New Year, a slow start

Creatively this year has started slowly, each step taken with a bit more time and consideration. Is it age, or is it just that I don't want to be rushed into making decisions?

Marmalade has been a real marker for the start of this year, even more this time because I was away when the Seville Oranges were available last year. One of the few seasonal fruits remaining it serves as a marker, like a punctuation, or breath in the over abundance of food.

While taking time preparing the fruit I became aware of the relationship between this activity and Slow Making, So here are some images of the process. Unfortunately you can't smell the wonderful overpowering citrus fumes or hear the family conversations, which seem to be integral to making enough marmalade to stack on the shelves and supply friends and family for the year. Not quite the same conversations, but similar each year, drawing people and places together. The colours, the reflections, the tactile elements. Sticky, hot and sweet. So much a part of childhood and yet so much my decision to continue the activity. Making this seasonal produce helped clarify thoughts about planned Slow Making conversations and how they might develop this year.
It really is a sign of the new year, the reminder that the sun and warm seasons will bring colour, fruit and food once more.