Keeping sane...

I think I would have gone really crazy the last few months without access to outdoors space. If I ever needed convincing that I really need a garden, I certainly don't now. It has given me a space to create, to watch things grow and develop, to just notice the ever changing light, sights and sounds and quiet place to try to relax. The 'garden in progress' is still just that but there is a sense of anticipation of the next phase, having just filled these beds with almost 200 bulbs for next Spring and Summer.

The snapdragons at the back are a throwback to the flower beds of my childhood and these plants rescued from the 'past it' shelf at the local garden centre for pennies have flowered on their floppy stems all summer, continuing to delight me as much as they ever did.

The nemesia were also unpromising looking specimens but, cut back after planting, have rewarded with endless sweet vanilla scented blooms that lighten the flowerbeds.

Ever favourite perennial geraniums strike me as 'workers' - the soil her is fairly awful even after lots of extra organic material but these were unchecked and just keep giving. What's not to love?

Earlier in the year I retrieved my very sad looking tomato seedlings from a neglected greenhouse. Most didn't survive and those that did struggled to catch up with the season being a bit late to flower and set fruit. Some got blossom end rot and I was convinced at one stage I would not get any ripe tomatoes but the last little surge of hot weather resulted in this surprise after a few days away. And they tasted delicious! Can't beat plant to plate!

And solace can be found in public outdoor spaces too. A combination of house hunting - in multiple locations across the county! - and a need to just walk for the sake of it sometimes, has seen me discovering  new places within a relatively small radius of where I have lived and worked almost all my life. And it is often the little things that can catch your attention and make you smile. Sharing a few crumbs with a robin in a park...

And a late summer wander round a city park (after the best bacon butty I've had in a while from the cafe in the park!) was a reminder of how to keep flower borders full of life, colour and texture even as the days shorten and get cooler.

And in the peaceful bluebell woods where my lovely mum rests eternally, the ferns are lush and green and, from ground level, these tiny mushrooms looked like a forest for fairies...

I am really looking forward to the day I am back in a home of my own and can step out of my door to breathe in the sky and the breeze...but, for now, I am learning to appreciate the grounding effect of the wider world.

S x

Still seeking stability...

When I locked the door for the last time on my little house on 27th January, waved most of my belongings off into storage and began a period of nomadic living until I could find my next home, I could not have imagined that almost 7 months later I would still be hunting. I thought maybe by Spring, early Summer at latest, I'd be in but no... Frustratingly, I had found somewhere and almost got to completion, then the seller changed her mind and pulled out. The English legal system is rubbish where house buying is concerned and the money spent on surveys and legal feels is meaningless if the other party lets you down. My personal view is that there should be some compensation - it shouldn't be possible for you to get so far down the line and then have to start again just because someone is a bit fickle. 

For the most part, I am living a 75 mile commute from work, thanks to the kindness of a friend, the rest of the time I am on my son's sofa bed so I can spend a bit of time with his little family. It has been challenging, not least because the pandemic has sent the housing market into some kind of madness, but also the lack of certainty about when I can finally settle down again. 

It has made me think about what really matters. With almost all my things out of reach, I am questioning how much I really need. Surprising how little you need day to day really. I miss my kitchen and my own bed but everything else? Not so sure. Perhaps I will delight in it again when I finally get to unpack. The things that have really kept me going - and I have felt pretty bleak at times - are the less tangible things... blue skies and sunshine, my grandson's first smiles, the kindness of friends. And always, running through like a thread, the constancy of nature. I think I really understand now how my Mum found solace in the garden - there is something very steadying about losing yourself in the physical and creative effort of painting with plants and then watching the bees, butterflies and birds appear, as if by magic.

Mum loved sweet peas and the first blooms were ready to cut 2 years to the day that she died. They will always make me think of her, with their delicate petals and sweet scent.

I renewed my National Trust membership and took a trip to the rose garden at Anglesey Abbey. The fragrance hung in the air and the photos don't do justice to these beauties.

In the 'resting bed' in the rose garden, bright cosmos with their feathery foliage...

The house I have been staying at was a new build 5 years ago and has the typical 'building site soil' with poor grass. My friend is, of her own admission, no gardener and was happy for me to turn her patch of weedy grass into a garden. This project has probably kept me sane over the last few months. From painting the fences...

To the first few trips to the nurseries...

Marking out the design...

Then hours of digging out the beds, shifting sacks full of builders lime, adding topsoil and well rotted manure (I have never dug a garden before and not found a single worm!) and finally beginning to plant up.  The plan is to provide some year round interest and some height to, eventually, shield from the overlooking windows.

Amazing how a little splash of colour begins to make it look like a garden...

Summer sunshine saw the cheap and cheerful bedding plants come into their own and the beginnings of a flower bad taking shape...

And as summer, sadly, draws towards its evening, the grass, deliberately filled out with white clover, looks greener and healthier, the perennials are beginning to spread and the trees are slowly filling out.

