The Lost Way . . . Found?

Hello friends!

The recent incident surrounding the wanton act of vandalism in which the Sycamore Gap tree was brutally felled {is it too strong to use the word murdered?} awoke feelings of deep passion across our Sceptered Isle, and indeed further afield.  Oh, my friends, it awoke a fiery passion in me too!  As the anger played out in my mind it gave way to more positive emotions, more meaningful and relevant to me personally, and it made me realise how much I love where I live, my small but incredibly beautiful corner of this one unique and precious planet which we share with each other, and future generations.  I would passionately defend it to the bitter end!  Many I know feel the same way.  Perpetrators with purpose of malintent be warned, do not invade, for you will surely be met by a gathering of pitch fork wielding defenders in the mode of Jemima Nicolas and her band of fearless Welsh women!

Seriously though, in those moments, I wanted to write about the tree I had never personally seen to expunge the unwanted {unhealthy} negative feelings that emerged.  I began to write but it was at that point that I failed, my writing muse is gone and I came to a conclusion that my blog has lost it's way.  My blog on the tree was short and pitiful.  Others have written far more eloquently and better informed than me.  The realisation that my blog has lost it's way was painful, as it wanders aimlessly without a guide in a strange and foreign land.   Then again, did it ever have a way?  Questions surfaced.  Why do I blog?  What is my blog about?  What purpose does it serve?  I'm not really sure.  I fell into it blogging by chance, because some fifteen or so years ago I was running with a group of creative people who, one by one, dipped their toes into the world of blogging, so I suppose it was bound to follow that I would do the same.  Most of them now no longer blog, or do so very rarely.  I am one of a very few who kept going.

My first blog was called "Tales From A Celtic Heart".  I wrote on a miscellany of topics, mostly my misadventures as I traipsed about the Welsh byways near my home with my new found love of digital photography.  Over time the novelty wore off, it became a chore to write regularly and with the enjoyment gone out of it.  I have just looked back at my first short, tentative entry.  Reading the comments, all supportive and encouraging, I see a list of names, many people long gone out of my life, moved on as we do, but one or two are still virtual friends on Facebook.

I abandoned blogging, only to revive my interest some years later by creating this very blog you are reading now,.  It took a different track from Tales From A Celtic Heart, for it started out as a prose and photographic record of my solo efforts to take care of my late father's garden after he died in September 2009, in fact fourteen years to this very day I am writing this.  Where has that time gone?  It was only yesterday he was digging the soil over and harvesting crops of potatoes and beans for the very last time.

Then I began to stray from gardening.  My diary waned, and I wrote about this; I wrote about that; in retrospect I realised I had returned to my roots of writing about my ramblings in the countryside.  Then, I wrote about nothing at all and became one of those bloggers that followers wonder what happened to them when they disappear for months on end for no reason at all.  Somewhere in the middle came another blog, "The Adventures of Treasure Bear and Other Animals". Returning to this blog, I wrote about the area, some local and Welsh traditions. I took you to The Really Wild Festival and for several years we went out and about on Saint David's Day.  I wrote less and less about gardening, and more and more about cooking and baking, crafting and making, painting, and once more traipsing about the byways and lanes surrounding my cottage.  I enjoyed writing passages of descriptive prose and narrative to accompany each photo, which you seemed to enjoy. Then, I barely wrote at all between 2016 and 2018 as I was care giver for my late Mum.  When someone offered, kindly, to take us out for an afternoon, my camera went too and a blog inevitably followed.

After Mum passed,  I was like my blog, lost in a foreign land.  I had to reclaim my life, find myself, either revive who I was or discover a new and different me as it became clear that after nearly twelve years as a carer for both parents, the identity of my blog wasn't the only thing missing.  I made plans, which included a return to blogging.  

With several years to go before reaching State Pension age, and no plans to retire until at least 70 years of age, I returned to work, but shortly after I did, my employer, the National Trust, had a major reshuffle, everyone had to reapply, and cutbacks of 50% meant last in first out, so in January 2020 I found myself job hunting at the same time as the first whispers from Wuhan emerged.  A strange feeling of foreboding seeded in my stomach.  I tried to ignore it.  As I had already decided to keep working until at least 70, I decided to take an adult gap year.  With careful and frugal planning I could afford it, so I would take time to regroup, to grieve for my mother and, ignoring the tremors in my left hand that had been there since 2015, I would go out and about exploring and blogging about my days out. It would replace that I had not been on holiday since 2006 when I spent a week in Manchester.   I had managed to secure a copy of the much sought after, long out of print, Twr Y Felin Guide in good condition and planned to follow it over the summer months.  The whispers from Wuhan crept closer, sinister shadows in the night.  The feeling of foreboding grew as I tried to sweep it away as I made my plans.

