This morning I let myself off exercise so I could get on with some seedling planting. Some of them are just about big enough to go in and obviously, at least in Wiltshire, the temperature is gorgeous, clouds wispy and the sky blue. I have a friend, I’m sure I’ve mentioned her before, who grows things from seed. When she tells me its time, I pop round and load up the car with all her hard work. Most years it’s been fairly standard but just recently she’s been growing some slightly more unusual things, and all I can remember is that they get quite tall, and she imagined them poking out of the top of all my other rather random planting. There was a lolly stick, and I did look up the name, but I can’t remember what it was, except one sounded a bit like ‘cantaloupe’! So I am really excited about what they might grow into. To be fair I am also really excited about this poppy that I grow. This year it’s got four or five heads. They slowly expand and grow until there are little lines of dark mauve peaking through the hairy green. The blooms themselves don’t last that long but the promise of great-blowsy-beauty keeps me going for weeks. I think there is nothing more exciting than a flower head just about to burst, particularly when you have no idea what they are. I have of course, over the years, been disappointed many times. What are you? Oh, one of those rather tiny weedy things. But you looked so green and gorgeous when you first poked up through the soil!
With gardening anticipation seems to be the key. What might that look like? Will you really grow? Oh, my you really like it just there.
I’m just wondering if I could apply the same principle to the rest of my life. What character am I going to write about next? What story am I going to tell? To anticipate success rather than failure, book sales rather than… no book sales! So what blossoms have you got budding in your life that will give you and those around you pleasure and joy? What things are you watching with anticipation, as to how they will turn out? Be prepared for some disappointments but also some absolutely brilliant moments too.
