Ten

At the end of last week my blog turned 10, which seems quite unbelievable to me. And while the voracity of my posts have slowed somewhat since I first started out (and some of the very early posts are no longer viewable having moved platforms) it’s still quite a remarkable achievement, and one that I’m grateful that many of you are still here for.

Photo by Timo Müller on Unsplash

It’s another tradition of mine to mark my blog birthdays, and it seems also a tradition to deliberate about a theme for the post. I am clearly a creature of habit, so this year is no different on both counts. So I’ve decided to share ten posts from over the years which are memorable to me, whether that’s because they were great achievements, great opportunities or just because they were special to me.

I know I have been incredibly fortunate to have had (and hopefully to continue to have) some great opportunities come my way just by posting here, and I’ve met some fantastic people through this online space over the years too. This is, and I hope will continue to be, a space for me to share many things from our home and garden projects, our garden visits, my many works in progress and hopefully much, much more.

Thank you for being here, and for being part of my online space and community.

Ten for ten

Having decided to choose ten posts, I soon realised just how hard a task I’d nonchalantly set myself. So with a brief explanation the ten are:

1. Please ring the bell - our visit to Hunte’s Garden in Barbados which is I think the most inspirational and moving gardens I’ve ever visited, and it wasn’t just because of the rum! Even looking back over these photos, and the many more that I haven’t shared here, gives me all the feels.

2. My cross stitch marathon - I have many work in progress projects as you know, and this one is one that’s likely to be around for a while yet. MOH still asks what it’s going to be, and I still say ‘hopefully finished one day!’ I know I should focus on fewer projects, but where’s the fun in that, hey?

3. More bubbles in my sourdough - this one’s on the list because I regularly refer to it to make sure my brain fogged brain has remembered the recipe correctly. And yes, I make sourdough almost every week sometimes more than once a week, but I still find myself checking to make sure.

4. The one with the redecorated loo - many of you will have at some point wondered what my fascination with the decor in loos is all about. Quite honestly, I don’t know but I knew there had to be one from The Loo Series on this list, so what better than this one.

5. A map on my wall - this is one of the collaborative posts I’m sharing here, and it’s the one that really still does give the wow factor. Having a map on a curved wall was absolutely inspired, even though I wasn’t totally aware of just how well it would turn out back at the planning stage, though I’m claiming all of the credit!

6. Highlights of my Chelsea (part 2) - I’ve been fortunate to have been invited to many events and shows such as Grand Designs and Gardener’s World Live over the years, and they’ve all been brilliant. The real highlight though was when I went along to the Chelsea Flower Show on Press Day. Totally awesome, and something I hope I’m able to repeat.

7. Highlights of my Chelsea (part 1) - this is a bit of a cheat really, but I couldn’t choose between the two posts from the day, so they’re both here.

8. Circles and slate - this is one of my great achievements posts where we transformed our garden ourselves. In the end it turned out we were up against a bit of a deadline after arranging our 110th party for that summer, so we put in many hours hard work, but it was definitely worth it.

9. More than ‘just’ a lawnmower - I never knew there was so much to know about lawnmowers, but I’m glad I got the opportunity to find out on this press trip to the Viking factory in Kufstein, a town in Austria which we travelled to by coach from Munich airport. I will never forget the warmth and hospitality of the Viking and Stihl teams and the relationship which resulted in a series of posts, and I remain impressed by the knowledge and passion which goes into each of their products, which are just brilliant too.

10. 52 Cookbooks: 52 new recipes in 2014 - this series of posts was a great challenge taking place over the whole year, using a different cookbook every week. And yes, I had more than I needed to choose from so I’m minded to redo this challenge at some point, who knows maybe next year as its decennial - watch this space!

Nine

Each year around the time of my blog birthday I share a post to celebrate my space on the internet, and this year’s no different. The posts often feature a list, but this year I was struggling to think of a theme. Nine years is a long time blogging, and a long commitment - but nine what?

Last year my list was on how life had changed during Covid, before that seven gardens to visit - and yes, that didn’t go quite to plan, though I did revisit my progress back in January.

I was stumped.

Where did we holiday nine years ago, I’m not quite sure I know that easily, or can lay my hands on photos - though I do know we went to Guernsey for our wedding anniversary in June and had a great time. Then inspiration struck when I realised that the traditional 9 year anniversary gift theme was pottery.

That was something I could work with - and while the link may be tenuous in some cases, here’s nine posts from over the years to celebrate.

And here’s to more years blogging too - thank you for continuing to support my blog, it’s great to see you here.

