Just about everything you write resonates with me on some level, Rukmini - from thoughts on The Secret Garden to this one....
When I had to have a big operation last December I did not make a conscious decision to stop drinking afterwards, but it happened anyway - I just didn't feel like it for ages and then thought that I should stay off it as doing so would help my body heal. It wasn't the first time - I go through periods of not drinking at all and then I have one or two and it becomes habitual again - that evening ritual of a G&T or wine. But this time, not so much, just very occasional. Which is fine if it is for the right reasons but not fine if it isn't. Case in point - on Friday I was in a bit of a funk about something. Usually when I am in a mood I go for a walk - by the end of it I have got rid of most of the negativity and feel more sanguine. But for some reason I couldn't and instead I was tempted into a glass of wine on an almost empty stomach and felt really horrible. I'm not going teetotal although I do think about - I don't want to make a holy cow out of anything and I don't think very occasional drinking is a bad thing - but in the meantime I am genuinely enjoy kombucha, or Fevertree's Lemon Tonic Water or just sparkling water with a dash of bitters in the evening.
PS. Love the wooden fruit! There is nothing more tactile or comforting! I have long coveted some wooden conkers I saw at Kew years ago - unlike real conkers they stay beautifully glossy and were so lovely to hold.
PPS. I RAGE when I see all the small birds in my olive tree pecking away at who knows what ignoring all the aphids on the climbing rose a mere 2 feet away. So annoying!
Aaah this is so similar! Agree I don’t think I’d get to the ‘oh, I’m NEVER drinking again’, but a gentler occasionally have it but just as happily not sits well. I should def try the going for a walk more often - because now I hit the snack cupboard and hoover up every chocolate in sight in lieu of a drink (might have even used Deliveroo to get a box of ferrero rocher in after a particularly bad evening - terrible!) Still, marginally better as no alcohol content…!
That’s really interesting you say that about chocolate because I found that having something with even a tiny amount of sugar around 6ish totally knocked any alcohol craving on the head. At the risk of sounding totally joyless, I have reduced my sugar intake a lot too, also because of inflammation. Not sure it is helping with that but early days. I have developed a nut butter and date habit which seems to fill the gap nicely.
That wooden fruit….drool!! I’m trying to think of a reason to buy for myself! As my son is 18, I can’t justify for him, but maybe being a children’s book illustrator could work…!
On the drinking… I was a BIG drinker, like you most of my late teen/adult life until I was 30 and got pregnant and it slowly dwindled after that. I think taking a 9 month break switched something, and for me, the hangovers began to feel unbearable, and then I began to feel I couldn’t juggle work with a hangover. Now I barely drink at all (a few drinks two or three times a year, if that), and I don’t miss it at all. I love my sober life! As you are doing, you start to appreciate the garden, the wooden fruit, the kids, in such a different and richer way! Anyway, getting lost in my own life there! I think you’re unimaginably brave, and I’m cheering you on! Xxx
Omg yes for research purposes. My mum thought they looked like something you could use for still life drawings - so for you, tax deductible!!
An absolute yes on the appreciation of things in a different way - you’ve put it perfectly! I think before I thought I couldn’t enjoy anything without a drink in my hand? So nice to find that’s not the case & that others have made a similar discovery.
I grew up in New Zealand. My family are British but my Dad's brother moved there too and became a winemaker. So I have always been around wine. But we were a glass of wine with dinner family, not a half bottle of wine with dinner family.
Even so, I have been drinking less in recent years, partly to save money and partly because of the empty calories. It's so hard to keep weight off in my 40s!
I had a playhouse as a child but it was cream with a brown roof and reminded me of the prefab classrooms at school. My mum helped me transplant some vinca minor from the front garden and in the shade next to the playhouse it grew tall in search of the sun. There wasn't much to do inside the playhouse though - a wooden vegetable stall would have been my kind of thing!
I've been in my garden nearly three years now and I'm still getting used to it. There is a small patch of "weeds" under an elder tree (itself a weed, I suppose) and I mostly leave it undisturbed just to see what surprises it has for me. So far there is Columbine, and an increasing amount of Nigella about to flower.
I'm off on holiday later this week and leaving a couple of local friends to look after the garden. So I've tried to keep it easy care so far. There are seedlings to pot up and put in the mini greenhouse today. If they don't get enough water I won't fret, I can buy plants when I get back. Most of the bare roots greened up and went into the borders yesterday - except for verbena bonariensis which I seem to fail to grow from seed, bare root or established plant. I think my friends can just spend five minutes waving the hose around - though it looks like there might be enough rain while I'm gone. I am also about to succeed in growing raspberries without really having a clue how.
Aah that is very good to hear that your raspberries flourished with minimal care! I’m not sure how mine will fare, had to move them further from the playhouse when I realised how thorny they are!
Your mum sounds like me with the planting by your playhouse! Ours was a plastic & PVC Barbie wendyhouse - we adored it & I can still remember the plastic smell as being quite pleasant - clearly some wish fulfilment upgrading the girls to wooden though!
