Domesticali

The soothing powers of green

Lately, I'm sick of the sound of my own voice. Moaning on about my first world issues. Busy, overstretched, petty irritations. It's all such minor stuff.

Nothing that will have left the slightest ripple a few years from now. It's good to step away from all of it. To reframe and refocus on higher things.

I've always had a great deal of admiration for people with a grand plan. Something on a large scale, requiring vision and tenacity. Beautiful gardens are a prime example. To take a piece of bare earth and have a vision of it so many years from now that it is worth investing in the saplings which will one day be the pefect pleached hornbeams, framing a game of boules.

To keep in mind, through the daily grind of weeding and watering, the vista of your imagination.

But still, in the midst of achieving the master plan, to take pleasure in the small details and the happenstance beauty.

It was a cold day yesterday, drizzly, with that low cloud and strange milky light we do so well in Britain. Not really vintage garden photography weather. But still, the soul of Hidcote shone through.

It was good to walk and chat and soak in the green.

Perhaps my normal voice might even be back. The one which doesn't whinge and whine.

Thank you, Sue - a good suggestion. A green day was the perfect tonic.

Multiples

If one of something is good, then in my mind two is likely to be better and a glorious abundance, even more so. There's magic to be found in repetition. Was it Malcoim Gladwell who proposed that you could become expert in your field, by doing something for 10,000 hours? 

The idea of this, was the thinking behind my exhibition for Oxfordshire Artweeks. Socks were the motivation behind me wanting to learn to knit properly, back in 2007. And perhaps it is because I feel a sense of gratitude towards them, that I have continued to intersperse all my other knitting projects with pairs of socks. 

The rainbow washing line represents the time invested in mastering a new skill and the joy to be found in the simplest of things repeated over and over. There are roughly 34,000 stitches in a hand knit sock. Most of them pleasureable (with the possible exception the ones you drop while knitting as a passenger in a car going round the M25 in the gloom of the winter dusk). Many of those socks grew out of journeys, being the ultimate in portable projects, and in my mind, they stand for the miles travelled in my journey from novice to knitter.

I'm exhibiting here with the rest of my Needles and Natter group, if there's anyone local reading. And I promise to straighten those socks before I hang the real display!

April Collage

And finally, the sunshine arrived. The sap is rising and everything is feeling bright and new and full of promise.

Somehow, having to wait for it has made this Spring all the sweeter.

Worth recording

Over lunch today - leftover rice with kale and shredded chicken - particularly tasty, even if I do say so myself, I was catching up with reading a few blogs. Suse used the phrase 'it's just the usual around here, nothing particularly worth recording'. Which sums up neatly exactly my excuse to my Mother, who chided me for my lack of updates recently.

But I've been trying to step away from the online world a little and immerse myself more fully in the real life rhythms of my day to day.

Investing my time a touch more mindfully in the things I know will bring me pleasure later.

Serene? Well, looks can be deceiving. I've just had the usual nervous breakdown inducing session of transferring the seasons sports fixtures into the family diary. Quite why I am bothering with the garden when there are probably 6.3 seconds when we will have free time to sit in it and enjoy it, I haven't quite figured out yet.

On a completely different note - duck racing anyone?

Highlight of the village social calender. We managed two ducks in the final, but failed to secure victory. There were ice creams though, which more than made up for any disappointment.