nature

Courgette update: time and benign negligence 

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The courgette keeps on growing with very little attention for me. We have had rain and sun this week and all I’ve needed to do is top up the moisture levels with a few watering cans of water now and again. We actually have six of these ladies busily gaining size and volume. If we are lucky and all of these plants go on to fruit we’ll be facing a bit of a glut later in the summer. This suits me well as my boyfriend is particularly skilled in making courgette chutney, this is something to look forwards too.


We’ve also got lucky with a few little tomato plants, which have self seeded themselves from plants we had last year. Luckily I am too lazy to do any serious weeding and so we now have four little tomato plants with very little investment in effort from my end. I have watched these little guys, day by day, sprout up first with curiosity and then with admiration as these tiny plants continue to grow and establish themselves. 

For various reasons I have been thinking a lot about patience, and about how sometimes the best thing to do is to do nothing. A little careful watching and waiting can sometimes be more effective than knee jerk active responses in taking you to where you want to be, or even to somewhere you didn’t know you wanted to be, but are very pleased to arrive. In the last few weeks patience, or benign negligence, has filled my little garden with an abundance of natures blessings. 

Like any of the art work featured on this blog? You can now buy my stuff at Threadless, or at Redbubble.

New shoots

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There have been some awful things happening in London in the last few weeks. I look at the news and each day seems to bring a new saddness. I have been luckily unaffected by all that has happened, but am so aware that many people living in my city have been affected and I think of them. I’m not going to write about in ins and outs of what has happened, because there are so many more eloquent voices than mine doing so. I struggle at the moment to really put into words what I feel about it all.

Amongst all of the awfulness I do feel it is important to take notice of moments of light. I stepped out in the garden this morning and found this beauty. We put courgette seeds in this year a bit later than is ideal, but thought we would pop a few seeds in to the soil to see how we would get on. Two week later and we have been rewarded. 

On finishing things, summer down pours and downtime.

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summer 2

I think summer has arrived in the UK. I love spring, and autumn, and am fond of winter. I’m not particularly a summer person. I don’t particularly like the heat, and we don’t really seem to know how to do air conditioning. I seem to be particularly affected by fatigue, and struggle with lethargy when it is too hot, which may go some way to explaining why the blog has been a little under active of late. I have been taking lots of down time, lolling around on the sofa, and watching documentaries on Netflix. I was particularly moved by this documentary called Laerte-Se, and would recommend an afternoon spent with this.

Last weekend weekend we went to the Cotswolds, and went walking in the woods, one of my absolute favourite things. The trees, which are numerous in variety in that area, are an amazing shade of lush green at this time of year. While out walking this weekend we were caught in an amazing downpour. We stood for a while in a dry patch, surrounded by a curtain of these fat, heavy rain drops, saying to each other, ‘it will pass over in a minute’. It’s didn’t pass over, but instead settled firmly in. We ended up walking through the rain most of the way home. The air had been warm and sticky, and I found the delicious slip of water through my hair and down my neck refreshing and exhilarating. It has been some time since I have been caught in the rain like that, and I was happy for the experience. It made me think of how the amount of control we think we have other things is really an illusion. People make plans and Nature laughs.

However, despite all the lolling around and walking in the rain, I have been a bit productive. In the past I have always had a bit of an issue finishing things, as I have previously written about here. Recently, while not exactly finishing things, I have managed to bring two projects to a relatively satisfying conclusions. Last weekend I submitted a draft play to the Bruntwood Prize. I don’t really expect anything to come from that, but it feels a bit like drawing a line under the project, which means I can move onto the next one. In recent weeks, during my down time, I have had ideas for two new animations, so, patiently, watch this space on that.

I also recently opened an Artist Shop with Threadless, where I am selling prints and bags based on a series of artworks I have been working on for over a year. While the artworks themselves aren’t actually finished this feels like a satisfactory conclusion. I’ve even had my first sale, with I think was to my boyfriend’s mother. From small acorns, great oak trees may grow.

Walking in the woods.

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We are taking a few days down time at the moment, staying in the New Forest. It is a very beautiful, wild place. We have taken several long walks through the woods and I have certainly felt better for it. The air is lighter and fresher here. At times I feel I walk a little taller, the muscles in my back are not so tense.

When I manage to get out of the city and into the countryside I am frequently shocked into remembering how vividly beautiful the UK countryside is. It is spring at the moment and we have encountered blubell carpets and the fresh green shoots of new growth all around us. I often feel, when out and about in our vibrant green spaces, that many people from the UK who travel long distances to find exotic wild locations are missing out on the wild places that are much closer to home. 

But we have also encountered patches of land where the trees are dying. The forest is undergoing wetter winters and dryer summers, and the natural soil microcosm is becoming unbalanced, leading to the roots of many trees rotting in the soil. The change in soil conditions is probably an consequence of climate change. 

Here is another reason I am so disappointed with the moral leadership of our current generation of politicians. We have known for quite some time there is much work to be done to protect our beautiful wild places, from cleaning up polution, and carefully assessing the impact of various pesticides on the soil, through to the Enormous task of planning and taking action over climate change. But while there are many organisations working hard to tackle these problems, our politicians appear to take a ‘profit now, some one else can clean up the mess later’ attitude. This is a peculiarly selfish and short sighted approach, which burdens generations to come with a vastly depleted natural environment, and the loss of those wonderful British wild places.

It may feel like winter now, but spring is coming

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I was going to post this kind of thing over the weekend but am pretty tired right now and felt that, given recent events, taking a bit more time to think about things was appropriate. It’s autumn in the UK. I really love autumn and I really love spring in the UK. I feel at my most creative in these seasons that bring about profound changes in our environment. 

At the weekend I was with family in the Cotswolds and had some time to get out with the boyfriend into the woods. I really love being in the woods, tramping about in fallen leaves and taking in big lungfulls of air freshly oxygenated by the busy trees. Kissing over kissing gates. It’s relatively well established now that spending time in green spaces is good for us. It can lower blood pressure and improve our sense of wellbeing.

There is a deep wisdom to be found in the woods. You can see this in the vibrant last flare of autumn, the bedding down of leaf mulch and slow winter decay. The rotting leaves release nutrients back into the soil, preparing the ground for the furious blooming of spring to follow. You can also see it in the busy, vibrant and glorious displays if diversity. In this, I believe nature shows us the way.

I’ve been thinking about these cycles of decay and of renewal. It may feel at the moment for many that we are sinking into a state of spirutal, moral and intellectual decay. This is a moment we should pay attention to. It’s time to bed down and prepare the ground for the spring that may come. It’s a time to decide what kind of ideas, what kind of people and movements, what kind of blooms, in all their splendid diversity, we will nature into growth in the coming spring. It’s time to make plans about how we can give those blooms our fullest support. It may feel very much like winter now, but spring is coming.