01/04/2026
E is poorly tonight, he's been on and off all week and tonight he needs me that bit more. Phone within reach but not much else, he's restless on me. I need a wee. Feeling a bit trapped but also in love and loved and needed.
Many trips are involved from car to greenhouse and greenhouse to car carting my treasures to make things 'feel' a bit more special. I want to offer an experience of extra care, that's what mothers deserve.
Most is recycled. Some new. I try to be as sustainable as I can. Many are gifted.
The car I drive is 20 years old and belonged to my very special Grandma 'Mama'. I imagine daffodils when I think of her, and also of the one white bell among a carpet of bluebells in my local woods that i'll nod too later in spring. Her teatowels are the ones I used today to pat dry someone's hands once compost was rinsed from them.
The tea towels are stored in a large green wooden trunk which was my Grandads from his coastal command days.
A blackboard sign I made from an old shelf rests on step ladders made by my Grandad 'Papa'. My mothers trug houses my seeds, my husbands alarm clock, that I pinched, helps me keep time and my father's tape measure fills my pocket. Tools penned with initials 'JKH' were gifted from a family friend - belonging to her father, now greatly valued in my collection of garden treasures.
I like to imagine these special people knowing where their items would end up. How they are helping to shape other lives.I like to imagine the whole history of an item flashing before someone as its passed into their receiving hands. Noones to keep forever.
How fortunate we are to pass down our possessions when many people have none, have them taken away or have to leave them behind fleeing for safety.
The garden too is not ours to keep. Just a patch of earth we are custodians of for a glimmer in time until the next life takes our place. Motherhood made me painfully aware of my own temporality and from speaking to friends I'm not alone. But being in the garden helps keep me in the moment while planting for a future I know nothing of.
