No more sums!

Around this time last year I started to measure my mood.  For lots of reasons, this seemed like a good thing to do.  A way of keeping an eye on things when, to be fair, I wasn't at my most observant.

A lot of measuring goes on in Primary Care, to be sure.  I guess they have to 'quantify'.  I have no idea who, if anyone at all, actually looks at all the sheets of A4 to see which boxes were ticked and what it adds up to.  What it all means.
Maybe doing the maths - employing a rational system and set of rules, means something to someone somewhere, just not me.

I might be number-blind, if such a thing exists, or had too many lazy teachers in this area.  I remember doing an awful lot of drawings on both of my Maths 'o' level papers, is all.
But that's another bucket of fish.

Suffice to say it got to a point when I was looking at a graph of dots and lines, which was a diagram of my mood, and it stopped making sense.
Am I flat-lining? Now it looks like I've climbed a big hill but, oh no! a day later I fell off it.  That's what the dots and lines seem to be saying.  I'm neither reassured nor enlightened by this.


Being a garden girl however, I am far more in tune with the weather.  Many months ago, while being lulled by the familiar rhythm of the Shipping Forecast - the names of South-east Iceland, Faeroes, Fair Isle, Viking, North Utsire and South Utsire are taking my mind round the map.  I'm imagining the deep waters of these sea areas at night, a small fishing boat in the vast expanse with all ears bent on the Forecast.

It occurs to me that these descriptions fit my internal weather and mood far better than numbers and graphs.

New low

Becoming poor for a time

Rising more slowly

Mist 1 mile

Falling slowly

Steady drizzle

Slow moving, declining

Mainly fair, moderate or good

Occasionally very poor

So instead of measuring, I now check the weather and make a note  of it.  This can look a little like a poem, the words bring images, and say more to me than numbers ever will.

A Force of Nature

Thankfully, it has cooled down.  Burning, bright sunlight means more napping.  It has been a struggle to find shade in the garden, even the haven of the shed got up to oven temperature over the last few days and greygirls cook easily.

I went out into the garden today, my morning ritual, scattered a few blackbirds and checked  the baby clematis hadn't been eaten during the night.  Seconds later I saw it, the big white papery bloom that wasn't there yesterday.  A poppy had finally busted loose from the large hairy pod I've been admiring for weeks, with a sense of expectation.

The sight of this flower lifted something inside me, like a thing of beauty should.  On closer inspection, the exquisite crumpled petals are like a dress I would just love to wear, then there's the unbelievably intricate eye radiating dark purple with a light violet circling it.
It is so perfect my heart aches.  All this from a seed the size of a speck that I had sown last year - how does so much awesomeness come from such a little thing!?

It really is a spectacle, a towering white wonder that now graces my garden like a sublime note in the air.

 

Through the nose

May sunshine is bringing bright light into the garden at last, making the golds, purples and reds shine, a real feast for the eyes.
I'm stunned by colour when I go out every morning, everything in the garden looks rich and...loud. 
Of course, all this gorgeousness is for the pollinators.

I've been getting down amongst the plants, it's a good time to weed out the unwanted before all the spaces get filled, and when I weed the only tools I use are my hands.
I prefer weeding this way for two reasons.  First, because I like getting my hands dirty and soil under my nails.  Second, you start to see your garden differently, and intensely, as if you've been shrunk like Alice.  You become more observant and see things you never noticed from this new, pixie perspective.
Hours pass and there's nothing on your mind other than what you are doing.  Looking at leaves, stems, ladybirds, blades of grass, seeds breaking through soil, colonies of moss.  There's a lot going on.

This closeness to the ground and the plants brings another awareness, scents.  The soil and woody bits, different leaf-smells as you disturb them, fallen leaves and petals decomposing all add a further layer to the sensory experience.

A scent enters the nose and goes straight to the part of your brain marked 'mood' and 'memory'.  It's a truly wonderful thing that a blend of notes such as peppery, sweet, citrus,floral,woody,sharp etc can start a direct flow of associations so damn quick!
And they are so personal, all our own.  Here are a few of mine:

English Roses - scent of old gardens, heady, velvety, smooth,
Vivien Leigh, summer, birthdays, just divine.

Fennel - cleansing, fresh, green, liquorice, aniseed balls, it wakes me up.

Freesia - is what heaven smells like, especially white freesia.

Vanilla - is warming, mum's custard, proper ice cream I ate between two wafers as a kid, creamy.  Basically, makes makes me feel good. 