I think I planted it three summers ago and this is the first year it's done anything... But it's EXPLODED this year and I had to scramble for bamboo supports and netting to cover it. It's breaking out of the netting now but I've decided I can leave some for the birds
My boys had a wooden market stall with little baskets and fruit and veg. It was so lovely. I’d set it up beautifully then by the end of the day it was total carnage. 😩😂
Ahahaha. It is always carnage at the end. I suggested a Mary Poppins style cleanup the other day, which went badly as the toys didn’t tidy themselves away 😂
I absolutely LOVE everything about this piece - and I hope I don’t sound condescending when I say WELL BLOODY DONE, booze wise. (All being well, I hope I’ll be celebrating three years of sobriety at the end of June.) I’m definitely trying that margarita. Have you tried the Friexenet AF cava? It’s my favourite one, it doesn’t leave me thinking ‘I could have just had Appletiser.’ X
The absolute joy of stocking that mini market stall! I adore children's toys so much which is just as well because I've got five grandchildren to spoil rotten. (We've just bought our only granddaughter her first big bike and that took a LOT of consideration which I know you'll understand.)
As for drinking: I drank until I was about eighteen then stopped and didn't really begin again until a couple of years ago. I'm diabetic (LADA) so booze isn't the best fit and like many members of my family I experience a bad reaction to quite a lot of different kinds of booze ( flushing, headaches, perception of illness). But I have been able to tolerate the odd glass of wine and some cocktails of late ( like one per month!) which feels nice. I'm not looking to drink more though because like you, I'm wary of its negative impact on health -and looks ( the latter is shallow, I know!). I'm nearly 59 and I don't want to develop Drinker's Face.
Ahaha, I haven’t heard of drinker’s face! But nice to know I might avoid it by going down this path 😂
Aaah the bike shopping! Have to admit I left that one to my hisband, but he did take a LOT of care before Alba announced she wanted a bike ‘with pedals’ rather than the Which approved best balance bike. Back to square one…
Enjoy the toy food shopping! If your grandchildren are quite young, they might enjoy the ‘Nins’ made by Grapat too - mine love lining them up, changing their hats etc - I find them really pleasing too!
My mum was a functioning alcoholic and when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer, she stopped drinking entirely overnight (the radical excision surgery was a factor here as much as personal determination!) For the first time in twenty+ years, I cuddled my mum without smelling red wine first.
I don’t drink daily. I am not drinking at all at the moment because of digestive rage, but it’s very important to me that my children dont identify me by the smell of booze.
Thanks for the non-alc marg mix, I yearn.
Play food, glory be I spent so much money on that when my kids were your kids’ age. Le Toy Van *clutches heart*
Just about everything you write resonates with me on some level, Rukmini - from thoughts on The Secret Garden to this one....
When I had to have a big operation last December I did not make a conscious decision to stop drinking afterwards, but it happened anyway - I just didn't feel like it for ages and then thought that I should stay off it as doing so would help my body heal. It wasn't the first time - I go through periods of not drinking at all and then I have one or two and it becomes habitual again - that evening ritual of a G&T or wine. But this time, not so much, just very occasional. Which is fine if it is for the right reasons but not fine if it isn't. Case in point - on Friday I was in a bit of a funk about something. Usually when I am in a mood I go for a walk - by the end of it I have got rid of most of the negativity and feel more sanguine. But for some reason I couldn't and instead I was tempted into a glass of wine on an almost empty stomach and felt really horrible. I'm not going teetotal although I do think about - I don't want to make a holy cow out of anything and I don't think very occasional drinking is a bad thing - but in the meantime I am genuinely enjoy kombucha, or Fevertree's Lemon Tonic Water or just sparkling water with a dash of bitters in the evening.
PS. Love the wooden fruit! There is nothing more tactile or comforting! I have long coveted some wooden conkers I saw at Kew years ago - unlike real conkers they stay beautifully glossy and were so lovely to hold.
PPS. I RAGE when I see all the small birds in my olive tree pecking away at who knows what ignoring all the aphids on the climbing rose a mere 2 feet away. So annoying!
Aaah this is so similar! Agree I don’t think I’d get to the ‘oh, I’m NEVER drinking again’, but a gentler occasionally have it but just as happily not sits well. I should def try the going for a walk more often - because now I hit the snack cupboard and hoover up every chocolate in sight in lieu of a drink (might have even used Deliveroo to get a box of ferrero rocher in after a particularly bad evening - terrible!) Still, marginally better as no alcohol content…!
That’s really interesting you say that about chocolate because I found that having something with even a tiny amount of sugar around 6ish totally knocked any alcohol craving on the head. At the risk of sounding totally joyless, I have reduced my sugar intake a lot too, also because of inflammation. Not sure it is helping with that but early days. I have developed a nut butter and date habit which seems to fill the gap nicely.
That wooden fruit….drool!! I’m trying to think of a reason to buy for myself! As my son is 18, I can’t justify for him, but maybe being a children’s book illustrator could work…!
