Every Little Thing's Gonna Be Alright...

Who isn't grateful for half price ice-cream?

For the past week or so, I’ve been joining in with the Salted Tail’s ‘Grateful Bedtime Stories'. It involves creating an Instagram ‘story’ listing three things you are grateful for on that particular day, just before you go to bed. And I have been finding it surprisingly difficult. 

If somebody asked me to list the things that I am generally grateful for, I wouldn’t struggle at all. 

Warm, cosy, fed - oh and a cat on the table!

I watch the news and there are daily reports of increasing numbers of people using food banks, struggling with the anathema that is Universal Credit and dreading the next knock on the door. So I am eternally grateful that I own my own home, I am warm and fed and the only knocks on the door are parcel deliveries or the window cleaner. 

He lurves me!

I have known times of hardship, and also loneliness but I now have a lovely husband who, astonishingly, loves the bones of me, despite the fact that these bones are better covered now than they have ever been. He doesn’t judge me and puts up with all my moods and grouches. Grateful? Of course I am.

I lurve them!

I am also lucky enough to have two children, two stepchildren and two adorable ‘step grandchildren’ who all get along, haven’t fallen out, still communicate with each other and with me. One of them even still lives at home - Okay, maybe not so grateful about that, but only because I know he would love to be financially able to move out! 

Loony, lovely family!

I am reasonably fit and well, despite my ongoing knee problems, and so are my family. We have had a couple of bereavements this year, but even these have served to draw us closer together through shared love and sadness.

So all told - and these things aren’t the half of it - I have very much to be grateful for. So why doesn’t it feel like it?

Stupid brain...

Primarily because my stupid brain finds it increasingly difficult to stop worrying about things that will probably never happen and prevent me living my life as I would like to. I am simultaneously convinced that my son is going to lose his job, my daughter is going to crash her car (again - she does have previous…), I’m going to run out of money, my husband is going to stop loving me, I have deep vein thrombosis / breast cancer / motor neurone disease…(delete according to the day of the week!) 

When I write all these things down, I can see how ridiculous, nay ludicrous they sound. But I can’t quieten my mind enough to focus on the simple things that I am grateful for and that make life worth living. I fully appreciate the big things - it’s the little things I need to work on. 

Stay awake for helpful tips...

I am currently listening to an audiobook sent to me by my daughter, who pretty much has me sussed. It’s called ‘The Worry Trick’ by David A Carbonell, and talks about how your brain tricks some people (me) into not only worrying about a variety of things that may never happen but also into worrying about worrying about things that may never happen. It’s been an interesting listen so far, and is making lots of sense about how anxieties affect your life. Haven’t got to the bit that offers any help yet though - I keep falling asleep! At least its helped my insomnia!

Fresh bed linen - another joyful, little thing...

I’m going to continue with #thankfulbedtimestories. I think it’s good for me to recognise little things in my life without contriving to be thankful for them. Hopefully, as time goes on they’ll become less food or drink orientated!

Sing along - you know you want to!

As I drove home from shopping yesterday, a song came on the radio that I was immediately thankful for - ‘Three Little Birds’ by Bob Marley. It made me smile, sing along and I was very grateful to Graham Norton for playing it! 

🎶Don’t worry about a thing, because every little thing’s gonna be alright🎶 

So Much Better than a Bucket List...

©Rob Ryan

When did ‘bucket lists’ become a thing? Was it when the film of the same name was showing on the big screen? (Shockingly that was ten years ago!) Whenever it was, I was reminded of mine, for two reasons, last week.

1. My lovely friend Eleanor over at The Salted Tail blogged about 30 things that she wants to achieve before she turns 30, next September (read her list here)
2. I was facing a general anaesthetic last Friday, and that always focusses your mind on your own mortality - did anyone ever NOT think that they were never going to wake up?

I remembered writing a list of ’25 Things to do Before I Die!’(note the jaunty exclamation mark, showing that I don’t really think I’m going to die), so I asked my husband to find it on the depths of the hard drive and print it out for me. Turns out my bucket list is rubbish. It claims to be 25 things, but I only reached 17 on my list. 

Not exactly adventurous!

This adequately demonstrates my total lack of imagination and derring do! I must’ve written the list about the time of the film, because ‘Marry Brian’ was on the list, and I did that in 2008! To be fair, I have achieved 9 out of the 17 things, but some of them were not exactly challenging! Along with ‘Marry Brian’ was the separate item of ‘Move in with Brian’, which turned out to be one and the same thing. Also,’Sort out my facial hair’ was achieved, but now its all grown back, so I probably only deserve half a point for that! (FYI, nothing works, and I never go far without my tweezers!)

