Oct 27, 2021 | Lighter Moments
Conventional is a word that I don’t associate with me. I have, throughout my life, had more success when I have taken a slightly unconventional route. That includes the path I took during the first year of being a widow and starting on the slow and painful journey of discovering what my husband had been truly like. A lot of the time I was in a fog, functioning, but not fully there.
For reasons like most things in my life, I have yet to figure out why I did it, but I announced I wanted to grow things. What, I had no idea, but I wanted to grow something. It was a fresh beginning and I could visualise small green shoots of a new life, my new life.
A neighbour, who had been very supportive, coming to check on my son and myself on a regular basis, happened to be someone who was a good gardener. It was she who bought me some tomato seeds and helped set them up so that they could propagate. Over the course of that first year, I did grow some carrots, some herbs, a couple of peppers which the birds liked and some potatoes. However, it was the tomatoes that kind of took over my life and were the most successful and plentiful.
The Early Days
I had the tomato plants all over the house including in the bedrooms.
My son’s bedroom windowsill
My bedroom windowsill
Finally outside
Eventually the plants became strong enough to go outside. Luckily, my landlord had left quite a few pots and canes that I was able to use.
Tomato plants outside
Tomatoes Galore
They were pretty prolific, but for one reason or another they didn’t ripen that well outside so I ended up having plates of tomatoes ripening around the house.
Ripening tomatoes
And so they continued
As the summer faded into autumn, there were still some of the plants that were producing flowers and tomatoes. Rather than dispose of them, I brought them into the house. For several months, I had tomato plants in pots in the house. They became very long and straggly, but still kept producing tomatoes well into 2016.
The last of the tomatoes
There was something very therapeutic about growing tomatoes during that first year. I tended to them and nurtured to the very end. They gave me something else to focus on, I was able to relax and take my mind of how to get through each day.
I haven’t grown anything since from scratch. Instead, the house that my son and I are currently living in has an apple tree. It seems to produce apples, a lot of them every couple of years. Two years ago they were a good size. This year they are tiny, I have no idea why. Next year, we’ll just have to see. I have no idea if I will grow tomatoes or herbs, or even have a house with an apple tree again, but I will never say never and I still have some herb seeds that one day I attempt to grow on windowsills. What I will say is that for someone who considered herself the opposite of green fingered, I did manage to grow an awful lot of tomatoes!
Sep 2, 2021 | Lighter Moments
This area of the website is somewhere you will hopefully find something to smile about. Humour, laughter and smiling are all good for our mental wellbeing. Laughter can alleviate stress and ease anxiety and tension.
In the months after my husband died, my son and I watched a lot of comedy movies and series. For once, I wasn’t angry at the money my husband had spent on the DVD sets. Comedy is personal, what one person finds amusing another doesn’t. My favourite types of movies are rom-coms; musicals are my second choice. When it comes to TV shows Fawlty Towers, Dad’s Army, Keeping Up Appearances and Waiting for God are my go to series that put a smile on my face and make me laugh out loud, no matter how many times I watch.
Things that make you laugh and smile don’t need to be a movie, a TV series, or a joke, but can also be good memories, looking at nature, gardening, cooking, music, photos, the list is endless. I have used all of the aforementioned to relieve stress, including gardening! Whilst they are not rom-coms two of my favourite movies series are The Lord of the Rings Trilogy and The Hobbit Trilogy. The reason being is that they were filmed in New Zealand, a place that I visited back in 1981 and still holds many good memories. I love the scenery and enjoyed the extras that came with both box sets that showed the external locations for various scenes in the movies, some of which I had been to or near. Even listening to music from either film can take me back to that happy time and I immediately feel less stressed.
So that is what this section of the website site is about and one that will be added to on a regular basis. Enjoy.
The Deer
One of the best parts of living where we did in Oregon was being able to see the deer close up. I loved watching them, but always remembered to give them plenty of space. The following pictures were taken out of our living room window.
Gus the Gull
Gus the Gull was briefly in my life, during the visit to the Oregon coast that my husband and I took shortly after he was made redundant. Our room at the hotel was on the ground floor and had sliding doors out to a small deck; beyond that were the beach and the sea. Shortly after we arrived I noticed a gull walking up and down the deck. I hadn’t eaten all my sandwich from lunch so careful took some of the bread from the sandwich and broke it into small pieces. I went to the door and slowly opened it. Gus hopped back a bit and waited for me to put the bread down. Once I was back inside and the door closed, he came and ate the bread. For the remainder of the stay, Gus came to visit looking for food. I made sure he had plenty. I rather suspect he made a habit of checking ground floor rooms at the hotel to see who would feed him. He was definitely one of the highlights of that trip.
Crater Lake
I love mountains and water. I have read that Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the Western Hemisphere and the third-deepest in the world. For me, what is so spectacular about it is the colour of the water. The picture doesn’t do justice as to how blue the water is. Looking at the picture of the lake and the Wizard Island which is the island you can see, gives me such a sense of peace and tranquillity, I often look at the pictures that were taken when I want to relax.