Heather - late summer, bees, grouse feathers, honey, whisky, childhood, earthy, glorious.

Lavender - dry, woody, herbal, warm days, clarity, relaxation, deep purples.

Honeysuckles - sweet and soft, swoony, comforting, calming, honeyed, warm dry nights, Midsummer Night's Dream.

Go for a wander, feel a few leaves and smell the flowers - don't be shy.  Take a walk down memory lane.  Enjoy.

Lady Emma Hamilton.  Just lush

 

fennel

lavender

freesia.  Heaven

The Spirit of Spring - The Green Man

It is beguiling, yet appropriate, that the myth or presence of the Green Man has no discernable origin or country.  He has no fixed culture or age.  He has many names, and many manifestations.  He is anscestoral and pastoral.
The Green Man is old and powerful, immortal, a woodland deity, the life-force of all things that grow.  He can take the form of a fantastical and grotesque creature or the more natural form of a man.  He appears in chapels, churches and cathedrals across most of northern and eastern Europe in wood or stone carvings, evidence that the power of the Green man over all growing things was too strong a symbol for Christianity to suppress, too revered and beloved by the craftsmen who made the carvings.

In times when man's reliance on and union with nature is understood and deep-rooted it figures that a pagan nature-spirit should be so dominant in his psyche. He is the seasonal cycle and life-struggle.
Imagine the land as it was, covered with vast areas of deep, dark forests.  They were our oldest sanctuaries.  The oak-worshipping druids had a word for a sanctuary that is similar to the Latin nemus; a grove or woodland glade. 
When the world was considered to be animate, that included trees and plants. 

In his book 'The Golden Bough', published in 1922, James Frazer writes:

"When a tree comes to be viewed not as the body of a tree-spirit but as it's abode, which it can move to and from as it pleases,  then  instead of seeing each tree as a living, conscious being, man sees it as being inhabited by a supernatural being that enjoys a right of possession and lordship over the trees.  ceasing to be a tree-soul, this being becomes a forest god...

...Trees as animate beings are credited with the power of making the rain fall, the sun to shine, flocks and herds to multiply and women to be brought to birth easily.  

When an oak is being felled 'it gives a kind of shriek or groan that may be heard a mile off, as if it were the genius of the oak lamenting'".

There are many figures, symbols and rituals around the Green Man and the coming of springtime.  Many recognisable representations of the beneficent spirit of the woods and plants.  John Barleycorn, Green George, a young man dressed from head to toe in branches, leaves and blossom.  The leaf-clad mummer Jack-in-the-Green is covered in holly and ivy, crowned with flowers and ribbons to perform his May Day dance.  A king for the May Queen, the young girl dressed in white with a garland of flowers on her head like a bride. 

On May Day, children would go into the woods to collect branches of birch, ash, oak, rowan or hawthorn to adorn houses in return for money or food.  The 'Maypole' was the name given to the finest, greenest tree that was carried through the village before being placed as a centrepiece to the celebrations and dancing.  Often the bark was stripped and the tree decorated with garlands and ribbons.

As the spirit of spring; growth and renewal, death and rebirth, in church carvings the Green Man has a foliate face or mask with tendrils and leaves growing from his eyes, mouth and nose.  Or he is carved with acorns and berries to depict the death of the Autumn and Winter months.  Even as a skull-head, with worms issuing from the eye sockets and mouth.  The decay necessary before new life can begin.

In Simon Armitage's re-telling of the poem 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight' a wonderful, vivid, description:

"...In all vestments he revealed himself veritably verdant!

From his belt-hooks and buckle to the baubles and gems arrayed so richly around his costume...All the details of his dress are difficult to describe, embroidered as it was with butterflies and birds, green beads emblazoned on a background of gold."

"...No waking man had witnessed such a warrior or weird war-horse - otherworldly, yet flesh and bone.

A look of lightening flashed

 from somewhere in his soul.

The force of the man's fist

would be a thunderbolt."

the Green Man in Greygirl's garden, with hawthorn

Radio-head

Radio can be a much easier companion than t.v. if quiet is too much.  There are times when quiet is exactly what you want, but then it can fill with thoughts that become white noise in your head.
T.V. is like too much sugar or blue sweets, shouting colour and commotion at me, so I always reach for the radio instead.

It gives you some room and allows spaces that your mind can slip into, going along with the talk or wandering off by itself.

