Following on from last week, I've now finished this week's MAKE FILMS assignment. Here is a little video about one of my favourite things to do....gardening. Specifically, growing vegetables and fruit - and then cooking and eating what I grow!
I'm really lucky to have a garden (a rarity in London) so I don't take it for granted and am grateful for every bean, potato, tomato and stalk of rhubarb my little patch has produced so far.
Learning to garden has been very much a trial and error thing for me - sometimes I have successes, but more often than not things don't go according to plan!
The greatest lesson gardening has taught me - which I try to apply to life in general - is that you have to let go of the things you can't control. You might take every precaution necessary to protect your plants from squirrels, slugs and birds, but then there might be a drought, or a storm, or you'll pick something or dig something up too early, and all your work is down the drain. You can't take these things personally, but merely chalk it up to experience, process the lessons for next time, and move on.
It's also one of the most absorbing, calming, lose-yourself-in-the-moment tasks I can think of. Time stops for a while and you find yourself talking to your basil plants or watching in fascination as bees, pollen drunk, float from flower to flower.
I'm always learning, trying to go with the flow of nature and the seasons, and every now and then there's a delicious triumph.
Happiness comes with a bit of dirt under the nails, I think.
PS: Turn the sound on for music - and spray bottle sound effects! Music is 'Take Me Higher' by Jahzzar - http://betterwithmusic.com/