Do you remember the nasty storm that flattened our tomatoes?

We have some survivors.

Thriving survivors.

The best revenge for being flattened? To come back. To succeed.

I worked on a film in 1995 called The Island of Dr Moreau.

It was a difficult job.

The stories that could be told.

Our director, John Frankenheimer, was old school Hollywood, and we had the challenge of Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer being our stars.

There was a line of dialogue in the script “you don’t have to obey the bastards, they’re not Gods”.

Our camera team had t shirts made, on the front left breast was what looked like the Panavision logo but if you looked closely you could see it actually said Painavision and on the back the quote from the script “you don’t have to obey the bastards, they’re not Gods”. Never before, nor since, have I gotten more pleasure out of wearing a t shirt 😃.

We survived the film shoot and, stronger, we headed off to the next one.

Yesterday’s harvest 🌱

Have a wonderful day!

This is our third Meyer Lemon tree and our first crop.

I’m grateful for what our first two trees taught us.

Wisdom shared.

This is a poem written by my Great Great Grandmother, Jemima Erskine Rush. Written during the Great War, 1914-1918, in which she lost three sons.

LOOK AT THE BRIGHT SIDE

Better to walk on the Sunny side

Than to stand in the dark and cold, 

Better to brighten another life

And leave your sorrow untold.

Better to make the best of things

Whatever your lot may be

Better to float in a world like this

Than sink in sorrow's deep sea,

Better to hope for brighter days

Though the clouds around hang low, 

Better to carry a cheerful heart

And you in grace will grow.

We have a couple of her poems, published in a little book called Jemima, written by her grand daughter Connie.

I wish we had more. More poems, more stories.

Best moment yesterday, bedtime, reading Stig of the Dump. The Snargets running for their lives from Stig, screaming out for help, ‘Aaaaaaoooower! It’s a kye, it’s a kye, it’s a kye, it’s a kye, it’s a KYVE man!’. Made us laugh til we cried.

Yesterday’s harvest 🌱

Have a wonderful day!

Our baby peas are growing up.

Finding their feet.

Reaching out, looking for something to hold.

I still have so much to learn about investing, but that’s one of the things I’ve learnt, (buy undervalued and) hold.

Look for good companies, with a strong track record of growth and good management, that have a market price that isn’t reflective of its intrinsic value.

But the key is time. Hold.

Favourite moments yesterday, snuggled in the morning sun on the couch with my daughter listening to Disney tunes.

Nowhere to be, nothing that needed to be done.

Our Saturday mornings, traditionally nonstop from an early start, are now blissfully extracurricular free.

And Saturday evening full of laughs with friends.

Have a wonderful day!

It was 1999, on the east coast of America, in Connecticut, that I first fell in love with Autumn.

The trees, the forests, the light through the leaves, their colour and transparency, the dappled sunlight on the leaf covered forest floor. The seasons, Autumn. The changing colours, I can see them now, in my minds eye, reflected on the pristine water of the lakes, the roadside forests, gardens, everywhere! It’s a wonder I didn’t fall into a lake or have a car accident, my eyes drawn to the trees, the colours.

When I returned to this side of the hemisphere nursing the afore mentioned broken heart, I yearned for autumn colours, the American trees and forests, the seasons…

When you leave I discovered your loss is not just about losing a person/friend? It’s so much more. The loss of a place, a reality, dreams, surrounds, smells, belongings, experiences (both had and yet to have)…

You won’t be surprised that in quick succession I added deciduous trees to this little garden.

But I soon learnt that the climate has a lot to do with autumn displays and the weather here is not conducive to the colours I hoped for. The harsh winds and fluctuating temperatures year after year have meant, at Autumn time, our leaves are often brown and crumpled. Sometimes burnt black. No breathtaking displays of golds, lime greens, pinks, oranges, reds, burgundy…

But look what I’ve found yesterday! One of our new cherries…

Our other deciduous trees still try and this year, a bit more gold than crumpled brown than previous years?

The beauty of Connecticut is vivid in my memory.

Yesterday’s harvest 🌱

Have a wonderful day!

Our front garden is tiny too. It used to be crowded and bushy with large weedy trees and ratty flax. In the middle, a shell garden, ouchy to walk on but beautiful and beachy.

We loved it for many years. Lovingly regularly pulling weeds from the shell garden, though never as often as needed.

But lawn was calling me, lush and green.

I craved lying on my back on soft grass watching the clouds pass by and I was keen to give my daughter a place to do her (untrained) incredibly neat cartwheels.

With the help of our friends we removed trees, shrubs, ancient flax, stumps and our shells.

And lay down turf.

Now clouds drift by witnessed.

And neat cartwheels get neater.

We still lovingly remove weeds.

A beautiful rainbow today reminding us there is treasure yet to be discovered.

And a golden sunset.

Today I am grateful for all the help we received.

May help be at hand for you today if needed.

It wasn’t an easy decision to add a Golden Elm to our garden. We have an issue of space. Our garden is tiny and Golden Elms grow big!

I remember when my daughter spotted the tree at the garden centre and set her heart on it. In truth, I had, for a long time, wished that we had space to plant one but had conceded, sadly, that we didn’t.

But my heart was reignited by my daughters pleas.

Could we?

We walked around our garden trying to find a spot. Growing the tree in our imaginations to check if it could work.

There is a street in Wellington city that has huge alternating Golden Elms and Pohutukawa trees. The two canopies beautiful side by side, contrasting and complimenting. I love.

