Day 170 - Mind battles that I simply must win. xx

Wednesday 19th June

Two things collided this morning and I had to dig deep to stay calm.  The council came and cut down our wildflower hedgerow that borders our property because that is what these people do.  You all know how much I love wildflowers so this was difficult for me.  Pete did try and stop them but, of course, it is more than their jobs worth and all that.  They did agree to leave the section at the top so I will focus on that.  The other part of the collision was far more palatable because Pete, Annie and I finished planting out all the cut flower plants which included many options for the bees and butterflies.  I will focus on that as well. 

Getting away from Hazelbank this afternoon was welcomed to allow my mind to process the events of the morning. Some of you will, no doubt, mourn with me as you saw the picture of my hedgerow last week when I contrasted it with our neighbours. I celebrated that too early because it is all gone now.  When I lived in Bakewell I campaigned so hard to stop the council cutting the water meadows before the end of July after self seeding has taken place.  I am obviously going to have a similar battle here.  I won in Bakewell and I will win here.  It may just take some time. 

My therapy is always a wander round the gardens at Brodick Castle and so off we went and my mood soon lifted.  The egg mayonnaise sandwich and orange and cranberry cake may have helped as well.  I may not have an important looking camera but my sexy little red number does have a few different programmes so I had a lovely couple of hours playing with it.  I do a lot of black and white photography in the winter when the natural shapes are so distinctive but I rarely shoot black and white in the summer.  So, today I have changed some of that and I am surprisingly pleased with the results.  Bit by bit and shot by shot I am now building up an image bank to use in my meditation through writing course and beyond.  I am always on the look out for images that tell their own story and allow us to find our stories within as well. 




With the events of the morning behind me the last place to visit was the walled garden.  Once again I was met with a mental collision.  Last year the National Trust had taken four large borders and planted wildflowers in them.  I had hoped they would repeat that this year.  Sadly, that is not the case as we could clearly see as the gardeners were busy planting up their annuals.  Worse than that many of them were double blooms making it impossible for the bees and butterflies to collect pollen.  The other side of this collision featured the outside borders of the garden which are full of beautiful perennials all starting to burst into bloom.  I focused on that as you can tell from the photos. 

Beyond that, the pond areas were the real highlight with the Irises and the Primula both in full glory.  It is a bit early to see dragonflies but the pond was teaming with life and that, in itself, is very rewarding.  The colours danced by the side of the water and the whole space stole every scrap of light it could.  We could do very little but stand and stare at what Mother Nature has achieved. 

One can't help thinking that we left more to her and stopped interfering so much the planet would be a far more interesting and engaging place.....

To focus on what is good and positive is my personal intention in life so I have let go of the welling anger and taken myself out of that moment.  Maybe I will take on the National Trust of Scotland one day?  What do you think?  Could I win that battle as well?

That is for the future but for today I celebrate two happenings beyond Mother Nature.  The first being that Waverly Fitzgerald is revising her book Slow Time and I am playing a small part in that process.  Regular readers will know how this amazing woman transformed my life and so you will also know how thrilled I am about the revision process.  The second celebration is that I have added two more pages to my new site One soul, many hearts that will be launched in the autumn.  The first being an easy addition where I offer little gifts to my readers.  These can take the form of a seasonal recipe, gardening tip or guided meditation or, indeed, anything in between!  For me this captures the spirit of the entire site which is one of sharing.  The second is Seasonal Creativity where I will post creative projects that help us all stay in the season and use these inspirations to feed our creativity.  New pages don't get added easily and many end up on the 'cutting floor' of my mind so these two have done very well indeed and should be proud of themselves. 

I am tired so I will just drift towards the end with some more photos from Brodick Castle which is my idea of heaven - least it will be when I have taken on and won the battle with the National Trust! 

Until tomorrow.  xx