Have you tried turning it off and turning it on again?

So, how was it? And how are you? I know, it's all just something else. Kindness and compassion are required. Gentleness. Gill Meller's chard, leek and white bean soup. Early nights. Steadying breaths. Thick socks and decent breakfasts. Although there has been no snow here, the ground has been hard and the air cold. The inside of my greenhouse froze solid which may (or may not) have finished off my tomato cuttings which I had been over-wintering with, so far, great success. Imperfection is to be embraced though. These leaves on my purple sprouting broccoli should have been removed and composted but I have fallen in love with them. The tones are disturbingly reminiscent of a bruise but somehow utterly exquisite. I could be a florist for a lifetime before I was able to combine colours so perfectly.

I have spent the last few days on a repetitive but undemanding task; getting my Sunday night newsletters are up on the Gather website, complete with original photography and typos. And then I suddenly realised with a jolt that last week was the first week I missed writing to you for a long time (about 18 months, I won't make you do the maths, and only if you have been with me since the off) and I feel a little sheepish about it. I say a little, it wasn't intentional, I just got to that stage of not knowing what day it was, who I was, what roles and responsibilities I had signed up to. I switched off as if someone had pulled my plug out of the wall. However, see above. Kindness and compassion. It is always very stark when working therapeutically that we have a whole set of judgements that one applies to the self, ones that we would never apply to others. And so I am sorry, but not very sorry. I was drinking mulled cider and, inspired by Midgley Green, watching Far From the Madding Crowd. Because rest is an act of resistance and perfectionism is a trick of the mind.

And the cold white ground has stopped all gardening activity anyway so there is little to tell you. Really, the only thing to be done outdoors is to prune the apple trees. I give myself, and you, permission to sit by the fire and match pictures of your favourite gardens with the pictures in seed catalogues. I go back to my The Gardens of Arne Maynard time and time again. First picture below from the book by William Collinson, the second one of my gate by me. It's a work in progress... Everything is. 2021 more than anything else. 

Happy New Year. 

Much love,

G x