I have spent many nights knitting to the Shipping Forecast, turning stitches into squares while travelling around the coastal stations and sea areas of Britain from the harbour of home. The rhythm of names and weather becoming woven into the greys and blues of the wool.
Then I wander much further back to a house on a main road in a small town, my Nana and grandad checking off a delivery of cigarettes in their front room . The sound of the bell when someone comes into the shop and a sigh as Nana straightens up to go and serve them and the Archers theme tune starts.
At home our radio played chart music but theirs was all talking and plays.  

After the coastal stations, it's good night and The National Anthem, and radio 4 ends in the way it has ended for decades.
Like being told it's time for bed, officially.  But I switch to radio 3 for the Through The Night classics and hope for some Mahler instead.  

  

News on the E string...

I mentioned how for us short-armed types, playing notes on the G string was tricky (for me).  After practising the G major scale in my lesson yesterday and straining myself, my lovely teacher suggested we moved to E to give me a break, cos he's a kind fella.

The E string sounds godawful if you don't play the notes right, it being so thin and high, but it is much easier in the arm department.

I can now play the 'Skye Boat Song', which sounds so much better than 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star', more of an achievement.
So folks, just wanted to share that small triumph with you. 

A violin very much like mine

Paradise

"The word paradise is derived from the ancient Persian - 'a green place'.

Paradise haunts gardens, and some gardens are paradise.  Mine is one of them.  Others are like bad children - spoilt by their parents, over-watered and covered with noxious chemicals".

This from the divine Derek Jarman.

Jarman at Prospect Cottage

 

A superior shed

Two birds, one stone...

If, like Greygirl, you are partial to chocolate and flowers then you absolutely have to get one of these, Cosmos 'Chocamocha'.

It is compact, so will grow happily in a container or in the garden.  It's gorgeous bronze-red flowers bloom from July through to October in full sun and have a real, authentic, chocolate fragrance - what's not to love?  There is no excuse, really.

The divine 'Chocamocha'

  

Garden visitors

Are many and varied, mostly of the winged variety.  Sparrows, blue tits, great tits, long-tailed tits, are all regulars, as are blackbirds and robins.  The robins bob about nervously if they see me but the blackbirds are more confident.  They like to forage in the compost heap.  The wren is a blink-and-you'll-miss-it visitor.
The bigger boys are jackdaws, magpies, collared doves, a noisy mob of starlings with oil-coloured feathers and lethal beaks.

Very early in the morning a jay arrives, a real favourite with their flash of sky-blue on it's wing but best of all are the nuthatch.  These babies dart everywhere, come zooming out of trees and back again like lightening.  They no longer veer away quickly if I'm there, so I get more time to admire their pointed shape, lovely colour and long line of kohl on their eyes.

There are the usual mice and squirrels, one of which spent an entire day in a tree motionless with shock after a close call with a cat.  The bats start wheeling around in the twilight and then the unseen owls call.  I've no idea what kind they are, but am glad that they are there.

a Jay

 

 

 a wee Nuthatch

a lovely Wren

Fog patches, moderate or poor, falling slowly...

The word 'depression' is used to describe the weather, or being a bit fed-up.  It is so often mis-used as a word, as a name for a state of being it is wholly inadequate.

Depression lasts for weeks, months, years.  It's not something that can be lifted by a bar of good chocolate, a bracing walk, or some other treat you can give yourself, (substitute new shoes, clothes, haircut, piece of rare vinyl, glass of wine, whatever you like).

It is very difficult for someone with a well mind to understand an un-well one, so tread carefully, be gentle.
Don't give a depressed person over-optimistically titled self-help books that they probably don't have the concentration to read.  Get them a plant to look at and grow instead.
Don't expect them to recover anytime soon, or tell them to 'pull themselves together', 'snap out of it', or ask, 'what have you got to be depressed about?  You've got a lovely house etc etc'.

Melancholy sounds poetic, but it's not.  Depression is not a sign of weakness or failure, a mood, or a choice, (Who would choose illness over health?).  And remember, it is not their fault.

 

Out, damned drug!

My subconscious is Pandora's Box with a can of worms inside, if my dreams are anything to go by.  A place where all suppressed horrors and most feral, animal stuff is kept locked away because the world, quite frankly, wouldn't want to see it.
Only at night, sleep somehow lifts the lid and my subconscious mind goes of on a wild technicolour trip; like a mad, bad, road movie no one wants to direct. These dreams leave me tired and they seem to linger on in the morning, unwilling to go back to wherever they came from, and I come to slowly, having spent hours in a hyper-real 'other' reality, with a residue of menace in my mind. 

