Two weeks notice

I didn’t manage to publish anything this weekend—or last. The lifey-ness of life has been kicking in hard the last couple of weeks. I should be leaning in to writing. It’s my source of sanity when the world goes whoopsie. But forming a coherent storyline is beyond me right now. 

However—I’ve had a small flurry of new subscribers in the last few days brought, I think, by a photo I posted after the results of the US election were announced, of the sea on a calm day.

There’s a lot I want to say about the weaponisation of storytelling in the context of global politics. And I will. But it’s hard to unravel the many strands of what’s happening in the word and to re-work them into a something that makes sense when reality is shifting so rapidly. I need a little more space from the reality before I can talk about it in the abstract.

If you’re new here, welcome! This isn’t my usual kind of post and I’ll get back to the regular Sunday publishing schedule very soon. For now, I’d like to speak in pictures about something more local.

Our favourite local garden is closing. It’s a small but beautiful demonstration garden attached to a garden centre, cafe and horticultural education centre. After thirty years of public access, it closes today. The people who love and care for this place have had the land sold from under them. Twenty six jobs lost a few weeks before Christmas. The staff were given two weeks notice to “clear the site” before they themselves would be cleared away.

I get clearing the sales site, but how do you “clear” a garden?

click on thumbnails to view images full-size

The gardens are beautiful at any time of year. Right now, they’re in that blousy over-blown, seed-heads-and-dead-leaves-a-plenty, autumnal colours phase. In the closing-down process, the gardeners have been diverted to other duties so seed heads and dead heads have been left a little longer than they might usually.

Pickle and I took our final walk in the gardens this morning. This place has been our refuge in times of anxiety. Today we shed our final tears, chased our last feathers, kicked our last leaves. Now we need to find somewhere else to find sense in a non-sensical world.