So what excites you?

-





I've been thinking today about what really excites me (no innuendo please). This was brought on by a combination of two different things to do: a tax related issue for a friend of my sister in law, which I am very happy to help with, and a conversation with Zoe about an area of our field which I would like to turn into a walk.

Zoe has very kindly offered to help me with planning a big piece of planting that is way outside the scale of anything I have done in the past. At the moment there are four native trees, very young and very stick like, facing four conifers along the bottom boundary of our field. I would like to make this area a path through more densely planted trees, shrubs and early flowering bulbs and perennials - a little bit of woodland that feels as though it belongs here on the hill. I suspect this is the equivalent of no make up make up - actually more difficult and more time consuming than an obvious full face of slap. I have been thinking about this and reading about possible planting for it for weeks and going out and looking at my rough grass and sticks and feeling that I have no idea how to transform what is in my head to what is on the ground. Today I had a fascinating conversation with Zoe which made me feel that she understood as well as anyone can who has not been here, what I want to do and something of why it is so difficult. It was just fantastic to talk to someone else who was as interested in it as I am. Thank you Zoe.

This is what it looks like now to give you some idea of the scale of the task.
So I promised her some pictures of the place and some further details about soil and site. I said the same thing to both her and my sister in law's friend: I might not get to it today but would be sure to send something by the end of Monday. And what have I done?

Well it won't surprise you to know that I have wandered around my windswept ground taking unappetising pictures of my scruffy patch of heaven. I have not read through correspondence from the Inland Revenue and considred a draft reply. You can always tell what you want to do by what you do.
This is what it looks like in my head. It may forever be a dream but you don't know if you don't try do you?

What can you somehow always find time for?

Comments

  1. Elizabethd22 February 2008 at 22:16

    How lovely to have a blank canvas. When we built this house in France it was on an acre of field...so I had to do some of what you are doing, and it evolved, somehow partly on its own. I'm sure your plan will be great.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Zoë22 February 2008 at 22:34

    I throughly enjoyed the conversation too, it is wonderful when you can talk to someone who is equally passionate about a particular subject, it was also surprising just how easy it is to talk to someone you have never met when you share a common interest, although Elizabeth was lovely and put me totally at ease anyway. Look forward to discussing ideas soon.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Kim22 February 2008 at 23:48

    I always find time to do creative things for my children and my home. This week, even though hubby and I were a bit under the weather, I made my elder son a memo board to hang on his wall (it matches his bedding). I'm working on a blind for his bedroom as well. Lovely daughter's furniture is about to be re-done, and my younger son has asked for a wall of cork tiles. I love making the house attractive and comfortable for my family and myself.

    ReplyDelete
  4. laurie23 February 2008 at 03:44

    i wish i loved gardening because i really do love looking at gardens, but i am not very good at it. i do grow some flowers but i would never call myself a gardener.

    what i have time for, no matter what: writing. that's it for me. that's the thing i can't do without.

    ReplyDelete
  5. mountainear23 February 2008 at 11:37

    Tax? Garden? Garden? Tax? What a question! The garden would win every time.

    I think your 'field' will become an excellent walk. I imagine a journey through glades, colours, scents and textures. Please give progress reports. Weekly.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Pondside23 February 2008 at 15:09

    Go for it Elizabeth! Your dream sound doable - especially with Zoe's help. Do you have deer problems? I'd forever planning woodland gardens and interesting corners only to have them destroyed by deer. Even native plants aren't safe if they are in an area in which the deer are accustomed to finding food.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Maggie May23 February 2008 at 15:52

    Well, I'd forget about the tax for a start! I just love starting new things & if I have an idea then feel the need to press on with it! Planning & creating bring real pleasure. I love your idea & the plan looks lovely. Hard work will be worth it in the end.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Moonroot24 February 2008 at 12:18

    What a great idea - how inspiring!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Fennie24 February 2008 at 18:50

    Mmmm. Avenues of trees. Been watching old Monty and his gardens of the world. But you have to wait 100 years to have them mature and majestic - bamboo could grow quickly, but not I suspect on a Welsh hillside.

    Strangely enough, if I hadn't been staring at a screen all day, I might prefer the challenge of sorting out a tax problem (well something within my capacity anyway, which isn't much) to a mundane garden task like weeding in the cold and damp. Depends on the weather I suppose.