It's a long way from 'finished' (what garden ever is?) and I have stopped adding up how much I have spent! There is always space for just one more plant and as the seasons change, I'm sure we will want to keep adding to it. Next plan is Spring bulbs, need to plan and order those, then plant in a month or two. It has kept me looking forward, when there have been days when the future feels a bit pointless and we joke that even when I have my own garden again, I will have to come back every so often to keep this one tidy!

Nature has been therapy in so may ways.

S x

finding new footpaths...

I am currently 'between homes' - rather in the way that actors refer to being 'between jobs'... in so much as I actually have no home of my own at the moment. The last two years have proved unsettling in ways that I could not have envisaged and I had found myself increasingly longing for a proper bit of garden, easier access to the countryside and a reason to go home from work. Of course, I had forgotten what a trauma selling up and finding a new home is - and this time, I am conscious that I really don't want to be doing this again. Not least because it is so expensive to move, but also because I have to face the reality that this is probably it for me. The last couple of years have hammered home the unavoidable truth that life is finite. And at pushing 55, on my own for almost 10 years now, my options are undeniably narrowing. So this feels like a huge life step. Again. I have debated long and hard with myself about what I want and need, what I am just settling for (and there absolutely is a resigned element of that) and what my future looks like. I have no idea if I have found any of the answers yet or if I ever will really but I knew with certainty that I needed to move on from my little house in the city. It was right 7 years ago but not any more. I still struggle with not really having anyone to bounce ideas off - friends help and offer advice, sometimes very sound and rational, sometimes giving away their own preferences and insecurities. But they don't have to live with the decision and I do feel a little sad that life has not worked out for me so that I have someone not just to share the decisions with but also the dreams, the pleasure and the prospect of just 'doing nothing' with.

But it is what it is, so in the meantime, having sold my house very quickly and failed to find somewhere new, I am staying in a variety of empty houses while I hunt. It is giving me an opportunity to walk in new places and lots of thinking time...

Woodland paths with early bright flowers...

Daffodils alongside gentle streams...

And crossing a particularly bleak and blustery field, sudden movement ahead as a family of deer ran across the footpath...

A full rainbow over moody skies, which I wasn't quite quick enough to catch at its most vivid...

And today, though we started with a sprinkling of snow and the blue skies belie the bitter chill of the wind, it was good to get out and feel the sunshine. The hedgerows are frothy with blossom...

And, although you can't really see it here, there is the beginnings of fresh green in the branches...

The church looked striking against the sky...

With beautiful Easter flowers at the door...

Trying to just breathe and live each day...

S x

 

Changing seasons...

I think this is called Chaenomeles. It is flowering away outside the kitchen door, almost a bit excessive in its blowsy, show off bright red against the gentle blues and yellows of the crocuses and early daffodils.

 But rather beautiful all the same. And so nice to see some colour.

The sunshine through the trees on a walk in the woods makes it seem warmer than the reported temperature of 5C and a seat in a sheltered spot in a patch of sun was lovely. After another day of house hunting this was a moment to stop and think, work out my priorities and next steps.

And with the evening chill reminding me it is still early March, this was the perfect place for a cup of tea.

S x

Challenges & constants...

So much for my intentions...

The end of February, March and April disappeared with not much thought of daily photos. I made a rash spur of the moment decision to apply for a job in a hospital at the other end of the country, was shortlisted and visited to take a look at the place and the team, managing to coincide it with their first Covid-19 case. Amidst the ensuing flurry of reorganisation and planning, no-one had time to talk to me, I only met the outgoing post-holder and spent a couple of days trying to decide if the area was always that bereft of life and activity, or if this was the 'Covid effect'. 

I cut short my trip, returned to my unit and work family of 35 years and decided this was a completely ridiculous time to be thinking about such a massive move - combination of loyalty to my colleagues and complete disbelief that the place I was considering was pushing ahead with recruitment without any opportunity to meet prospective colleagues. I rather suspect I would have been 'interview fodder' and that there was an easy to appoint local candidate lined up. Decision made, application withdrawn and within 10 days we were entering lockdown with the prospect of difficult times ahead on the work front and in our personal lives.

It has been challenging - our usual roles and working patterns have been upended as services have been shelved, staff redeployed and we all focused on the 'job in hand'. In my nursing career to date, I have never seen anything quite like it and my heart goes out to those patients and families affected. The resilience and compassion of colleagues - both clinical and non-clinical has, so far, been admirable. We are a long way off from being out of the other side of this as yet but we are coping, we are, for the most part, retaining a sense of humour and we believe passionately that we will continue to do our jobs, whatever that throws at us, to the best of our ability.  

I have still randomly taken some photos - mainly in appreciation of the fact that the natural world continues unabated. The birds sing, the feeders are emptied apace, the Spring bulbs have come and gone and the bare tree branches are clothed with fresh green leaves. 

So these are my reminders of the things that continue, the reassurance that the default position is for life to go on. I don't think things will ever be entirely the same but the flowers will still follow their pattern, the seasons will move on and, who knows, perhaps there are opportunities ahead in some form or another...

