Away

and coming back

It’s Sunday morning, nearly 8am and I should get up. I think about the day ahead, as it stretches out in front of me. It is a promise of sorts. The sky is clear and it is light. This time a week ago it was different story with hints of darkness at this time of day. As I lie in the bed I am looking up plants online, making wishes for the summer. I feel I can start to move and make plans, well more solid plans than the daydreams of a few weeks ago. As well as looking at plants multiple packets of seeds have been ordered. I am not sure where I will put them but that is a worry for later in the week. I think about the washing that needs to go out. The sundresses, the swimming togs, the shorts. All detritus from a holiday in the sun. On my dresser sits a pile of things to “put away until next time’ and for some weird reason my calf muscles hurt. I think it was going from causal strolls by the sea to bolting through the airport to catch a flight. It appears my legs have taken longer to recover from my holiday than I have. My skin is freckled, hair is lighter and I wonder how long it will take for my once very pale body to return to its normal hue. For now it is slightly tanned. My mind still has the echo of our time away and if I close my eyes I can be floating in the sea looking at clouds forming across a blue sky. To float in water is one of my favourite things to do. I am sure these images in my mind will linger for the days to come but for the moment I turn to the garden.

When we arrive home from our travels I walk up the path wondering what will be new in the garden, what has changed in a week. Actually as we park the car I can see what has changed. The vibrant pink camellia is flowering along the fence and the bright red rhoddie is about to burst into bloom. These track for me. They are the first to flower after the gloom of winter and they are the start of the new season in the garden so I am more than happy to see them. I make note to come back and photograph later. As I walk through the gate I can see that the path is messy. A week of us away and the birds have fully embraced having the place to themselves. Pea straw is everywhere and I sweep it aside with my foot as I walk up the path to the front door, noting more hellebore are flowering and there is the odd dot of yellow from the crocus that are chirping in the sun. There are pops of pink, yellow and white - these colours are echoes of island flowers that I saw on my time away.

Bags are dumped, dogs race to the water bowl and we momentarily sort ourselves before saying that we are heading outside, me to check the flowers, him the bees. The dogs follow along hunting out messages from a weeks absence. We all disperse in different directions into the garden. I am of course the loudest as I squeal with delight, the first of the daffodils in the lawn have flowered. I hunt out other hellebores and they are fully comfortable with showing off their plumage. I check the snowdrops from the family farm and they have emerged. It is another step into spring. But as we step forward into spring, things are say goodbye. The chrysanthemum which where still holding on have vanished into brown husks, as too is the might tree dahlia. This tree has been a long conversation over the past season and is now just a tall branch or two of brown. A silhouette of what it once was. I think of pruning the roses and feel more comfortable striding ahead with the spring clean up. It changes from a winter tidy to a spring clean. Things have moved on in my absence.

Before my holiday there were linger feelings of a slump creatively. This is always followed by the conversations of ‘what I am doing’, ‘what is the point” in my head. All the swirling of creating that we don’t often talk about, our emphasis always seems to be on the success of what we create. I try and settle in and just listen to the moment and after a number of years, I am understanding that these moments are your winter. The silence to settle into where you feed, like a buried spring bulb, on the nutrition of past seasons before emerging again for spring. Don’t get me wrong it feels as cold and dark as a winters night and for sure I wish it to pass soon but as I write and as I return to the garden I realise that she is my muse and she is my space. My smile at being home after some much needed relaxing time in the sun means I am happy to step into spring as she is and create and grow and share. I do hope you will join me along this new emerging season.