Reflecting on the Past, Looking to the Future

Hello, it’s been a while since I’ve been able to post as we’ve had a lot going on here, but wanted to begin the New Year with a good start. 2021 was such an odd year of highs and lows. As a family, we lost an Aunt to Covid in January and in May, I lost an old friend to non-Covid related causes very unexpectedly too. I know that there are lots of people who found themselves in similar situations, especially as they have lost relatives due to Covid itself, or because their treatment for another illness has been affected by Covid, and my heart really goes out to them.

We’re currently sorting out our house for some good news, to welcome a new little one into our lives. Matt will be taking a few months leave to help us as a family to settle in, which is lovely and I know he’ll be a very hands-on Dad. We’ve redecorated a room and turned it from an office into a bedroom. It has the best view in the house too, over the garden and into the fields beyond, much nicer than our bedroom view out onto the road. It’s a decent size also and we’ve got a play rug on the floor. Incidentally, getting a new bedroom carpet fitted was the only job we booked that happened fast, probably because carpets aren't as popular anymore! Think we have almost all of the stuff needed now. I had great fun creating a library for them and found some excellent picture books.

As it had been a tough start to the year, in November the extended family met up for a holiday in Hampshire to celebrate my Mum’s 60th. We stayed at Buckhurst Stables and the house itself was in the beautiful, deepest Hampshire countryside. The stables were surrounded by pheasants, red kites and large white cattle on the grounds. We also saw a dragonfly (in November) darting around the pond. I’m not sure if I believe in spirit animals, but we did see two dragonflies on the same day 200 miles apart and not near water on the day we had visited my Aunt’s grave, so I feel a kind of strange affinity with them now.

Our garden is now pretty much completed, we just need to put up the trellis in the Spring. We’ve ordered some new dahlia tubers, as last year was a disaster here for dahlias, as it was too wet for them in the borders and they got decimated by slugs and snails! So, it’s back to the drawing board and we’re going to raise them in pots like we did in 2020 and hopefully we’ll get lots of flowers! Gardening is so therapeutic, it’s certainly helped us a lot this year and even though we’ll be welcoming a new addition to our family, we want to encourage them into gardening from a young age as we both were and carry it forward. I’ve already ordered a puddle-suit and wellies in advance! The first job we’ll have to do is the big garden cutback that we do in February / March time where we cut down all the dead old growth to reveal the new shoots below. We keep the old growth over Autumn and Winter to protect both overwintering invertebrates and the new growth from frost and snow. The garden definitely is not looking at its best right now, but we’re excited for the Spring as we’ve planted bulbs of more tulips, anemones and snakeshead fritillaries and our snowdrops, bluebells and white daffodils should begin naturalising. 

So that’s gardening plans for the year. Can’t wait to visit RHS Bridgewater garden in the Spring / Summer time as we’ve not yet been. We look ahead to this New Year, but this time as a family of three. Hope that you all have a good and blessed 2022.