These are in no particular order; wintery trees in early February and my eldest son's birthday - 31years since this precious and incredible new person appeared in our lives, and a container of geraniums and lobelia that has continued to flower all winter. Daffodils, hyacinths, anemones, grape hyacinths and tulips all a little ahead of themselves I think, thanks to the warm weather in March and early April. A jay that has taken to hoovering up the mealworms in the birdfeeder, clumsily hanging there but at less than 3 foot from my window a treat to see. Blossom opening on the tiny apple tree I planted last year and a froth of blossom on one of my walks against the blue sky. Pretty heuchera flowers, also one of last years newcomers - the pleasure I have had from these reliable perennials rewarding my efforts by reappearing is immeasurable. And a bunch of flowers from my lovely 31 year old for mother's day - a 3 months worth gift of flowers and the kindest words as he acknowledges that I can't 'do' mother's day for my Mum this year.

As April moves on the petals of the tulips take on a translucence in the sunshine before they fall, the garden is filling out and there is enough warmth for coffee at my little table in the courtyard. The tiny flowers of lungwort up close reveal a myriad of colour not immediately noticeable from a distance. I extend my walks to footpaths within reach of my city home I didn't know were there, negotiating the 'social distancing dance' around other walkers and trying very hard not to mind that I am always walking on my own. Another beautiful bunch of flowers from my son and the heady scent of wisteria around a local church. On my Mum's birthday, the first of the year of her favourite flowers, sweet peas from seed saved from her garden last year, subtle shades of cream and pink, with the tinge of pick blushing stronger one the next few days. And after I succumb to the virus and have to self-isolate at home - a rainbow appears on my living room wall and the milkman leaves an  unexpected delivery just at the point I ran out of milk.

These are strange times and there is much to feel sad about. But also things to be uplifted by and soothed by. Here's to milkmen, postal workers, bin men and all the other unsung heroes that keep us all going. And to the people who clap and sing and let us know all key workers are in their thoughts - the staying at home bit is not easy either so hats off to us all.

Keep safe and well. 

S x

the beauty of nature...

Sometimes the simplest flowers and plants seem to capture the perfection of nature at its best. I love the blues and lilacs of early summer and the light dancing off spring raindrops.  A wander round Blickling Hall's beautiful gardens last month resulted in way too many photos of which I found it hard to select favourites. But I love the simplicity of these daisy-like flowers against the last of the bluebells...

And you have to admire the stamina of this little tree, smothered in blossom and hanging on at such an unlikely angle...

The woodland walk takes you past swathes of  frothy forget-me-nots...

The branches of wisteria drip with heady blooms...

I missed the main tulip season this year but I can't help loving this showy number in the 'cut-flower' border of the kitchen garden...

I have always loved the tactile leaves of Lady's Mantle, particularly sparkling with the last shower...

By contrast with the formality of Blickling, but just a few miles down the road, is my Mum's garden - 30 years of dedicated tending which has resulted in an eclectic mix of wilderness and clipped yew, traditional cottage plants and the odd exotic...

I have spent a lot of time with Mum over the last six months and I think this garden reflects her personality perfectly. She is a complicated mix of post-war 'collector' (she cannot throw anything away - so her home is crowded and chaotic and every plant she propagates she has to plant, even the weak ones that 'deserve a chance'!), lover of rituals and order (absolute rota for everything - from changing beds to cleaning upstairs and down to shopping) and acceptable eccentricity. The last six months have seen her deal with the challenges of ill health with dignity and bravery but have meant that, for the first time ever, she has had to entrust her very large garden to someone else. 

Early June has seen her selection of roses flourish - each has a meaning and a memory for her, which I can't pretend to remember. I have a slightly mixed relationship with roses - I do think they are beautifully formed blooms and some have a lovely fragrance but I'm often disappointed with the problems that come with them and, frankly, when not in flower they are pretty uninspiring (in my view!). However, whats not to love about a 'red, red rose, thats newly sprung in June...'?

And even just past its best, this pale pink rose which festoons Mum's has an appeal I can't resist...

By the back door, this rose has a complete bouquet on one branch, to my mind - whilst the oldest bloom is looking a bit ravaged, I love the range from pale to deep pink and the perfection of the buds and semi-open flowers...

And in the sun this apricot shade looks almost a bit too brassy...

Back in my own little bit of garden, the rose that drives me crazy because it grows so rampantly, reminds me why I can't get rid of it as its manic growth is festooned with these gorgeous sweetly fragranced beauties...

Back at Mum's there is a peaceful spot at the bottom of the garden where I took a few moments out to  reflect...

Before wandering back past the alliums with their infinity patterns...

And the maples glowing against the blue sky...

Life is so busy. And our family is going through some sobering times but I am reminded of the William Davies poem...

'What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare...'

So here is to standing and staring, to appreciating the patterns, colours and fragrances of the natural world and to taking time to think...

S x