I got comprehensive paper copies of all the three counties, formerly Dyfed, bus timetables and began to plan days out to Tenby, Newport, Carew, Cardigan and more, with picnic lunches and snacks from the local deli as a treat. Shorter distance coast path walks, rock pool exploring beach adventures, and traipsing the paths less trodden were planned for nearer to home. They would fill in the days between the between the longer days out, and I would taste test as many brands of ice cream as I could along the way.

 

I reveled, deliriously, in making plans of exploration for the Spring and Summer months ahead as the Winter winds howled about my cottage. Then, I found this gem online and decided to explore pilgrimages, and added it to my list of books to help me plan.   A shadow grew alongside the whispers.

I planned a series of blogs on the magnificent St Davids Cathedral, sitting as it does, nestled in the valley just a stones throw from home, with particular emphasis on the Victorian encaustic tiles and mason's marks.

By the end of the month, the Wuhan whispers were getting louder, and on every news bulletin, my stomach felt like lead for days on end and I could no longer ignore the feeling of foreboding, as something in my primal senses said something big was coming and I knew my tentative plans were being overwritten by some higher power.  Still, ever hopeful I was wrong, I added more books of local interest to the list for exploring, but something was looming ever closer from the east, and we all know what happened next.

As our world span out of control into something strange and alien, time passed, lockdowns came and went, my tremors increased and spread to my left leg.  I could no longer ignore them and in September 2021 I received a diagnosis of Parkinson's Disease.  It was not welcomed, but it was expected.  Now every word I type is hard work and often causes frustration, I can no longer hold my camera steady, my life changing in ways I don't even want to think about.  Not yet.  Not so soon . . .

My retirement, my Autumn years, like my blog, are taking a very different route to what I'd planned and hoped for.  And I have just done what I seem to do best . . . digress!

In 2021 I returned to making art.  I'm afraid at times I rather swamped you with my efforts, but your responses have been generous and encouraging.  I plan to continue to create as long as I am now able to.  And blog about it.  I am even thinking about selling my work.

If you are still here and reading, Thank You!

So, where do I go from here?  What direction does my blog take in the future?  Does it even have a future?  I think so, I hope so.   Even after putting my thoughts down I am none the wiser.  If anything I am more confused than when I began.  Yet, somehow I have returned to my roots, photos with descriptive narrative seems to lie at the core, to which I always return.  The only thing I know for certain is it is highly unlikely I will ever garden again, nor take long exploring walks into the country lanes or out on the coast path.  This makes me very sad indeed, it is the loss of two things that meant everything to me.  Never take for granted that you have an able body for that can change in an instant.

However, I have literally thousands of photos, mostly flowers and landscape with a strong leaning towards macro, and, of course, of my beloved Iceland, through which I am currently sorting.  I have a notion that I will be using them.  You won't mind, will you, if I do that?  Then I shall resume writing about this and that, for I've concluded it's more important to keep my brain active with this and that than it is to ponder which direction to take.  I would rather ramble than do nothing.  It brings me great satisfaction to write these days.

So back to where this monologue began. I shall be writing about where I live with snips of local history. I shall return to writing, hopefully elegant, passages of descriptive narrative to go with my photographs.  I will write about Iceland and the local cathedral.  You may get some art, you may get to see something I've made, or you might even see a recipe popping up every now and then. Despite my bleating about losing my way, I'm afraid I'm too tired to even think about trying any harder than that these days.  I sleep a lot during the day due to side effects of my medication, and this is impacting on my energy levels, as you can imagine.  I have been given two choices. I think of them as Hobson's choice. One is to continue as I am. The other is to reduce the medication and see an increase in tremors. Like I said, Hobson's choice.

Well, perhaps it's time to proofread this and publish it before I go on any longer not making sense. If you've arrived here thank you for listening and I hope you'll be along with me for the journey. If I've made sense, or if you have something to add, please don't hesitate to leave it in the comments.

Until next time

Stay well, stay safe

Debbie xx