Summer Solstice

Just as the Calendar begun to say Summer

I went out of the schoolhouse fast
and through the gardens and to the woods
and spent all summer forgetting what I had been taught
two times two and diligence and so forth
how to be modest and useful and how to succeed and so forth
machines and oil and plastic and money and so forth
by fall I had healed somewhat but was summoned back
to the chalky rooms and the desks to sit and remember
the way the river kept rolling its pebbles
the way the wild wrens sang though they hadn’t a penny in the bank
the way the flowers were dressed in nothing but light

Mary Oliver

Here we are. The longest (and hottest) day. What am I planning to do today, asked a friend. I’m planning just to be. Trying not to do absolutely anything. Saying that, by 9am this morning, I did a lot but most importantly, I picked up the camera to take some pictures in the garden for the first time in weeks. In my garden. I wanted to mark this year somehow and I did. This year has been a strange one for me, I’m not sure if I like it or not, yet, I’m counting my lucky stars all the time. I’m not ashamed to admit that I cried on two shoots earlier this year. Not in front of others, just behind a shed. It felt good. It helped. Shook of the tiredness. The exhaustion. Yet, I’m really counting my lucky stars as all this tiredness is the result of what I love most, capturing gardens. Being in gardens.

This year is an absolute treat, just like last year was. More beautiful gardens, huge projects, more books. Lots of travel, in the country and overseas. Seeing so much beauty everywhere I go. Then I come home and I always say “oh, it’s so good to be home”, and make a cup of tea. Coming home from all these amazing gardens, I look at mine, it that has lost itself a few weeks go, it’s dry (chalk soil doesn’t help), it’s sad, I don’t even care about the flowering ground elder anymore. I let it happen and see what happens. I sowed lots and lots of different nasturtiums this year, all flowering now, I planted lots into a planter that belongs to the village and that’s by one of our bus stops. We are a tiny village (approximately 70 houses) but there are 3 bus stops, two towards Oxford and one coming from Oxford direction. Anyway. The planter is looking good. Nasturtiums. My current favourites together with the currants. I have two, one white, one black and then leaving a shoot the other day, I was given 2 red ones. A strange year, some forget-me-nots are still flowering, foxgloves and dahlias. And big bunches of sweet peas. It is Summer.