Eight years (and 1 month) blogging

It’s late to mark my eighth year of blogging, but even so, I’m not passing up the opportunity of a list. Last year my list was of seven gardens to visit. Well, that didn’t work out so well, did it? Though it was only the Yorkshire and Cumbria gardens we didn’t get to visit, if we’re lucky we’ll be able to at least visit the Cumbrian ones on our rearranged cottage holiday in June.

We’ll see.

I’ve not yet managed to write a reflective post for 2020 - how is it the end of March already? So I’m going to use this post to reflect on eight things that have changed in the past year. I am purposely looking at this through the lens of how my life has altered rather than reflecting on the pandemic more generally. It goes without saying that many people’s lives and families have changed in ways they never expected, with so many losing loved ones in often the most terrible circumstances. This week we’ve had a National Day of Reflection and reflecting on the past year as part of that, and as we continue to hit a series of ‘first’ milestones will I’m sure bring me the full range of emotions.

1 Working at home

I started to work from home on 20 March 2020 and haven’t been back to work in my office since. For an organisation where working at home was far from the norm this is quite a change, and one that I’ve enjoyed on the whole. It’s harder to keep the boundaries, especially when based at the kitchen table, but it’s only almost a year on that we’ve bought a desk for each of our spare bedrooms to help with that delineation.

I think like many, we thought it wouldn’t be for quite this long. In my calendar I’ve kept a note of how many weeks it is working at home, to start with I’d announce it Big Brother-style each Monday. I’ve just looked to discover that this is the first week that I haven’t added it to my calendar (I stopped announcing it a while back).

My role has remained busy, if not busier, and will continue like that I’m sure. It is never one that’s very samey-samey, and that’s been even more true this past year, but even I’m amazed at some of the things that are now just normal working life. I’ve recruited a team of two who I’ve never met in person and they’re great. In fact our team has almost doubled in the past year with our new starters all starting since lockdown. I’ve organised an hour-long staff celebration event remotely, coordinating self-filmed content and while it was a lot of work, and there were more than a few fourteen hour days, it was great to see how well this was received by colleagues.

Working from home used to be a time to think and get some headspace, but over the past year it’s become the norm. It’ll be interesting to see how it changes over the next year, I’ve a feeling that it won’t be quite the same as before.

2 Eating (almost) every meal at home

This has been the next most noticeable change, and lunches have been our challenge. We’d usually take lunch into work two or three times a week, so it really shouldn’t have been that hard. But somehow, lunches at home presented a challenge. We quickly learnt that leftovers from dinners would come in useful, a handful or two extra pasta can be a pasta salad, some chilli can be a jacket potato topping and fishfingers are great in pittas.

In the summer salads and grains became our staple, and now it’s chillier soups feature regularly. We need something quick to prepare and have discovered some new favourites, lovingly known as ‘fridge tapas’ and ‘fridge medley’ which as you may have guessed make good use of our leftovers, but can bring together some strange combinations. Leftover pasta with vegetables in an omelette was surprisingly good.

Cooking ourselves an evening meal from scratch isn’t new to us, but we’ve done that more than ever during the various lockdowns. There’s been less eating out, well almost none, but we have managed some restaurant trips when they’ve been open. We’ve had less takeaways too which probably isn’t such a bad thing for us (for takeaways less so) but it’s a definite change and not quite the same after a tough day.

What we have done is support local restaurants and companies by ordering meals to have at home, as they’ve looked for ways to generate income. Most have been cook at home type things, so we’re still cooking, but a lot of the prep has been done for us. They’ve been really good, and a couple have come with plating up instructions which brings an extra level of challenge, and at New Year receiving someone else’s delivery brought a whole new meaning to a mystery box.

3 Missing friends and family

Something we can all relate to I’m sure. Last year I only saw my parents three times - in March, July and October - and that’s not been so great. I’ve seen my brother once, but haven’t seen his new house and nor have I seen my grown-up nieces or even met my new great-niece. At all. We’ve had calls and zooms and Facetimed, but they aren’t the same, are they? Hopefully it won’t be much longer before we can meet up with them, and with friends. Though I think that socialising in pubs and restaurants will feel a little strange for a while when they reopen, and it’ll be great to visit people at home again too.

4 Haircuts, or lack of them

I’m an every six week kind of girl, and my last haircut was booked for the second week of January. It’s now approaching the end of March and I’ve another three weeks to go yet, and I can’t wait. My last colour was in July 2020 when hairdressers first reopened and I’ve the full works booked for the middle of April. My hair is longer, it’s also greyer and my pink and orange will be mostly cut out on my next visit.

