A little patch of Paradise.

For years now I have walked along a certain road and at a certain point my stride has slowed to drink in the joys of a beautiful garden that nestles behind a clematis covered fence. Through rain and snow, sun and cloud I have marvelled at the care lavished upon it by its owner. Its not attached to a spectacular property, rather to an ordinary looking semi-detached, but its lawns are manicured, its flower beds perfect and I have admired it for a long time.

Yesterday I was wending my way home, slowing once again to gaze over the fence, when I saw an old man going in through the gate. Our eyes met as he turned to shut it and I smiled and asked if this was his garden. He grinned back and said that it was. When I complimented him on its beauty and said that I had admired it for years he asked if I would like to have a tour! Well, I quickly summed up the chances of this nice old man being a psychopathic axe murderer, rapidly dismissed them and pushed open the gate ...

I spent the most lovely half hour wandering around with him in the sunshine. What a wonderful man! He told me that everything in the garden has been nurtured by him, mostly from seed, some rescued when other people thought they were dead. He has at least six greenhouses dotted around the garden, each filled with seedlings and young plants waiting to go out. And never has he bought a greenhouse! Each was taken in payment for work done, or rescued from gardens where they were unwanted.

His lawn was dotted with Japanese maples and acers. Dahlia tubers waited patiently to be put out into carefully prepared beds. And around a corner he showed me a little patch of paradise - his vegetable beds! Call me old fashioned, but it was like being in Mr McGregor's garden. Potatoes poked their heads up from beds of straw. Carrots pushed their way through rich dark soil in specially built brick raised beds. He told me he shows his carrots and leeks and grinned as I ran the soil through my fingers - like black gold!

Cabbages and cauliflowers grew protected by mesh cages and stakes awaited his prize dahlias to grow inbetween the vegetables.

In a corner by his crystal clear fish pond he had a table weighed down with bedding plants grown from seed. Wind chimes clinked in the breeze.

You can imagine the joy of that half hour for me. I have never seen such healthy looking plants. There was not a yellow leaf, a wilting stem in sight. Each one was plump and green and ready to spring into greenery and blossom. I stood as he told me the stories of his trees as his wife sat in the sunshine on a straw bale, nursing a cup of tea and a biscuit. I felt so privileged to be given a glimpse into his little corner of Heaven and his enthusiasm and quiet happiness bathed me in contentment.

After half an hour I left with thanks and goodbyes and the invitation to bring my husband to visit too. All that joy because our eyes met over a garden gate and we took a chance of talking to a stranger. Its one of those experiences which will stay as a golden memory forever!

potato beds

Top blog lists - and why I'll never be on them!

I was just having a little look on Twitter - a place I rarely visit these days - and I noticed a tweet about a list of Top Tweeters. Mmmmm .... I thought ... Top Tweeters ... Well that's a list I certainly won't be on. This is mainly because I rarely tweet about anything and when I do my tweets are hardly earth shattering.

I will probably never appear on any list of fabulous tweeters or bloggers because I just don't work hard enough at it. I am a bit of an arm chair tweeter/blogger. I write for me and not particularly for anyone else. Of course, when people come by and leave me comments, or follow me, or generally show signs of liking me or the way I write then that is absolutely fabuloso ... after all I am as susceptible as the next person to flattery!

However, I don't spend hours working at improving my standing in the wonderful world of blog. Frankly, I don't have the time. Even now I am typing as quickly as I can with my slightly over-long gel nails because I need to get changed for football, have to defrost summer berries for tonight's pavlova and really should be reading for my end of degree essay ...

And anyway ... I don't think lists of top bloggers and tweeters really show the best writers. There are bloggers I have read, in my role as and meeter and greeter for BritMums, who have less than 20 followers and yet they write beautifully, from the heart. The best bloggers, in my opinion, are not the ones who write about things they know will get lots of hits or who write reviews on products they have received for free. The best writers , the ones I love to read, who move me to tears sometimes, are the ones who write about their own lives. The single mums who struggle with their little ones, writing as a release ... the mothers who have lost children, who have children who are ill ... the people who are honest, writing from the heart.

The writers who turn me right off are the ones who really fancy themselves as 'serious writers' and who fill page after page with self indulgent drivel. Now, don't get me wrong - I am prone to a bit of self indulgence m'self - but I don't pretend that I am the poet laureate or an undiscovered genius.

Its funny isn't it? Just because you get on a list doesn't actually mean your blog is the best blog since sliced bread. But it does mean that lots of people know about or read your blog. And that is achieved either by lots of hard work - getting your blog out there by pressing the flesh like crazy - or by being jolly lucky - or, and this is the rarest thing, sadly, - by being absolutely brilliant.