    Good luck with the avenue. (You could always try acacias!)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Cait O'Connor24 February 2008 at 22:42

    I always find time to go on Purplecoo!
    I have a field here as well and have similar dreams (I love your pic) and plans but not enough energy as you I would think so I will watch yours develop. Great to have Zoe's expertise.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Kitty25 February 2008 at 09:36

    Lovely plans - it's all a matter of being able to 'see' it in a mature state, because, like in our garden too, the stick-trees and rough grass and mud are hardly inspiring!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Pipany25 February 2008 at 15:00

    I have always loved the thought of having a little woodland area, preferably one full of ancient trees but to create that ancientness (!) for the future would be amazing. I find scale a difficult thing to sort too Elizabeth - what's in my head rarely is what appears. As for finding time - well, blogging clears my head so I make time for that and anything creative where I can (including gardening which is a real passion of mine) xx

    ReplyDelete
  13. Expat mum25 February 2008 at 15:32

    As one who complains about never having enough time to do much, I usually seem to find the time to write - like now, when I should be unpacking from our skiing holiday. I can't even resist commenting on the online newspaper sites. Not that anyone cares what I think.
    The walkway looks lovely though - and a darn sight more enticing than anything to do with taxes.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Anonymous25 February 2008 at 19:53

    Your no-makeup-makeup is a great analogy! But I think I know exactly where you're coming from - something that's looks effortless, uncontrived and belongs. By the sounds of it you and Zoë have the perfect working partnership. Exciting indeed. Good planning, making and enjoying.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Bluestocking Mum28 February 2008 at 09:08

    Hi Elizabeth

    Have I really missed so many of your lovely blogs!!? Just gone through and read them all and then gone back and commented.

    You write with such self assurance and confidence now...and good to see so many new people visiting you!

    I wish I could find more time to do the things I love to do...perhaps the trouble is I have too many interests it is an impossible ask?

    Must do more writing...that's my real passion...and I love yours...

    warmest wishes
    Debbie
    xx

    ReplyDelete
  16. Westerwitch/Headmistress2 March 2008 at 16:05

    I am rubbish at gardens - but like laurie I really would like to be good at gardening. I just get so confused and love all the plants and want them all and can't seem to plan out anything . . .so I envy you and Zoë being able to understand each other on this level. Lots of work in progress pictures please.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Hannah Woolven30 March 2008 at 17:22

    Hmmm... what can I always find time for.... Well obviously coming and visiting kind and generous friends in Wales. And making/eating cake of course. Preferably a combination of the two.
    Thanks for a wonderful read Liz and a super dooper stay in your beautiful home.
    I think you should publish your blog as memoirs. I've been reading out entries to Aidy for about an hour as he washes Cnicht off his walking boots and tries to fold up our dry-but-still-somewhat-muddy-looking tent.
    Probably ought to stop reading and go and help him.....
    Much love
    Hannah xxx

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Comments are the best thing and the conversations they produce are the whole purpose of blogging for me. Do tell me what you think!

Popular posts from this blog

Making lined curtains

-
Image
While Ian was away I decided it was time to make the new curtains for the cottage.   I have been putting this off for at least four months, maybe six.  First of all I couldn't find any material I liked at a price I could afford so that was a fine excuse.  Then I read a recommendation for Textile Express  on Annie's blog.  Textile Express has a fab website but when I realised it was only forty minutes away in Oswestry I had to visit.  Wonderful choice, great prices; material purchased.  Then I carried on putting the job off because I was a bit daunted by the fact that two of the curtains are full length ones for doors but there is nothing like knowing you have a few days to yourself to make you feel you can get your teeth into a project. And amazingly, now it is done.  As I have been thinking of nothing else for about a week I thought I would share with you my own advice on how to make lined curtains.  I am not a supremely talented sewer but ...
Read more

I love November

-
Image
I always used to hate November: greyness, wetness, short days and dank, dark nights.  It felt to me as if the world turned inward and the light left the sky and as the days darkened my energy dropped and so did my mood.  When did my feelings change?  I am not sure.  My mother died in November and my father two years later in December.  I think that these losses combined with my own growing sense of how fast time runs away with you have shifted me towards wanting to make the very most of each day.  I can't afford to discount three or four months of the year.  How many more years are there?  I have no idea but I should make my days count. And lo and behold! It is possible to change the patterns of a lifetime!  It is possible to find things to love in November and to be energised and excited, just as much as in Spring.  Over the last few years I have found lots of ways to feel good in November and for me that seems to require some particula...
Read more

Why write?

-
Image
 I started blogging in 2007.  What a different world, a different life.  I was fifty three, still working in a demanding job which took me away from our beautiful ancient house, high on a Welsh hillside.  I had one two year old grandson.  I loved my job but my life felt very fragmented, split between London and Wales, between professional me and personal me.  Both my parents were alive.  My active, funny brother had yet to have the stroke which for twelve years until his death confined him to a wheelchair and robbed him of much of his dry, witty personality.   And now?  Now I am seventy and have been retired for years.  My mother died in 2013, my father in law in 2014, my father in 2015 and my brother last year.  We now have ten grandchildren, ranging in age from six to eighteen.  There have been departures and arrivals.  In the intervening years we have bought a building plot, sold our old house and built a new one w...
Read more