Seeing the beauty, window boxes, birds & boats

Window boxes, dreaming & shared garden out back

The parsley in my window boxes is over flowing. Today I planted more boxes up with wild rocket – the calendula crowded the first sowings out. I have coriander seeds to plant too. The shared garden out back is giving lots of cucumbers, courgettes and beans but the tomatoes are slow this year. Potatoes should be ready soon, and sweet corn, then the second crop of beetroot.

One day, I’m going to have a piece of land to design a food garden, a little forest garden too, both flowing with wild life and hidden spaces. There will be a greenhouse on a south facing wall and a potting shed. Up in the treetops, beyond the compost, I’ll make a treehouse with a rope ladder and sit up there on rainy days, with the rope ladder pulled in if I feel like hiding.

I will invite friends, and sometimes I will take off to surf the gentle turquoise ocean, under blue skies and sun that dapples the waves. I might hide under the twinkling surface of the sea, rippling like clusters of diamonds, to take a break from life’s little hiccups. Then I’ll return and grow beetroots just beyond a hazel arch covered in jasmine and honeysuckle, and sweet, sweet, smelling roses.

Photo by Tim Cooper – unsplash

Or perhaps, I will grow orange and lemon trees instead. With figs and olives underplanted with rosemary and lavender, comfrey and flowers for the bees. And sit at an old table playing back gammon with friends while munching tapas and gazing out at the world rising up and falling away, on a sunny blue-skied day, where far far in the distance there is a little boat coming into shore.

Photo by Hazel Ozturk – unsplash

Photo by Max – unsplash

Photo by Dan Gold – unsplash

Then again I may simply surf the ocean of life’s arisings.

Or sit like an owl in a tree.

Photo by Eric Karits – unsplash

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Today I woke to see the shadow of a bird through the curtain, balancing on a scaffolding pole by my window, we nearly got to know each other.

Little birds were flying in and out of the tree out front all afternoon yesterday, two tried to fly into my sitting room. They were so full of life and cheer. It was an underwater day, summer got lost and everything outside my windows became drenched in rain.

The sky solid grey, the red tiled rooftops aglow again. Thirsty ground turned dark. Cracks disappeared. Moist soil fed roots. Tiny creatures drank. Nourishment streamed, refreshing the ground beneath the tiny feet of robins and rabbits. The whole day given over to a rain dripped momentary hibernation.

Some of the day was completely still, nothing moving, no sound heard. At other times cars swooshed, tree branches waved their leaves around, and children’s laughter ebbed and flowed on air currents, as seagulls swooped through the solid grey. Somewhere, beyond this cotton wool wall of dense cloud-filled sky, the sun shone.

Tim Foster – unsplash

At night I saw a young fox, it slipped behind a parked car, and then was gone. Disappeared into the dark. I haven’t seen the crow for a while, or heard the cha tak cha tak of the magpie, but I did see the magpie on a roof further down the road, near the red post box.

Joy dots

Parsley in the sunlight

Little birds flurrying

Tree branches swaying

Kind friends

Joyful laughter

Blue skies

Orange trees, right there in front of me

Floating in Mediterranean seas

Golden sand

Eating tapas on balmy evenings

Deep red cherries

Bees on lavender

Till Wednesday, wishing you the warmest,

Lucy x

Header photo by Ray Hennessy – unsplash