On the 20th February earlier this year some pruning and weeding was done in the garden, then a blog was begun in the front room.
I can’t say I have hobbies. It’s a shame but commitment is just not one of my virtues. I’m a Gemini, you see: fickle, wordy, with a paranoid fear of ‘heaviness’. Beyond my life circumstances I can’t claim to be anything. I’m not a writer, painter, astrologer, cyclist, photographer, dressmaker ... all of which I’ve had an interest in. Over the years I’ve come to terms with this inability to become expert in anything. Instead of hobbies I have projects. It’ll be on my tombstone: ‘She had projects’.
Thus we can explain Garden65 as a project. And it’s a miracle it’s managed to reach 6 months old. Well done.
But, then, what of the garden, so intimately linked with the blog? I’ve been working on the garden for 12 years, and there was one before, that got played with for 10 years. In contrast to the newest interest that managed to amuse my monkey mind, the gardens have kept my attention. Neither was neglected. Weeds didn’t take over, and children were not allowed to trample them into a muddy mess. True, they were spaces that weren’t planned and controlled; they won’t be appearing in the NGS Yellow Book. But I’ve never turned my back on them. They’ve never been metaphorically put away in a cupboard.
As Garden65 attests I don’t know how to garden – composting is a new adventure, and until this year I felt affection for Lily beetles – so it’s not the hobby of gardening that sustains the engagement with my gardens. Perhaps the reason is because I have a relationship with the garden; it is an entity of itself. The garden is as complicated, frustrating, and lovely as a person. This year it shed some dark trees and become lighter and happier. But something traumatic happened to its pond, and the jury is still out on the new cat that is unusually friendly but kills frogs. Beyond the stories it can tell the garden provides emotional solace. I think everyone (every woman?) who has a garden has felt tension lift when they have walked out of the back door. Be it rainy or sunny a garden will always raise a tiny inaudible sigh.
My garden is not my project or hobby, it is my friend, and this blog is a record of that friendship.
Oh god, too heavy! Quick say something funny.
Look at the latest project – this year's embroidery interest on top of last year's natural dye fetish - what the hell am I going to do with it?
