Late Learner

Since I last had the spare minutes to write a blog - I am in fact busier now than when I was working full-time, I have started two business/enterprise courses. Both are funded and both run by an amazing company Tree Shepherd. A very appropriate name for me as all my interest at the moment is in fulfilling a dream about creating a garden nursery, peaceful space where I can have a workshop to grow my beloved Kokedama (www.kokedamalondon.com), a space above where said Kokedama can hang in all their splendour and where people can come along to see them up close and personal. It would not be too much to ask if then those people who see them and fall in love, as I did, would part with money and buy from me. I would thus be in that happy place where the thing that gives me the most pleasure earns me a living...........

The one thing I know I need to learn the most is how this social media platform works in a joined up way - this week I have been toying with Twitter, Facebook, Instagram - I've spent time with the perfect person who enthused with me about how I might start a business using this amazing array of 'branding' stories on and across the social media solar system - I was away with the virtual highway social media fairies, totally immersed, hurtling along in fact and then I just tried to apply it, on my own, without a 'youngun' in sight - I just spent a few hours (where does that time go?), it's 02.59am......02.59AM!!!!!! I'm writing a blog at 3 in the MORNING.

How much of an impact on he world have I made - err?

Time to stop and go to sleep, I'll see how I got on tomorrow.

If only blogs could smell!

Hyacinths, who knew they smell so powerfully, such a wonderful, heady scent.

I am currently making Kokedama to sell through the coming months, you can see some of them at kokedamalondon.com but I have also been scouring charity shops and boot fairs for bowls in which to plant bulbs. One that I found was so Japanese in nature that I even tried my hand at my first bonsai - it's a crab apple! At the moment I am waiting for the last apples to drop - all the leaves left weeks ago - then I will be cutting down the long branches to form a smaller tree. I am loving all this experimentation. In  the kokedama I planted some dwarf crocus bulbs a couple of months ago and they are just peeping through now.

Can't wait to see if the seeded ones emerge in the spring.

Last night I spruced up my CV and wrote a covering letter which I plan to distribute to my favourite garden centres - got to cover all bases. I will be winning the lottery later on so it is probably a fruitless exercise.

January 2016 - Time for action

Today I woke early, I was going out for a long walk with my sister, she bought me the beautiful piece of indian embroidered cloth above from the exhibition on indian textiles at the V&A. We had planned, if the weather were to be dry, to do the Beverley Brook Walk, roughly from New Malden to Putney following the river. The walk is 6.5 miles and takes (it is said) about 3 hours. The sun was shining at 9am so I was eager to get up, get ready and get going. Unfortunately, big sister was not feeling great, a sore throat and cough - in no condition to go traipsing over wet parks and commons for 3 hours.

I turned my attention to emails, catching up with pre-Xmas jobs, setting my mind once again to trying to stay off benefit and earn some kind of income.

My massage work now has a few clients, my confidence in that is coming along in leaps and bounds but massage for many is a luxury they can't afford. I've decided to try to find an organisation that can offer subsidised massage therapy to people who need it the most but who have not got that kind of money to spare. I'd like to offer the Ayurvedic facial rejuvenation to older people - it's a very loving, nurturing treatment that relieves stress and promotes deep relaxation.

I have been selling on a stall in South Lambeth Road but there aren't many plants available at the moment - at the end of January on 30th (Saturday) I am organising a Boot Fair on Wilcox Close, everyone loves a boot fair don't they?

So, I did the necessary couple of hours on the computer and then just had to leave the house to enjoy some winter sun and fresh air. As is often the case, when I leave the house and need some nature, I make my way to Clapham Common and then up to Richmond, gravitating to Petersham Nurseries for lunch, plants, meadows, fields, river, trees, birds - breath, relax, enjoy.

I did and dreamt of winning or earning enough money to live in the area, near the river, of working in Petersham Nurseries a couple of days a week, of not worrying about the lack of money coming in and my savings getting low.

Life is for living, I really don't want to do anything anymore that doesn't make me happy, that doesn't speak to my soul and enable it to soar.

Christmas, Kokedama and Katakata Gallettes

Geranium, grass Kokedama

My Kokedama business has taken up a lot of my time lately, apart from the buying and selling for the Saturday stall at Tate Community Street Market.

This week I gave a one minute presentation at The Brix, to three judges, organised by Tree Shepherd. If accepted I may be eligible for the Back to Business support in January - attending 2 hours, one day a week for 8 weeks, in order to get help with setting up a small business and branding. I did make a website check it out here kokedamalondon.com

I am also selling Christmas plants, trees and goodies at the Tate Community Street Market - a very new enterprise on South Lambeth road/Wilcox Close - we want to try to help keep the library (Tate) open and to this end are planning on opening a regular street market, we are planning a launch day in a few weeks. It's hard work and volunteers at the moment are thin on the ground but if we can make it work it will be great for the area and for the future of the library.