So, out of 17 items, I have realistically achieved 7.5 of them, and given that another one was ‘See Norwich play in the Premiership again’ - ticked off but not exactly down to me - I can probably only claim 6.5. In ten years…

I was there - I get some credit, right?

Now as I clearly woke up after my op, and I’m not planning on shuffling off this mortal coil anytime soon, I hopefully have plenty of time to work on the rest of my list. But it begs the question ‘If I’m that bothered then why haven’t I done them?’ 

The truth is, I’m not really a bucket list fan. I’ve done lots of things not on my list, which could easily warrant a place - going to the British Grand Prix,

Not on the list...

taking my husband to the Minack Theatre,

Not on the list...

taking the grandchildren to Legoland,

Not on the list...

getting my kit off in front of a camera - see, I must be up to 25 things now!

So not on the list!

It seems I don’t really need a list - I manage to do things without one, and the things I really love wouldn’t make it onto most people’s lists anyway. I’m not an abseiling, zipwiring, mountain climbing kind of woman. I enjoy seeing new places and experiencing new things, but I get just as much pleasure from an evening at home with my family, playing silly games or watching TV. Would this change if I were to receive news of a life threatening or life changing condition? Of course not - in fact I am sure it would make me want to cherish and spend more time with the people I love, and that hopefully love me. 

Should be on the list!

The print at the top of this blog sums it up for me: 

• Can we? Shall we? One day very soon, let us go away together. Just you and me. Can we? Shall we? Call in sick one day and travel to the sea and hold hands all day. Can we? Shall we? Eat our sandwiches on the train. Get drunk on fresh air and come home tired and never tell anyone…Ever (Rob Ryan, 2011)

It makes me smile every day!

My daughter bought this print for me for my 60th birthday. It hangs on my living room wall and I look at it every day. For me, this is what life should be about - treasuring time with loved ones - partners, children, friends - and appreciating every single moment. So much better than a bucket list.

Who needs a bucket list?

Let them go - they usually come back!

Kitchen sink???

This weekend, thousands of parents will be taking their children off to university. My niece is one of those parents, and has been dreading the day since, well, probably forever! Letting go of our children is a very difficult but necessary part of parenting. When they are little, we force ourselves to leave them with grandparents or childminders, then pre-school, infant, junior, secondary schools, each time leaving them a bit further away or encouraging them to cycle, walk or catch the bus with friends. You hope that they will become increasingly independent as they move into apprenticeships or sixth form and then comes the day that they want to move away! And for many, that day is now.

Because of my great niece, I’ve been thinking about both when my daughter went to uni, and also back to when I went to college back in the - deep breath - seventies!

Ah, the trousers, the belts...

Even in the time since I took my daughter for the first time, in 2004, things have changed considerably. We did have texting and a rudimentary form of messenger, and I could speak to her on her phone if I needed to. Except when she dropped it down the loo, but that is another story… When she moved into her first student digs, she had no idea who she would be sharing with, what they would be like or even where the accommodation was in relation to her college. Nowadays freshers have the chance to chat to their ‘roomies’ on Facebook or other social media and feel that they ‘know’ them before having to share a flat. They also know that, should they feel homesick, they can FaceTime their parents whenever they want. 

However, my daughter did benefit, as do most students these days, from her parent stuffing the car full of just about everything she owned, as well as the obligatory saucepans, duvets and toilet brush and driving her down the A14 to Coventry to start her new adventure. This weekend, every other car on the road will be similarly stuffed, as excited freshers embark on the next chapter of their life while their parents determine not to cry, and try to ignore the knot in their stomach as they get closer to the moment that they have to leave to drive a much emptier car home. I had to do this homeward journey alone, as my stepson also started uni the same weekend, so my partner and I were driving a very similar cargo in opposite directions! And I cried! I was listening to Keane on the stereo - depressing at the best of times, and I still can’t hear some of their songs without a lump in my throat - and I cried.

Still makes me cry!

All the way home to an empty house. And I still cried. I messaged my daughter to let her know I’d arrived home and got a reply - ‘Just making cowboy hats out of cardboard boxes, then we’re off to a party!’ She didn’t take long to settle in!

My room in 1974 - I thought it was so cool!

