Celebrating a Galway anniversary
This month is an annual cycle of life changing moments.
Meeting an Irish stranger in 2010.
Our Galway wedding in 2013.
Celebrating with friends and family at the Dublin parades from 2013-2015.
Moving flats during the second trimester, while preparing for our first baby’s arrival in London in 2016.
Separate moves to Canada (me first with our baby), my husband a few weeks later, navigating the permanent residency process in 2017.
The forced hibernation, quiet, living through daily life and work uncertainties with two preschool age kiddos in 2020.
The month I spent investing in my creativity with a handbuilding and underglaze painting pottery course, visiting the studio each week in 2021.
Photo: Handbuilt, carved and underglaze painted Children of Lir large vase I made in March 2021 before we had our third child (the traditional marking to celebrate that wedding anniversary year was pottery), holding a Spring pink and purple flower bouquet, in March 2024.
Hibernating once again but still working freelance and taking wheel throwing pottery courses while looking after our third baby in 2022.
Coming home from an extended trip to Dublin and Galway as a family of five, with many art studio visits, during early spring in Ireland/end of winter in Canada in 2023.
Now I’m adjusting to life with three kids, recovering from a car accident and concussion and learning what it’s like to belong to an active hockey, soccer and rugby loving family.
Weeks filled with whiteboard notes, physio appointments, school drop offs and pickups, batch cooking and baking recipes.
Making hand built ceramics at my home and local community studios, sketching and painting as I work through surface pattern design briefs, with inspiration from our travels, homes overseas and everyday rituals.
Photo: I’ve been devouring visual feasts from our City of Ottawa library, including horticulture, gardening, florist and flower arranging coffee table books, as I dream up how to expand our perennial and annual gardens in the city.
I’ve also been researching and designing a future perennial and annual garden for the house we’ve called home in Ottawa for almost seven years. Urban flower farming and handmade pottery will be on my mind and this blog for the next while.
Our youngest kid is now two and I’m feeling more able to settle into where we’re at and plant some new (literal) seeds, to create more beauty and joy in our neighbourhood.
Hard to believe how much life we’ve squeezed into 14 years!
I don’t often like to plan too far ahead but looking back and seeing the journey we’ve been on, makes me grateful for always taking chances, being curious, following my intuition and having fun.
Photo: The kinds of flowers a man from Galway gets you for your wedding anniversary – loyal to the maroons and purples, always and forever.
To finding (and creating) love, wherever you are,
– Amy (+ Family) xx
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