The cherry blossom image is very important to me as a sign of hope and of the fragility, the fleeting nature of life. I have one tattooed on my wrist and even called my business Cherry Blossom Tattoo (on hiatus). Just look at the abundance of blossom here...
This was the bed I attacked with such gusto that I couldn't stop until it was cleared one weekend in March. Andrew was annoyed with me as I completely burnt myself out. But as I wrote later that day I was using that clearing 'as a desperate attempt to use my negative thoughts and internal anger for a good purpose...'constructive desconstruction' is a phrase I often use, I don't know how I came up with it, but it couldn't have been more true today'.
I was trying to save that tree and give it the life it deserved and in a very literal sense (in my muddled mind) I was trying to do the same for me.
Well here she is at the bottom of the field, hacked up to bits and never to be put back together. I feel very embarrassed to say this but I sat down there and grieved a while. It was like losing a part of me and having a dream smashed into many bits.
I guess I don't talk about things like this often, but allotmentherapy for me isn't about the rotation system of even planting seeds - it's about the wonder of watching plants grow and tending to them, protecting them and most importantly, having a connection with them. It all sounds very hippy dippy but that's me I suppose.
So here she is....missing, gone...
I am getting a new one, it must be a 'Stella' and it must live a full life where I can watch and find peace its nobbly branches, those buds and that blossom! If I'm lucky maybe in years to come it will come to fruit for me. Plus I am getting a white climber for the fruit arch - of course I ran it by Andrew but it was happening!
So for me I have to end on a note of beauty or I'll get all sad again, despite all the other glorious seedlings and plants we have and the progress made that same weekend.
I made an 'Ode to Spring' with a load of things from the hedgerow behind our shed and two glorious blossom heavy branches of my old tree....
Much love and many hugsCarriex