I was talking to my brother about when we went away to college and he said, ‘I don’t know about you, but all I had was a train ticket and a suitcase.’ And he’s right. I didn’t have much more - my parents didn’t have a car so all I took to college was what I could fit into a trunk and send ahead by road, and what I could carry on the train. Admittedly I was in catered accommodation, so didn’t need saucepans, but it was quite a logistical challenge! Just as well personal computers hadn't been invented then. 

Still hiding in my loft - full of, and surrounded by detritus now!

It wasn’t until I experienced a child leaving home for uni that I realised how difficult it must have been for my parents. They had to see me off at the station, knowing that the only way they could get in touch with me was by letter or by waiting for me to call them from a  payphone. It honestly never occurred to me that they might have missed me, I was so wrapped up in my new life. If I wanted to talk to them, I had to collect my ten pence coins and queue for the phone box - in my final year I seemed to spend lots of time crying down a phone in the middle of Liverpool. I don’t know why I was more homesick that year than others, but it must have been awful for my mum, feeling helpless while I snivelled. 

Ah, the trousers, the cheesecloth smocks!

The worst part of all of this is that, by the time I realised what it would have been like for her, I couldn’t talk to her about it - she had died four years before my daughter went to uni. 

Being miles away from home in the days before the internet did have some benefits. My parents wrote to me every week and my siblings wrote to me too. It is a real shame that we seem to have lost the art of letter writing - those envelopes dropping onto the doormat each week meant so much, and I kept them for years. Re-reading them helped me in difficult times, reassuring me that I was subject to unconditional love. My dad even used to send me food parcels - chocolate, cheese and biscuits, packed in a shoe box and sent through the post. In your face Moonpig! And looking back, I’m sure we were more resilient and self-reliant for not being connected to the World through our phones - we even survived without pictures of cats!

Made my great niece a comfort sloth to take - who doesn't need a comfort sloth?

So, if you are taking a child to uni, miss them but don’t stifle them with Facetime! Allow them to make some mistakes without driving to their aid, and write them the odd letter. One that they can re-read when they need to, one that catches them unawares because they weren’t expecting it. Maybe even send them a food parcel. My parents were amazing, and if it worked for them, I see no reason why it shouldn’t work for you. 

And if you are a newbie student, study hard, have fun and keep your parents in the loop. You don’t have to tell them everything, although waiting until you urgently need them to deliver a new pc before you tell them you've had your lip pierced is maybe not such a good idea(You know who you are..), but letting them know you are fine is the least you can do - after all, you’ll need them at the end of the year to pick you up!

A very good reason not to camp...

Never be the same again!

Despite being of a certain age, I like to think that I embrace new technology - I’m writing this on my MacBook and use my iPad and iPhone on a daily basis. I enjoy online shopping and social media, and love how I can engage with people with similar interests on Instagram, even though I don't know them in person.

There is, however, one technological phenomenon that leaves me cold. Pop-up tents. Now I have been camping, in my dim and distant past, and remember all too well the stress, arguments and threats of divorce that accompanied the end of a long journey and the erecting of a piece of canvas using sticks, pegs and bits of string. So I can understand why someone wanted to improve that experience, but all they did was shift it to the other end of the holiday. Pop-up tents may pop up, but they sure as hell don’t pop down again. And this technology hasn't limited itself to tents - you can get pop-up gazebos, garden shelters and windbreaks. And they are all equally impossible to ‘unpop’.

Already wonky - or on the huh!

We bought a, thankfully, cheap child-sized shelter for the garden when our grandchildren were small. We duly popped it up on a sunny day, and it was great - affording much needed protection from the sun and a place to enjoy a picnic. At the end of the day, the children went home, we tidied the garden and optimistically fetched the bag for the shelter. Fools! The world is divided into two groups of people - one group that can unpop a popup shelter, and one that can’t. What I discovered on that fateful Sunday evening was that my family is entirely made up of those in the latter group. After struggling for some considerable time, we resorted to the instructions. 

You're having a laugh!

That made things even worse! I can follow a recipe, I can operate a washing machine and drive a car, but these instructions made absolutely no sense. We ended up with a bent and mangled shelter, that got thrown behind a shelving unit in the spare bedroom!

This annoyance is only equalled by the smugness of the people who happen to fall within the ‘able to unpop’ group, who can, with a few seemingly simple hand movements, put a huge tent in a tiny bag. Someone needs to tell them that it isn't polite to smile and say, ‘It’s so easy, don't know what all the fuss is about’ 

Ugh -so smug!