I have to say that the consultation forms regarding both the Tate and Carnegie libraries are just awful - totally misleading and I am blown away by the amount of young people who use the Tate for study, young families on the weekends and the older community for social get togethers and learning - shame on the council for wanting to change any of that to make a gym (cleverly disguised in the documents as a 'well-being centre'). If those plans go ahead the library part of the LIBRARY will be a shelf of books and one computer!!!!

Rant over....as you were.

The other highlight of my week was on Sunday when my daughter took me to Katakata for lunch - O my gosh, that restaurant is so amazing, the space is beautiful, the smell is beautiful, the food so, so good. the coffee, the fresh juice, the plants, the books, the furniture. You know when a place gets it just right? This one did. O and as well as gallettes, they have a range of crepes on offer too.

Heaven - music is pretty good as well!

Pruning, selling Xmas Trees and reindeers

December and Christmas just around the corner - I haven't been outside too much lately - the rain and the wind are part of the reason but I've been busy trying to grow my various businesses. I still have to make an income and it's proving much harder than I expected.

Never mind, it will happen, I just have to have faith, which I do, in spades.

So, the only job I have completed successfully over the past couple of weeks has been to prune one of the fig trees, the one near the house. I know the more you prune the stronger the growth and these figs are aggressive in their habits but the one nearer the house is so dense now that it shades everything else, including my beautiful bay standard - so I cut it back to almost a third! Felt drastic but the tree will appreciate it - and so will everything underneath. I also pruned a hibiscus, white, in the front garden. It's a beautiful shrub and a prolific flower producing kind white petals, white stamen, so cool - at its height every branch has blossom, breathtaking.

Years ago I bought three cordylines in East Street market for £1.00, yes £1 for the three!!! I put two in the ground close together and one in a pot by the front door. The two I planted are now 10' tall and triffid like, they flower every year now. Luckily they have grown past the windows, for a few years it was a bit dark and dingy in the lounge!  I haven't the heart to cut them down and they make the best landmark for anyone visiting the house.

I trimmed down the grape vine that grows from next door, right over my back door and kitchen window, it will produce grapes every year, maybe next year they will be edible and not the sour offerings we have now. I pray every year that next door won't dig it out, I love it.

I've been selling all things Christmas at South Lambeth Road Library, the Tate. We are trying to get a new community street market up and running to help support the library and bring a bit more vibrancy to the surrounding area. The people who live up there are happy to hear there may be a bit of shopping available next year. If anyone is interested in having a stall or hearing more about it I can send on the details. No doubt as I am more and more drawn into 'helping; I'll post the information here. We are working on a launch day for early next year, possibly February.

Xmas trees are hard work!!!! Hope I sell them on Saturday - visit if you can - it's in Wilcox Close, right alongside the Tate Library.

Last Saturday I went to Covent Garden to buy stock and five little reindeers caught my eye, they were planted with apple sized berries, normally I avoid the twee but they looked in need of a friend. A lovely young woman bought them and wanted more........I'll see if I can get them next week.

Not my reindeer, this beautiful heart shaped climber is actually passion flower, a house near me made it happen, I like seeing it, especially in the summer.

The fig tree on the left, the grapevine in the foreground, before I pruned it. The garden looks very autumn.

Obsessed with Kokedama

Anyone out there want to know how to make them?

Lost and found

autumn and now cold

crab apple

So, today I got outside but the weather has now turned and my hands were freezing! A wonderful shade of mottled red, orange and purple.

They soon warmed up after I planted a few bulbs, I just have a feeling the squirrels will find them before the day is out.

I put out some fat balls for the birds only a couple of days ago, one set of three has already been devoured by those squirrels......so greedy.

This morning I tackled the cupboard under the stairs - its one of those jobs that takes an hour but fester for a year, or in my case, longer. So I threw out stuff that had absolutely no use to me at all, it didn't have any use ten years ago but I would hang on to it. One bag had two old mobile phones that were in pieces and an old walkman, about a hundred mobile phone instruction books - what on earth????

I did come across my first pair of Birkenstocks, sitting unloved and forlorn on top of a paint tray, nursing ten years of dust. They scrubbed up rather well, despite the little hole over my little toe. I loved these birkies, friend of mine in Amsterdam bought them for me when the children were young and I spent so many wonderful holidays with her and her children, either there or here.

I have returned to Friday yoga at Yoga Point, Terry Morin gives a beautiful class, the class is for older bodies and really feels beneficial. I still attend the Ferndale Leisure Centre class on Wednesday and appreciate that both are helping me with my old bones - sometimes I feel so stiff.

Looking forward to giving two facial rejuvenation treatments next week - I am determined to gain confidence and keep pushing on until I make a business for myself, this and the plants are what I love, what makes me happy and I know that if I put in the effort and the positive vibration I will eventually earn a living out of them both. I read this the other day on a yoga instagram that I subscribe to, I believe it.

'the things that excite you are not random. They are connected to your purpose. Follow them.'