FIRST DAY OF 2017 PLEASE BE A WONDERFUL YEAR

It’s here again, hopes for a wonderful year, to lose the fear that holds me back, I will exercise every day, walk every day, I will write every day, get stuck into preparation for an Autumn market, be healthier, and on and on it goes.  THIS year I will achieve all this, time is getting very much shorter, shorter and shorter. Hopes that my children will be happier, wealthier and fulfilled. Healthy grandchildren in spite of all the odds. Gotta go and exercise, my new FitBit says so!  Will be back soon.

 

Small Achievements

A feeling of peaceful happiness as I watch butterflies hovering around the buddleia, the colour of deep purple, a tiny shrub so miniature in comparison to the trees I have grown in the past. This is a great achievement with all the travelling my garden has done amidst the loving groans of my amazing family as we have carefully moved my pots and boxes through my many house moves of the past sixteen years.    My children have grown and left home and my garden stays with me through it all, a reminder of what has been and of what will be, changing as plants die and new ones are planted, there is still an original rose,a rosemary, camellias, a honeysuckle, an elderberry from many years ago, as well as cuttings from the ones that didn’t make it.  I have had gardens filled with plants to eat,to smell, to stir the heart with beauty, to provide shelter and childhood treasures, I have been lucky enough to establish these gardens over years and then have moved on to new experiences leaving gardens for future owners in the hope that they will enjoy them too.  My gardens are as much a part of my life and that of my children’s as the books that surrounded us all through our lives together.  The books drawing a groan from many a lip too. All on a beautiful spring morning in Brisbane.

November 2016

Revelations on a Thursday morning. 11.2.16

As I was watering the rounds of recovering grass where the Christmas trampoline had been standing I was thinking about the book I am reading, a book I have been very dismissive of, mostly because of Julia Roberts who I have very very little time for – not as much as Andy McDowell, (AD I have NO time for!). The book? Eat Pray Love. Olivia lent it to me recently and, as I had discovered more about Elizabeth Gilbert and her TEDX talks and I had attempted to read her Signature of All Things, I was keen to read it. Believe it or not I am finding it interesting as parts of it touch my own life. I am not an avid traveller like Gilbert but am enjoying her journeys as she travels through the world shedding depression and loneliness on the way. I have travelled through life in a similar way to a journey around the world even if in a safer zone it has still had many elements of fear that had to be conquered. Getting down to the point of my writing these revelations – I have spent the last three years feeling sorry for myself as I have moved out of full time work to full time non work – very frightening. Feeling sorry for yourself is not particularly useful and extremely annoying for those around you and I am amazed that they have all put up with it for three years, well maybe it hasn’t been all bad, hope so. There have been some great times during those three years with laughter, talk and love, Contributing to lives and receiving contributions to mine.  I have regarded this time as something of an exile for me but reading E, P, L. I am now looking at this time as time spent travelling, travelling in my world with bad experiences when my fear, depression and loneliness have taken over and the great experiences where being with people you love has been brilliant with wonderful memories. Having this realisation has changed me and my sad view of my life and I feel excited at moving into a new life of independence,. with a greater awareness of what is happening around me

The Eleventh day of Winter

It’s cold, raining, windy and winter is here. At last. Although I’ve forgotten how to keep warm.  Hot water bottles, jumpers, hats, rugs, running, laughing, can’t have a fire, too polluting, although the air has the smell of fires burning in someone’s fireplace, how wonderful.  Stews, soups and pies are warming and candles look good, giving off some heat.  Who cares really, you can always keep warm and it is such a luxury to be cold.  The trees look cold, the birds are flying everywhere probably to keep warm. Great for exercise, it is so good not to get into a sweat walking up a hill.

I love the early darkness, that feeling of cosiness, Winter Solstice will be here and the days will start to lighten again.