They always involve hideous scenes of threat, cruelty, butchery, being dismembered and un-made, a loss of language, the inability to be heard and understood.  In a nutshell, vivid and frightening.  I don't know if my subconscious is doing it's own thing, or if it is under the influence of medication.  I put Mirtazapine in the frame for this, since I take it at night before bed.  It's other use is as a pre-op sedative, and there seem to be a lot of users who experience intense, horrible dreams.

This is the price I pay to get some sleep, a non too pleasant side effect, and there are others.  Before Mirtazapine my mind didn't know it was night and time to rest; I'd spend the wee small hours painting skies, knitting, making strange dolls, seeing that all the door handles needed a good polish and basically being overactive at completely the wrong time.  Which leaves you feeling even more like a sore thumb, odd-one-out, square peg trying to fit in a round hole.
So I chose sleep.  Now I'm not so sure.  Wish me luck as I wave it goodbye.

 

In praise of Comfrey

Comfrey is an absolute must for home composters.  Aswell as being a healing plant, good for wounds, sprains and tired feet (comfrey leaves and warm water in a bowl, add tired feet, bliss), it is nitrogen rich and useful as an activator to get the composting process going.
It grows in abundance and self-seeds, so you may end up with more than you bargained for.  In fact, comfrey is a bit of an all-rounder.  It may be un-glamorous and un-assuming but contains  high percentages of nitrogen, calcium and potassium , is a fast-growing plant and in its common form Symphytum Officinale, grows wild and free by streams and rivers.

common comfrey

 

The goodness is in the leaves, which are very fibre-free, so they break down quickly in compost.  You can also make comfrey into a good liquid fertiliser by steeping the leaves in a bucket of water for 3-4 weeks.  It smells foul, but your plants will thank you with good, healthy growth.  Water around plants in the garden and use as a tonic for indoor and outdoor pot plants, especially those needing lots of potassium, such as tomatoes and peppers.

lovely compo - not mine, sadly

Greygirl is in debted to Clare Foster for the invaluable wisdom and no-nonsense advice in her brilliantly accessible book called simply 'Compost'.  If you want to know more, treat yourself.

Newbies

The garden welcomed some new inhabitants this weekend.  Greygirl did a fair amount of planting and more seed sowing, taking advantage of the fair weather.
Greygirls has searched many a nursery, of which we are thankfully blessed in the local area, and finally found a comfrey plant, with plenty of root in a generous-sized pot.  She also purchased  two small Scabiosa 'Ritz Blue', perfect for an alpine or cottage garden, they will be sporting sky-blue pom pom flowers come the summer.  Sounds cheery.
And finally, an Eryngium or sea holly called 'Blue Hobbit'.  She is a sucker for small furry-footed creatures.
Eryngium boasts silvery-blue stems with globe shaped flowers of stunning blue, a great combination.

In the garden are mostly perennial plants, good for pollinators, aswell as bulbs for the spring and summer which include pheasant-eye narcissus, tete-a-tete, bluebells, grape hyacinth, snowdrops, crocus and tulips, alliums and african gladioli.
Soon she will be sowing annuals, for a brilliant splash of colour; flanders poppies, blue cornflowers, orange king marigolds, scarlet coloured flax, lime-green dill and Irish poet with bright red flowers.  Plenty for the bees and butterflies to get into.  They have already enjoyed the blueberries, apple blossom and rhododendron flowers.  There is also a budleia that has yet to flower and the lavender and rosemary.  A pollen and nectar fest!

the 'Blue Hobbit'

 

Beloved by Bees

The foxglove, Digitalis pupurea, is beloved by bees and Greygirl has six growing in the garden.  At the moment they are all foliage and getting lusher day by day.
Derek Jarman in his book 'Modern Nature' writes wonderfully well about these darlings...

The foxglove, folksglove or fairyglove - whose speckles and freckles are the marks of elves' fingers, is also called dead man's fingers.  It contains the poison Digitalis, first used by a Dr. Withering in the 18th century to cure heart disease.

The 'glove' comes from the Anglo-Saxon for a string of bells, 'gleow'.

 

  

 

Sakura Hanami

'Sakura' is Japanese for cherry blossom and 'Hanami' literally means flower viewing.
The Japanese traditionally celebrate the arrival of Spring with the Sakura Hanami festival where picnic parties are held all day and night under blooming trees.

