Beaux jours

The lovely days. 

It's worth all the cutting back, mowing, strimming, and all the other months of garden taming (attempted) to enjoy the first days of mid spring/early summer? - very advanced this year after loads of rain, periods of full on heat and very little frost. The roses are spectacular as is all other blossom; and as the 'normal' Saint Glace period (a few days around the 15th May) seems to be rainy rather than icy, we should have mountains of peaches.

We also had super helpful people staying in the form of nephew and partner who built a small greenhouse/lean-to with found windows and stone blocks, plus mowing and weeding, The Son planted early veg plants and I, fuelled with such help - what a difference team work makes! - got a load of other overdue outside jobs done.

A few pictures of the garden in its manic glory before everything heat-shrivels in real summer.

The wavering mind

Don't know about you but I sometimes have days where I can pass from near bliss to gloom within a few moments, usually happening after some tedious email or a bit too much internet wandering.

Yesterday, I was pootling along quite happily doing jobs, leaf-raking, making lists, bit of writing, bit of admin, sweeping out our building site (gite project) when I sat down to check my emails - at the moment I have to curb the checking as I have sent out quite a few submissions to literary agents . . . anyway, I sat down and poked the computer into life to find: a rejection, written with excessively bad grammar it must be said; a desperate offer from Ryanair to claim a last bit of Greek sun, something from some smug bugger called Kelvin offering revamp my website and . . . our insurance company doing a special offer on funeral planning. That was it, I could feel the tendrils of gloom reaching out to me and within twenty minutes I was fully into: 'What's it all about' mode - relatively easy in our current times when every click onto the Guardian page reveals more planet-devastation, cruelty, misuse of public money and general chaos. 

I tried full on clearing up, more rigorous admin - even digging into the recesses of the in-tray, serious bank account reality check - (not a good move), researching about insulation in afore-mentioned gite (scary, cost-wise), but although the waters of depression had been stemmed and just a light trickle was escaping I decided more radical action was needed: a bike ride up to our bio veg growing friend and to offer help in exchange for supper-veg. And it worked, as it always does. An hour and a half later I had helped him weed his lines of lettuce with a very impressive 'hoe with wheel' item, and picked 'bouquets' of parsley and coriander for his market trip in the morning. Not a huge thing but somehow the gloom simply evaporated, partially though the exercise and mediative nature of working with soil and plants, partly through helping someone else rather than dwelling on one's own inadequacies and worries.

I returned with my carefully chosen misshaped veg so not to take away from his beautiful market produce, made a huge garlicky salad and enjoyed a peaceful evening with Ezra, rounded off with an episode of Detectorists -another gloom evaporator if you haven't had the pleasure of watching the series.

 

  

Social media stagnation, removing yourself from it and being productive

                                           

I felt like this yesterday, and the day before - slightly perplexed, slightly anxious, and cross with myself.
The reason was part mega-procrastination due to not being sure about which direction to go in writing-wise and part waiting to hear something positive - or un-positive - about one of my manuscripts. The procrastination element was largely in the form of Social Media. It has its uses, and if you are feeling buoyant and in control, it's great to dip in and out of. If you are feeling rather more unsure, confused and ego-squished it's an insidious, clinging thing that sets up camp in your mind and crushes the creative urge.
I like Instagram - on the whole - mainly using it as a species of diary/journal/instant portfolio of everything I do, but when the doubt starts seeping, I'm on it far more than is healthy - checking likes, comparing numbers of likes other people have, posting something new just to get that little phone-lighting up fix.
FaceBook . . . personally I find it depressing. I've read and listened to enough Ted Talks, etc, to know it's not just me. Posting the odd weird picture, or beautiful landscape, or sharing an unforgettable image works - again like a sort of life-diary but only in homeopathic amounts. After even ten minutes of scrolling I feel empty and dull, even if I was feeling positive before going on the site. It has its uses - announcing a gig that Mark's doing, acknowledging a friend's new baby/business/wedding, etc, but if things are not steaming ahead on your own personal horizon seeing everyone else being shiny and great makes everything so much greyer - if they are indeed having such a great time. Maybe everyone is staring back at their rectangles of blueish light feeling terribly inadequate even while posting pictures of five-star cookery and new patios.
Twitter . . . no idea. Could be useful one day when I get published, (being positive here) so I have my place on the platform and post the odd surreal picture; like a few friend's comments on the state of the world and don't do more scrolling than a couple of minutes.
I think it was Will Self who was talking about reading a book as oppose to S. media screen stuff - the fact that books and articles have natural stopping points allowing you to go and do something else whereas the continual scroll is difficult to stop - just a few more posts . . . Mind you, I've just read Umbrella which has no chapters or breaks . . . but I needed to stop very frequently just to digest the wordage and complexity of the book.
  
This morning, faced with three possible semi-written, follow-up novels, and the procrastination-demon lurking, I started writing a completely new book, the idea of which had been gestating away in a deep recess of my brain for a while. Rather than try and plan anything very much, as is my won't, I plunged into the thing - which is about Social Media - and two hours later the haze of what the F am I doing sloped off. I didn't check my phone all morning. I haven't looked at FB or Twitter. I've written, cleared out the bathroom cupboard (ugh), prepared our B and B room for guests, cleared up my computer files and cut back some of the rampant garden: all stuff I've been meaning to do but had put off while pootling about on Google and my crap old iPhone had seemed easier.
And lo . . . this pro-activeness has somehow produced positive things.
This afternoon, I've had a useful email regarding the manuscript and have been contacted by someone else who wants to talk about my work. Can it be, as I've often wondered, that kicking yourself up the backside mentally and forcing a new direction that other things start to un-stagnate?
Whatever creative things you like doing - painting, singing, gardening, running, cooking . . . do it and maybe don't post it.

                                                   
image: techcrunch

Oi! stop that.

In 2010 I had an episode of extreme pain and fear that went on for what seemed like months, maybe it was only weeks, but it felt an awful lot longer.
(Blog post 'evolution' in 2010, if anyone is interested . . .)
Not wishing to recall all that, but I had a reminder of it this morning, as if myself had prodded myself and said 'hey, stop, otherwise  . . . remember this!'
After the afore-mentioned phase, I had worked out pretty much what caused the pain in my face and neck and had avoided, as much as possible, doing the things that set it off. But we get complacent, do we not?
In my case it was: don't over do it on the computer (this will be a short post) don't use the phone much, and absolutely no stuffing it into my neck and talking with head at a stupid angle while cooking/washing up/ feeding the cat, etc. NO coffee - actually I have stuck to that one, but the tea amounts and strength has been creeping up; don't slump while reading or TV watching; alternate sitting activities with walking, gardening etc; and the big one: Don't get stressed.
Easy to say: we all do and about the most pathetic things sometimes. But I do think the cumalative stress thing is damaging; adding on more and more to the list and feeling guilty if not everything is dealt with.
So today, I have done most of the jobs, cast an eye over the list, ignored some things and spent a bit more time just . . . existing; a bit more time looking at trees, clouds and appreciating the day for what it is. It may not last, and I might get another warning in which case I will slow down again and thank myself for reminding myself that it's just not worth getting that stressed; a bit is good - keeps things moving along, but just not - too - much.

Image borrowed from 'Sweetoldvintage blogspot