation or aesthetic discrimination but in reality it also feels like the actual love we have. It is depressing at times though as much as building houses in one style in the same street is. Lack of variety is dull and I guess that some people think this is unifying but in fact it is drab. I used to like Wales for its uniqueness in building and developing areas, I liked its variety and then recently I went to visit some areas and they all look the same with houses red-bricked, unrendered. I know it has its visual climate, it has its distinctiveness, but shouldn’t the architects be seeking their own roots to self-expression? It feels like some talents are squashed under this sameness and with their talents squashed, ordinary people are too because they become aesthetically deprived and there is a lot of value in beauty – we know that.

Back to the broad street. I am thinking now a lot about such issues as stress load and judgements. How we are prone to judge people for their life choices and to accuse them for having a nicer lifestyle than us or with us when we actually do not understand what is contributing to their daily stress bucket or how we contribute to theirs. I was thinking about the caption that I placed under this blog ‘stress-free blog’ which is tempting. Come with me and your life will be stress-free but in all honesty I do not know what your current stress-load is and if my lifestyle or the examples of lifestyles I share here would contribute to your reduction of stress. It feels dishonest, to some extent. I also am not sure anymore if what I thought in the past or I think now, would make you happier or more efficient or better in any way because we are unique and our life is very context-dependent and what fits one person, tightens the other.

But I know what move I need to make to feel better and to feel healthier and I think it’s called ‘focusing on emptying’.

A friend of mine told me years ago that she has problems with papers and with organising papers around the house. I did not share her problem at the time but I think it was because my tolerance for living with papers was much higher than hers. Plus, my husband says that I pretty much bring to the house everything that has a photo on and a nice font plus I never said no to any international friend who was leaving the UK and had to part with their well-read children’s books. These are also on our shelves. And on the floors and on our windowsills and behind the beds. And paper is what I spend my money on too and I find it so hard to part with it.

By the way, what book has dropped behind your bed recently? I am curious to know. Will you keep it? Sell it?

I have been reading quite a few texts recently online and it seems to me that if we do not talk about money in some way we do not participate in any debates. It makes me sad to a large extent as I did not want to talk about money on the very onset of this blog but then I appear unreal to people if I do not tackle the topic in some way. I read that most frequent question asked by people on Mondays is how to save. This I presume is because they overspend during the weekends or could you think of any other reasons for it? Maybe discovering that something needs to be fixed at home?

I think the unexpected expenses are those that trip us up most. For example, one of our roof tiles was loose and we had a low level of water ingress for a very long time. When my husband was trying to prepare one of our rooms for our daughter before she was born he had to remove a lot of plasterboard and noticed that there was a lot of mould growth happening underneath. We had to have our roof repaired which was a significant additional cost to what we had planned before the birth. When our flight from Poland was cancelled, we had to take seven trains to the UK to get there on time. In the first case, our parents helped us out with the cashflow issues, in the second case we had insurance. Better to have insurance, since parents like to know that we are mature enough to handle our life threats.

So that’s it for now.

I have to focus on emptying. But for how long?

I am curious to learn about your challenging life situations and how you’ve managed to do what has to be done. Did you negotiate the cost?

A friend of mine is very good at that. Was it part of your culture when you were growing up to do so?

By for now.

And a tip for self-aware humans: what for you is worth noting down?

Abstract from ice (modified and updated)

Once upon a time we had a rabbit. The rabbit died over a year ago just on New Year’s Eve. We took the rabbit tray outside, it was in our garden collecting rain water and algae. It was a big cage, capacious. When the big freeze came over the last week all that water with algae froze creating interesting patterns and compositions. I chopped the ice with an old bread tin. It was also filled with heavy ice. Our son lifted it off the tray. He placed it next to his knee to show how tall and thick it was, impressive in size. I photographed the blocks of ice while they were still floating among the icy water and when son was holding the ice.

The algae surrounded them. I then post-processed the photos in Lightroom. My favourite abstract composition is below.

I wonder what you think of it all?

Let me know.

And yesterday while walking, I met this little being. I think its eye is in the abstract.

Writing and photography: Alicja Pyszka-Franceschini, 2025, Home Studio, Derby, UK. Outdoor photo taken in Willington, South Derbyshire.

Updated 16.01.2025.

Lace-making in Cogne, Aosta, Italy

In the region of Aosta in North West Italy there is a small place called Cogne fairly far up (at 1500m altitude) an alpine valley of the same name (from where one can explore the wilderness of the Gran Paradiso national park). In Cogne there is a small museum of lace-making next to the church. I was inspired by the place and hope you will be too. You can read about this very precious lace-making tradition in Cogne on the official tourist webiste for Aosta Valley here.

Do you want to give it a go?

The Things We Love Doing

“You can only become truly accomplished at something you love.”
― Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou was a wise woman. She worked with things she loved and they became art. A friend of mine does the same. The photographs above are snapshots of her artwork and features of her house.

I also love creating and I find it very difficult to live without art and beauty. Is it the same for you? How do you nourish your creative soul?

The artwork above was made by Dorota Szmechtig-Szturo. You can see her other amazing talents here.

Sea Monsters

“The sea snail slithered all over the rock
And gazed at the sea and the ships in the dock.
And as she gazed she sniffed and sighed,
“The sea is deep and the world is wide!
How I long to sail!”
Said the tiny snail.”

~ Julia Donaldson, The Snail and the Whale

At the beginning of the year, I found myself complaining about our house perhaps a bit too much, finding faults in pretty much everything, including the ceiling. I know that when I complain about the house, I do not really complain about the house – but about a lack of time and breathing space, generally about being overwhelmed. It’s intriguing how our attitudes to our spaces often reflect the states of our souls, don’t they?

Early in January we drove to Devon to spend a weekend with family and while being there we headed towards the sea, to Dawlish Warren. Maybe even to remind ourselves what it is to experience vast open spaces and the freedom that they offer. Winter sea air is wonderful for taking deep lung-stretching breaths and for carefree runs towards the sea. The runs are necessary if, just like a very curious three-year old, you want to find out where the beach sand is soft enough for your feet (or shoes) to sink in.

There are many attitudes that we can develop towards our personal spaces, we can project ourselves on to them, but the sea is too great and too majestic for us to do it and as a result it projects its greatness and dignity on us. That is why, having seen the sea, we come back to our homes with greater respect, awe and appreciation of ourselves and the whole humanity.