I’m convinced that the ability to unpop a tent is genetically defined, in the same way that some people can roll their tongues. If you can’t do it the first time you try, then you will never be able to learn how to. I’m sure someone could carry out some research and write a useful dissertation about it - at least that way the non-unpoppers would know to stop trying!

I know I am not alone - last Sunday we sat on the cliffs at Southwold, eating our sausage rolls and watching a man confidently pick up his pop-up shelter and start to fold it. To give him his due, he persevered for at least ten minutes before throwing it aside and folding up the blanket instead. His wife (I’m presuming that, because they had three children, but anyway she was a she) picked it up and, without doing anything at all, put it in the bag. The smugness swept up to the top of the cliff, and I swear she looked desperately round for someone to ‘high five’. Her partner just walked off...

Never been unpopped!

The next day I met up with some former colleagues for a picnic lunch. The host has a lovely garden and the children there played happily - some of them in a pop-up tent. We discussed the issues with folding them up, and she said,’Oh I can’t - I just throw it in the summer house!’

At least I can put this one away!

We have since bought a different sun shelter for the garden - this one has poles and strings and, while it takes longer to erect, at least I am confident in my ability to put it away at the end of the day!

A really special place!

So exciting!

Four years ago, when my son was working as a landscape gardener, he brought me home a fern for my developing shady garden. He was raving about the place that he’d bought it - Urban Jungle on the outskirts of Norwich - and told me I needed to visit.

Shady garden, 2013!

When we did, I was truly amazed. They had a huge collection of all the plants I love - ferns, hostas, grasses - and I wanted to buy them all. It was so different from the usual garden centres - just plants and pots, not a gnome or solar lamp in sight. At that time, they didn't even have a cafe. Just a kettle, mugs and an honesty box, next to a jar of homemade biscuits!

Urban Jungle, summer planting...huge plants!

Since then, we’ve visited many times. My daughter sent me a gift voucher one Mother’s Day, we’ve been intrigued by the kokedamas, and enthralled by their summer planting schemes. When we visited in June it was incredibly busy and we struggled to find a parking space. We soon discovered why - Café Jungle had opened in place of the kettle and biscuits! Occupying the area around the koi ponds, Urban Jungle had created an amazing space to eat incredible food. The tables and sofas (yes, sofas!) were cleverly hidden between huge plants so that it almost felt as if the place was exclusively ours. Wonderful. 

Café Jungle Norfolk - lovely

We had a lovely lunch and I duly spent a small fortune on plants and we came home, bemoaning the fact that it wasn't a little bit closer…

So how excited were we when we were driving from Beccles to the A12 to see a sign saying ‘Coming soon - Urban Jungle’! We’d heard on the grapevine that the old Evergreens Garden Centre was being sold, but never imagined the coming of Urban Jungle Suffolk! It opened on August 5th, and despite following their Facebook and Instagram feeds, I struggled to imagine how they would be able to use the vast space available to recreate what is so special about Urban Jungle Norfolk. Well, after our first visit yesterday, I can honestly say I needn’t have worried. I loved it all from the moment I saw the welcome sign! 

So many plants...

The outside area is clearly still a work in progress - plants take time to establish themselves after all - but there was something to make me gasp around every corner. Prehistoric looking plants with spiky leaves that sadly won’t fit in my garden, humungous tree ferns that make mine look sadly lacking and a whole shed full of cacti and succulents!

All the succulents!

And then there was Café Jungle Suffolk. It is housed in what was the ‘gift shop and café’ of the old place, but has been completely refitted. Nooks, crannies, mezzanines and mirrors. 

Nooks, crannies, mirrors, cakes!

Truly wonderful. Again, you feel as if you are the only people in there - in fact after we had finished lunch I was amazed to see so many other people eating! 

Delicious toastie

All the food at Café Jungle is gluten-free so I wondered what my toastie would be like. I needn’t have worried, it was utterly delicious. They have managed to source gluten free bread that actually tastes like bread! Sadly, we didn't have room for the brownies we could smell baking - a good excuse to go back!

I wanted everything...

Dotted amongst the tables in the café are displays full of houseplants and stylish and unusual homewares. Oh dear, how to choose? Eventually we settled on a beautiful planter and an allegedly simple to care for plant to go in it. We also bought a bigger planter for outside and a tiny succulent for my daughter. 

Settled for this!

I don’t usually blog about places but Urban Jungle Suffolk completely entranced me - I know that it is somewhere I can go that will cheer me throughout the year, with it’s beautiful plants, knowledgeable staff and it’s yummy food. You should visit - it’s only down the road!

Shady garden, 2017!