My hair has a tendency to grow fast and out, so for the shorter side, the back and my fringe I’ve had to tackle that myself, and with no apologies to my hairdresser. By the time I see her it will have grown again and she’ll be able to remedy it (I hope!) though like a lot of hairdressers I’m sure she’ll have her work cut out, and will no doubt see some interesting attempts.

5 Postponed trips

Unusually for us we had a couple of trips booked for 2020 way in advance of when we’d usually book, and neither happened. Both have been postponed, but I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to get to the holiday cottage in the Lake District this June. That was supposed to be a week after a family wedding, which has now been delayed until 2022.

It’s not all bad though as we were able to get away in October and had a lovely few days in a beautiful cottage just outside Holt in Norfolk.

We will hopefully get to the Lake District this June, and I may even be able to get along to some of the Visit Seven gardens I chose last year. We also have a weekend in Kent (just down the road!) booked in July, which I think will be pretty special too.

We’ve no desire to go abroad just yet, but hopefully we’ll be able to see some more of the UK too this year.

6 Shopping, online and locally

While we’ve continued to use our local greengrocers, butchers and local vegetable delivery service we have been purposefully supporting more of our local businesses. We’ve discovered some great boulangeries whose Madeleines have become a favourite with our mid-afternoon cuppa. The stall holders in our local farmer’s market also welcome the custom and we regularly leave laden with bread, cakes, vegetables and even kimchi.

We’ve also continued our less-often-than-monthly grocery shop online, and supplemented that with trips to our local supermarket. We’ve had the cook at home boxes I mentioned before, as well as some great cheese deliveries - who knew these were a thing, even before the lockdowns.

We’ve had wine deliveries - though that’s currently a sore point. Our most recent delivery has gone AWOL with the delivery company saying the driver’s SatNav shows he was here. It may very well do, but there is no evidence of the parcel being delivered - they say they left it in our front porch and put a card through the door. We don’t have a front porch, and of course there was no card either. The worst of it is, we have no wine, and have paid for the privilege.

In the first lockdown we ordered a new barbecue and were rewarded with some great weather and a few charred edges, and many evenings sitting outside. This week we’ve conceded that we do actually need a printer and a new one is due to arrive; my desk arrived, his is on the way - his is the one I’m most excited about, so I can’t wait to see what that’s like.

We’ve not been to a garden centre, but have had plants delivered - lettuce and chillies last Spring, the lettuce was a great success, the chillies less so. I’ve recently had some hydrangea, dogwoods and cistus delivered and these are doing well in the conservatory waiting to be planted out.

I have previously been referred to by a colleague as the Queen of Online Shopping, but this past year, even I have been surprised by how companies have adapted, and have needed to to survive.

7 Slippers not dresses

This one’s related to working at home and not going out much. My wardrobe has drastically changed - or rather, what I wear has. My office-wear was generally a dress, but I’m not sure when I last put one on. Generally my outfits are much more casual, which isn’t surprising, and my new work shoes are my slippers. Never before have I worn out slippers, this year I have - but of course I don’t like any of the ones online, so I’m biding my time when I can make the move to mules when the weather warms up.

Heels? Nope, not this last year - not even mid-height heels. So that will be interesting when I venture back into those. I will at some point, I have too many not to - I just hope I can still walk in them!

8 Appreciating what we have and each other

For me this past year has been one of rebalancing, even though my work hours are crazier than ever. I’ve not had quite the time I thought I might, or the time that the media makes out that everyone has, but I have had some. I’ve learned new things, like rag rugging, and baked banana bread and sourdough like everyone else. I’ve spent less time here on my blog which is one of the things that’s a negative for me, but I’ve needed to do that to have some time away from the screen and at times to just have a break.

I’ve found I’m doing more crafts, which is great. I’ve several crochet projects on the go and several that need finishing off. I’ve picked up my patchwork quilt again and am making real progress with that, and definitely more than in the previous few years. I’ve made some masks, and have plans to make some more, as I’m bored by the ones I have and I don’t think we’ll be rid of them just yet.

While at times MOH and I have probably driven each other up the wall, I know I’m lucky to have him and hope he feels the same, and actually there’s no one else I’d have wanted to spend lockdown with.

Photo by Scott Rodgerson on Unsplash

That ended up being a much longer post than I anticipated, but it has been quite a year. While we have a little way to go yet before we can start to resume parts of our life which have been almost on hold, hopefully that can soon start to happen and I’ll have another year of blogging under my belt this time next year.