My journy home every night.I appear to have racked up over 800 posts!
This blog is so not what I thought it would be, and yet it has become so much more. I guess initially I thought it would become a kind of ‘Cybersketchbook’ which in many ways it has, but with knobs on. But rather than a repository for works found, it has definitely got me out and about. I have always been gallery obsessed but now I reflect far more on what I have seen and its relationship to my work. I have definitely taken more photographs, I was a bit of a one trick pony before flowers, flowers and oh, more flowers plus a light sprinkling of children. Now I try to see where I go through a lens, and I have become way more appreciative of my environment and the richness it has.
A rather bizarre side effect of reading so many blogs is that I no longer buy magazines, neither do I get that horrible grass is greener lifestyle envy syndrome, because the more you read and write the more you realise that where there is something you desire, it inevitably comes at a price and so my lot has become more content over the last 18 months.
A rather bizarre side effect of reading so many blogs is that I no longer buy magazines, neither do I get that horrible grass is greener lifestyle envy syndrome, because the more you read and write the more you realise that where there is something you desire, it inevitably comes at a price and so my lot has become more content over the last 18 months.
That is not to say I do not want more, the difference is that I now accept that I have to make it happen myself and that sometimes just working and being a mother is enough.
Before I had Daisy I became very green fingered almost to the point of obsession, I visited all the great gardens, including Great Dixter and Beth Chattos place. I would devour gardening journals, buy plants, plan and dig and create my Eden. Then Daisy arrived demanding and difficult, I tried so hard to carry on and get her to fit in with what I wanted do but to no avail. One of the small pleasures I had was to visit peoples gardens under the National Garden Scheme, I remember as if it were yesterday trying to take in the beauty of this women’s garden all the while Daisy ran around like a banshee, whilst Kitty screamed and yelled, finally throwing up all over me. On the way out I obviously must have seemed at the end of my tether and I complained at how hard it was to carry on creating my own Eden whilst raising two small children. She told me that you only get one shot at bringing up children, the garden can wait, enjoy them while you can, they do not stay for children for long, whereas the garden is going nowhere. I took her at her word; I stopped trying to juggle everything and became a mother. It was the best advice I could have. They have now grown older and the garden is still there.
Before I had Daisy I became very green fingered almost to the point of obsession, I visited all the great gardens, including Great Dixter and Beth Chattos place. I would devour gardening journals, buy plants, plan and dig and create my Eden. Then Daisy arrived demanding and difficult, I tried so hard to carry on and get her to fit in with what I wanted do but to no avail. One of the small pleasures I had was to visit peoples gardens under the National Garden Scheme, I remember as if it were yesterday trying to take in the beauty of this women’s garden all the while Daisy ran around like a banshee, whilst Kitty screamed and yelled, finally throwing up all over me. On the way out I obviously must have seemed at the end of my tether and I complained at how hard it was to carry on creating my own Eden whilst raising two small children. She told me that you only get one shot at bringing up children, the garden can wait, enjoy them while you can, they do not stay for children for long, whereas the garden is going nowhere. I took her at her word; I stopped trying to juggle everything and became a mother. It was the best advice I could have. They have now grown older and the garden is still there.
Lets hope I can make it to the 1000 posts mark, now that would be an achievement!
3 comments:
very wise advice, indeed! I gardened only sporadically when my kids were around, and, as you say, the garden is still here for me to pour more time into now that they're not.
As for your 800 posts -- wow! And besides you getting so much out of writing them, I'm learning lots, having laughs, and getting glimpses of another world from reading them.
800 posts!!! I am very impressed. I am getting close to my 300th post. I am not sure I will make it to 800. I so very much enjoy your blog. I enjoy the mix of your own narrative, your photgraphs and the artists you love.
Like you, blogging has had a positive impact on my giving up on magazines and it also has made me somewhat less avaris. Those are good byproducts of my blogging addiction.
I admire your parenting style. I feel sure that someday soon your daughters will treasure your blog as a lovely memento of the amazing mother they are lucky to have.
800 posts is quite a milestone. Congratulations. And it was so interesting to read your thoughts about your blogging experiences.
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