HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone. Time now to believe we can make a new beginning, shed the old life of last year and look forward to a fresh start, renewed optimism and determination. Of course, it’s not always easy but “hope springs eternal” as the saying goes and it’s this renewal which lifts our spirits and keeps us striving onward.
My new year resolution is to keep it simple, make it satisfying and prioritise what really matters.
Time to start filling in a new diary. One for everyday matters and one for my gardening notes. What details will fill those pages this year? My projects, milestones and mundane domestic occurrences in my “week to a page” and my successes and failures in the garden in the “day to a page”. I just love beginning a fresh record. Lovely clean pages full of promise.
I like the plain black ones. They seem serious and look good on the shelf afterwards. Interesting reading my gardening notes at a later date and useful for checking when events took place.
Just looking around the garden proves that the old year may have gone but the new one is already showing signs of life. Snowdrops are peeping through the soil, hellebores are budding and flowering, winter clematis “Freckles” is opening its pretty bell flowers and another tiny rose is blooming. Leucojum has shot up it’s fresh green leaves already but it won’t flower for a few weeks yet when it will have snowdrop-like flowers.
I have ordered my vegetable seeds. Too many to mention but including old favourites like carrots, parsnips, leeks, courgettes and cucumbers. Something which always fills me with anticipation and hoping that I’ll achieve my best in the garden. I never get everything right. Some crops fail, pests take over or I simply don’t do what I need to do at the right time but at the beginning of the year I’m brimming with excitement and intentions. A lovely feeling and one which I enjoy every year even though I’ve been gardening for half a century!
I used to grow my tomatoes from seed but three years ago I tried buying grafted plants. These are said to give a greater yield. I’ve been very pleased with them. We particularly like plum tomatoes. So delicious, thin-skinned, few seeds and good raw or cooked. Last year I grew “Guilietta”. Lovely flavour and big tomatoes.
The Spring cabbages are ticking along and will begin to grow next month. The leeks are delicious and the parsnips are fat and very sweet.
Indoors, my Christmas cactus is flowering again. I don’t think this is really a cactus despite the common name for it. It’s probably a succulent. It’s ancient, a bit like myself, but it keeps going. I’ve had this plant for at least 30 years and although it’s looking tired and battered it still produces lovely flowers in late December and January. It has a broken stem which , despite all odds, healed and clings to life. A lesson to us all, I suppose.
New projects are waiting. I have yarn and a pretty pattern for a cardigan to knit. As last year was drawing to a close I did very little painting. Reading, knitting, baking and other things took over but I feel something is missing if I don’t paint. With the beginning of another year I resolved to return to it so I’ve drawn a vase of flowers and it’s now ready for the pleasure of stroking paint onto paper and trying to create something lovely.
There’s no point in trying to show a photo of the drawing as it wouldn’t reproduce well. When the paint is flowing I’ll show what I’m up to. Meanwhile here’s an old one. Like the beginning of a new year the steps are leading to adventures yet to be discovered.
Thank you to all for the kind comments during last year. It has been a pleasure for me to write my blog and to be told that it’s enjoyed. I hope the year has begun well for you and will bring all of us happiness and good health.
Living a contented creative life. 