My blog is my place of sanctuary and, if I'm being completely honest, I know its never going to be on a big all-singing list of fabulous blogs. Of course, I would love it to be. I'm not that 'umble. But I don't work all day trying to make my blog well known. Some of my posts are rubbish, some are ok and sometimes I look and think - gosh, that was quite a good bit of writing. So I shall carry on pootling about. If you have made it to the end of this post, then thank you!!

Stress, BritMums Live and Awards - not necessarily in that order!!

I cannot believe it has been so long since I last posted. Life has been stressful to say the least recently so my blogging has taken a back seat. Usually I post about the things that stress me out, but these last weeks the 'stressful stuff' has been too hard to write about. I know that there are people these days who read my blog who actually know me in real life, and if you are one of those then please don't worry, but I have been preoccupied to say the least.

Still ... onwards and upwards. The good thing about the last few weeks is that I have been surrounded by very wonderful friends. Each dark cloud has a silver lining!!

I am very excited that, as the summer approaches, so does the BritMums Live conference! I have never been to any sort of conference, never mind a blogging one and I am so looking forward to it!! It is 2 days of seminars, speeches, networking ( that sounds professional doesn't it??!!) and general learning, all about blogging, blogs and everything connected to those topics.

The keynote speakers are Sarah Brown, Gordon Brown's wife and Ruby Wax. The days will be filled with cake, coffee, wine, (I hope), meeting new friends and learning how to make my blogging better!

I am quite a friendly type so I am looking forward to meeting new people!! I am starting to think about

• what to wear!!
• what to take.
• designing business cards ...
• finding a sponsor ...

I have never put adverts on my blog, but I am beginning to wonder if it might be an idea to place selective ads and links on in return for sponsorship. I am rather fussy though and I don't want my blog deluged with inappropriate rubbish. I have had a couple of offers, but they were not right for me - I just can't pretend to love something if I've never used it and never would!!

Another thing I am excited about is the fact that I have been put on the short list for the BiBs Video Blogger Award. Now I don't post my video blogs on here - they are a delight I save for the BritMums site, but I am thrilled to have been nominated at all and to reach the short list is a thrill!! If you have seen any of my vlogs and fancy voting for me - do feel free!! Just click on the link in the top right hand corner! I don't expect to win, but its really rather nice to have been voted for at all!

Well ... that's it for now. A little cryptic in places, but at least you know I'm still alive and kicking!!

A confession ... my throat is sore from screaming at my son.

This is a confession. It has been a lifetime since I confessed to anyone. This morning as I drove to work my throat was practically bleeding from screaming at my eldest son. Bleeding...

I heard him, the other day, on the phone planning a sickie and when he started to tell me he felt ill last night I girded my loins for trouble. In our house you don't get a day off school or work unless you are vomiting or bleeding all over the carpet and it takes a mastermind crossed with the acting ability of Robert Downey Junior to get past me.

So, the huffing and puffing last night and the early night didn't cut it. Especially as he was still listening to the football on the radio until 10pm. When I went in to get him up this morning he told me he felt sick and couldn't possibly go to school ...

I'm afraid I gave him short shrift. It is the classic tale of the boy who cried wolf ... he has attempted to pull the wool over my eyes (unsuccessfully) so many times that I have no patience. He forgets that I have known him for 14 years and have nursed him through various bouts of genuine illness, from chicken pox to tummy bugs. I have mopped his brow and his vomit at all times of day and night. I have sat up with him stroking his hair until he slept.

So I am the wrong person to try to trick when it comes to illness. It does you no favours to borrow the thermometer and hold it under the cold tap and then come downstairs complaining of a temperature. As I said to him "You look remarkably well for a boy in the last stages of hypothermia ..."

This morning I am afraid that his refusal to go to school was greeted with less than usual humour from me. As his protestations went from light groaning to full scale "You are EVIL!!!!" I could take no more. I am a good mum. I am patient, understanding and prone to helping with homework, but today he was right ... I was evil.

I screamed at him. The dam of my emotions burst and I turned into a screaming, shrieking lunatic. I told him that if he hadn't left for school before I left for work I would phone the school and tell them he was refusing to go. I told him the x-box was gone until the end of February and as my heart beat in my chest like a battering hammer my final words before I swept from the room were "If I die of a heart attack right here on your carpet, it will be your fault!!!!!"

Oh, good grief ...

And this from a mother who had vowed never to tell her children even to "Shut up".

He dressed and left for school on time.




p.s. We have talked calmly since this. We have apologised to each other and I have enquired what problems he has at school - none. I have informed him that honesty is the best policy and we have both told each other we love each other. My throat is still sore .... I may have to have a couple of days off work ...