The spot we settled on was in our front garden near our Pohutukawa.

There may be a time when it gets too big and we might have to cut it back or remove it but that will be many years from now. In the meantime we will very much enjoy it’s company.

It makes me think about decisions and my thoughts tentatively tiptoe in the direction of some hard decisions I’ve made and wonder, what if, what if I’d chosen differently?

I believe life has a way of putting us where we’re supposed to be and the only way we find ourselves here is by taking the paths we chose.

And the here and now I love and am grateful for.

Not regret, it’s pride I feel for myself for making those tough decisions that have contributed to leading me here.

Wishing you a wonderful day!

At the beginning of summer we added two Cherry Guava’s to our garden.

Guava’s remind me of my childhood. There was a small ragged tree on the last incline to our house, on the side of the track, sitting close to a drop down into a small valley.

When we were young I remember the fruit being plentiful, ripe and sweet.

As we got older, I remember the fruit dwindling.

The fruit firmer, less tasty, not so ripe.

Thinking about it now, it must have been the birds beating us to them and us, in turn, picking green fruit to beat them back!

Another memory of guava, was the guava juice from the local cafe in Pacific Harbour in Fiji when we were working on the film Anacondas.

Tropical fruit on a tropical island. Yum!

Gentle rain here today, all day, no wind and not cold.

We have a very happy garden.

Today’s harvest 🌱

My daughter commented on how yummy the strawberries were today.

Look what has been enjoying the rain 💦

Have a wonderful day!

Something in our garden has been happily munching holes in our silverbeet.

I don’t mind sharing, I guess.

Why is sharing so hard sometimes? For me, in this instance, I know it’s because (I’m a bit horrified to admit) that I like things to be perfect.

I know nothing is perfect and it’s an impossible ideal to strive for.

And a terrible expectation to put on yourself and/or others.

But still, it’s something I know about me. I’m sure it’s learnt behaviour from a multitude of life experiences.

Maybe being one of four children and vying for parental attention? Getting that much desired sticker in primary school for colouring inside the lines? Or popular culture telling us we’re only loveable if we look like one of those beautiful people who grace the front of magazines?

Gosh when I write that it makes me think everyone must have the same issue, surely? We all wanted the sticker, so we all tried to colour inside the lines, right?

But I know it’s not true, there are people who know they are loveable as their imperfect selves.

And deserve success even if they have made mistakes.

And would never impose a need to be perfect on another person.

Do we strive for perfection because we are looking for approval/validation?

But hold on, I can give that to myself!

And I can teach my daughter she can give it to herself too!

It might be a challenge to overcome a life time of conditioning, but I like challenges, I like the end game, success, but that can be another thought for another post, another day.

You are enough and you are loved. Have a wonderful day!

🌱

My daughter had an old weathered packet of pea seeds in her gardening bag and while gardening a couple of weekends ago, it fell out, spilling the seeds all over the place.

We gathered them up and popped them into a large empty pot, thinking they wouldn’t sprout, but guess what?

They did!

Loads and loads of them.

Our favourite!

You may have heard it said that we here in NZ may have a short summer this year?

We hope it’s long enough for our young peas to mature and give us a bumper crop.

Aren’t surprises great!

Especially surprises after nasty wind storms.

So tiny and fragile yet so resilient and strong.

Makes me think of Horton Hears a Who, Dr. Seuss reminding us that it’s all about perspective. That from the perspective of the universe, we, the human race are tiny and vulnerable, living on a speck floating in space, at the mercy of the great unknown (a big elephant 😃).

The human race (so tiny and fragile yet so resilient and strong), can you imagine that we all walk around with smart phones connected to the entire rest of the world via the world wide web and travel on flying buses!

Isn’t it a remarkable time to be alive? Sometimes the extraordinary things humans do/have done blows my brain and I have to bring my focus into the here and now. Do you have to do that sometimes, to shrink your peripheral down to your surroundings, to find your serenity? (ha ha, yes I’m Australian)

Our sunset today.

And seconds later.

May you be surprised by something today that warms your heart and brings you comfort and peace of mind 🌱

Some plants were flattened by the wind yesterday.

The worst affected were the tomatoes. We’ve propped them up, hopefully they will recover and still give us some tomatoes.

Surprisingly the rest of our little garden survived pretty well. Our plants won the battle!

Look how well these little ones survived!

I guess sitting so close to the ground with their nice strong anchor.

The mesclun this year has been particularly yummy.

I’ve been keeping the water up, to chase away any bitterness.

Water can work for me too, a nice long shower, dilutes bitterness to nothing!

But other times it’s a battle of the mind.

Then it’s a choice, focus on the problem, or focus on the solution. I like to focus on the solution.

But sometimes the solution isn’t immediately apparent and we get stuck in the quagmire.

If I can’t fix it with a shower or find a solution, I take action.

For me, this is often gardening.

But any and all action helps me, it can be sweeping, vacuuming, walking, talking, shopping, lunching, singing…doing something, anything. Action is the heftiest and most successful weapon in my artillery.

After school today, transporting my daughter to dancing, she spoke about a new find, the orchestra/rock band teacher who let them play on the drums, with no direction, just play. To be creative, unrestricted in their expression. I like that.

Today’s sunset.

Pink sky at night, Shepherds delight.

Today’s harvest 🌱

Have a wonderful day!