It’s Sunday afternoon, another hot day and we head off across town to a house about half an hours drive from where we currently live. It’s an open home and we are optamstically visiting it, because, you never know it might work as an option for us. I box my excitement, trying to be opened minded but there is a niggling doubt. It might be the one and then it might not. We arrive to a carpark paddock and sunburnt grass. Signing in we are handed a booklet with the details of the house and off we wander in different directions, analysing what we see, making notes in our heads. It’s an old home about the age of our current home and it quickly becomes clear it is our home before we did the renovations we have done. To purchase this house and land would mean a lot of work. We know the work involved to get the house to where we would want it to be and whilst we are happy to do so, we are more focused on wanting to work on the land. We want our focus to be on bees and gardens not a house. We walk the garden, taking in the views, mentally making plans that we know we will never do. Returning to the car we both agree it’s not for us. As we talk, we hunt for positives, glimpsing over the negatives and the search continues.
It’s Tuesday and there is an apple in the middle of the front lawn. Eos put it there. She has a thing for moving apples around the garden. It ended up inside briefly, with her wiggling around the house full of pride at her bounty. The apple trees are starting to shed their fruit. I notice them on the ground slowly turning brown with holes punched in them having been nibbled at by hedgehogs and birds. It hints of Autumn and to be honest the idea of Autumn feels welcome. It has been a hot summer. One for the books no doubt but after a number of weeks of not much rain the garden and dare I say myself are starting to feel it. As the afternoon progresses I sense a change in the air. That smell that hints rain and finally it comes. Rain. Soft and gentle and then slowly as evening falls gaining in strength. Both the garden and I breath a sigh of relief.
"I prefer weather in the smallest quantities. A drop will do. The best weather it might be said is no weather”
Mary Oliver, Long Life
It’s Thursday and we are inside listening to builders outside in the garden next door. The occasional thump and punch of a nail put into wood somewhere. Our couch and arm chairs are missing. They were sent off to the upholstery a week or so to be recovered so the floor is bare and the dogs are embracing the extra space. Toys are scattered about the place. I am on the floor spread out with books, notes, laptops and photos. I’m reading this and that. Looking at photos. Trying to find the threads of the narrative that I want to share. I’ve been wanting to try a project, an art project for a while and I am slowly stepping into this idea. Embracing the notion that I can create something and that I have taken enough photos over the past few years to tell a story. I want to tell a story of my garden but I know that story is still unfolding so instead I look to another garden for a story. For years I have meet a dear friend for a walk which evolved to walks in the local botanical gardens every so often depeneding on life with our cameras. I cherish these moments and realised that while I am not yet ready to write about my garden, I am ready to share the story of our garden walks. This has become the main idea behind my project. I have looked at photos, written random words, stuck pages to a wall and just sat in it all over the past few weeks, slowly seeing the story start to take shape. But the thing I am enjoy the most is just the process. It is a lot of reflection which I realised I haven’t done a lot of over the past few years as we have been galloping to fast to get away from the time that was lockdowns and Covid. Whilst reflecting I see beautiful photos that I forgot I had taken. I am remembering moments of silliness, deep conversation and lots of love. So I think no matter what the final project looks like I have already gained so much from this journey.