'Tai-haku' is the great white cherry and Greygirl is lucky to have one of these growing three gardens down from hers.  It is huge, years old, and when a stiff breeze blows a fall of white petals like confetti come down quietly.  Sometimes in a kind of blizzard, and you do want to thank someone somewhere for such a lovely thing.

You don't have to be a lover of pink to be a lover of the cherry tree and it's paper-like blossom.  Like all things ephemeral, you have to enjoy it while it lasts.

Tai-haku, the great white cherry





The Cherry Trees

The cherry trees bend over and are shedding
On the old road where all that pass are dead,
Their petals, strewing the grass as for a wedding
This early May morn when there is none to wed.

Edward Thomas 

Everything's Gone Green...

'Everything's Gone Green' is a great New Order track for one, and a fantastic thing happening all around us right now.
Greygirl went for a walk in the May rain yesterday, guessing that she wouldn't encounter many people due to the downpour, and she was right.
What she did see though was a vast amount of green in all kinds of hues and textures, from new leaves on trees to the vivid and varied plants getting bigger and bolder in gardens.  There was a lot going on on the walls too.
The air was full of scents that act as a sweet sharpener on the mind.  It's a good time of year for this kind of walk, where you can get wet without getting cold.  A good alternative to yet another coffee if you're in need of a lift.

Who knew there were so many shades of green in the world?

 

A 'Closed Space'

Mark Rothko, a Russian, painted the Seagram murals for an exclusive room of the upmarket Four Seasons restaurant in the Seagram building, New York.  It was the most prestigious commission ever awarded to an Abstract Expressionist painter, yet posed a huge dilemma for the artist.  Did he really want to create something that would only be seen by well-heeled  Americans, for an obscene amount of dollars?  No.  Rothko withdrew from the commission and at the same time his life and art began to unravel.  He gave nine of the murals to the Tate Gallery, insisting that they had a permanent room and were never mixed with other pieces of his work.

The paintings arrived in London on the 25th February in 1970, on the morning Rothko committed suicide in his studio.
I first visited the Tate and the Rothko room when I was seventeen, but more recently saw the Seagram murals on exhibition at the Tate Liverpool, which was a whole other experience.

All in one room, the walls painted a mid-grey, the massive rectangles of dark reds hovered in dim light.
Rothko had said his intention was to create a closed space.  What I saw were deep crimson portals, their surfaces shifting, and experienced an atmosphere so unlike any other that I became reluctant to leave.
This is not something that can be reproduced in a print or postcard sold in the shop, the only way to take it home is to hold in your mind the resonance and nuance of the colours with the feeling they left in your skin.  The nearness and tragedy of death that hovered just above the surface of the work.

  

The Black Dog meets the Moomins

When the Black Dog lies heavily on me, stubborn sod that it is, I can't do much of anything, including read.  It's a matter of concentration and my brain just won't do it. It flatly  refuses to see meaning in words  or get absorbed in a story.  Unless the story is about Moomins.
For some reason I can always go to Moominvalley no matter what, and get involved in the daily musings or adventures of all inhabitants.  Moominmamma  is especially wonderful, God bless her, and a keen gardener.

It's a comfort to know that I have somewhere good to go and I will always see a spark of wisdom and truth about life, no matter how small it seems.

Never be reluctant to re-aquaint yourself with a childhood treasure.  A treasure is a treasure is a treasure (apologies to Gertrude).

The Lovely Moominmamma

  

A spring of green...

I'd say that most of us aren't aware that when we look at something (internal or external), we are deciding how to see it.

This is something I have to think about, since everything can come into me through a very negative filter that sifts all the positives out.  If this keeps happening, all I am seeing of the world is dark, unkind, ugly, pointless etc and this becomes a default view.
There are dark, unkind, ugly and pointless things in the world for sure, but that's not all it's made up of. 

My compost heap, for example.  Yes really. It is a mound of dark brown matter slowly decomposing, but the other day I noticed a pale stalk growing out of it with the tenderest, purest green leaf - that bright spring colour. It is without a doubt lovely, and all from a simple seed that went astray.
Looking at it's loveliness doesn't make the mouldering heap go away but shifts the focus from one to the other.

If you feel the need, just try it.  It doesn't have to be a heap of compost, think of those tiny plants that anchor themselves onto walls then flower in abundance.  They're doing their lovely thing right now.

Cymbalaria muralis - ivy leaved Toadflax