On the drinking… I was a BIG drinker, like you most of my late teen/adult life until I was 30 and got pregnant and it slowly dwindled after that. I think taking a 9 month break switched something, and for me, the hangovers began to feel unbearable, and then I began to feel I couldn’t juggle work with a hangover. Now I barely drink at all (a few drinks two or three times a year, if that), and I don’t miss it at all. I love my sober life! As you are doing, you start to appreciate the garden, the wooden fruit, the kids, in such a different and richer way! Anyway, getting lost in my own life there! I think you’re unimaginably brave, and I’m cheering you on! Xxx
Omg yes for research purposes. My mum thought they looked like something you could use for still life drawings - so for you, tax deductible!!
An absolute yes on the appreciation of things in a different way - you’ve put it perfectly! I think before I thought I couldn’t enjoy anything without a drink in my hand? So nice to find that’s not the case & that others have made a similar discovery.
I grew up in New Zealand. My family are British but my Dad's brother moved there too and became a winemaker. So I have always been around wine. But we were a glass of wine with dinner family, not a half bottle of wine with dinner family.
Even so, I have been drinking less in recent years, partly to save money and partly because of the empty calories. It's so hard to keep weight off in my 40s!
I had a playhouse as a child but it was cream with a brown roof and reminded me of the prefab classrooms at school. My mum helped me transplant some vinca minor from the front garden and in the shade next to the playhouse it grew tall in search of the sun. There wasn't much to do inside the playhouse though - a wooden vegetable stall would have been my kind of thing!
I've been in my garden nearly three years now and I'm still getting used to it. There is a small patch of "weeds" under an elder tree (itself a weed, I suppose) and I mostly leave it undisturbed just to see what surprises it has for me. So far there is Columbine, and an increasing amount of Nigella about to flower.
I'm off on holiday later this week and leaving a couple of local friends to look after the garden. So I've tried to keep it easy care so far. There are seedlings to pot up and put in the mini greenhouse today. If they don't get enough water I won't fret, I can buy plants when I get back. Most of the bare roots greened up and went into the borders yesterday - except for verbena bonariensis which I seem to fail to grow from seed, bare root or established plant. I think my friends can just spend five minutes waving the hose around - though it looks like there might be enough rain while I'm gone. I am also about to succeed in growing raspberries without really having a clue how.
Aah that is very good to hear that your raspberries flourished with minimal care! I’m not sure how mine will fare, had to move them further from the playhouse when I realised how thorny they are!
Your mum sounds like me with the planting by your playhouse! Ours was a plastic & PVC Barbie wendyhouse - we adored it & I can still remember the plastic smell as being quite pleasant - clearly some wish fulfilment upgrading the girls to wooden though!
I think I planted it three summers ago and this is the first year it's done anything... But it's EXPLODED this year and I had to scramble for bamboo supports and netting to cover it. It's breaking out of the netting now but I've decided I can leave some for the birds
My boys had a wooden market stall with little baskets and fruit and veg. It was so lovely. I’d set it up beautifully then by the end of the day it was total carnage. 😩😂
Ahahaha. It is always carnage at the end. I suggested a Mary Poppins style cleanup the other day, which went badly as the toys didn’t tidy themselves away 😂
I absolutely LOVE everything about this piece - and I hope I don’t sound condescending when I say WELL BLOODY DONE, booze wise. (All being well, I hope I’ll be celebrating three years of sobriety at the end of June.) I’m definitely trying that margarita. Have you tried the Friexenet AF cava? It’s my favourite one, it doesn’t leave me thinking ‘I could have just had Appletiser.’ X
Aah thank you so much Daisy! And that’s wonderful you have a three year anniversary coming up! I have not tried that cava but will look it up! Xx
The absolute joy of stocking that mini market stall! I adore children's toys so much which is just as well because I've got five grandchildren to spoil rotten. (We've just bought our only granddaughter her first big bike and that took a LOT of consideration which I know you'll understand.)
As for drinking: I drank until I was about eighteen then stopped and didn't really begin again until a couple of years ago. I'm diabetic (LADA) so booze isn't the best fit and like many members of my family I experience a bad reaction to quite a lot of different kinds of booze ( flushing, headaches, perception of illness). But I have been able to tolerate the odd glass of wine and some cocktails of late ( like one per month!) which feels nice. I'm not looking to drink more though because like you, I'm wary of its negative impact on health -and looks ( the latter is shallow, I know!). I'm nearly 59 and I don't want to develop Drinker's Face.
Ahaha, I haven’t heard of drinker’s face! But nice to know I might avoid it by going down this path 😂
Aaah the bike shopping! Have to admit I left that one to my hisband, but he did take a LOT of care before Alba announced she wanted a bike ‘with pedals’ rather than the Which approved best balance bike. Back to square one…
Enjoy the toy food shopping! If your grandchildren are quite young, they might enjoy the ‘Nins’ made by Grapat too - mine love lining them up, changing their hats etc - I find them really pleasing too!
I love the design of balance bikes but my granddaughter is old school! I'll look at those Nins, they sound great.
My mum was a functioning alcoholic and when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer, she stopped drinking entirely overnight (the radical excision surgery was a factor here as much as personal determination!) For the first time in twenty+ years, I cuddled my mum without smelling red wine first.
I don’t drink daily. I am not drinking at all at the moment because of digestive rage, but it’s very important to me that my children dont identify me by the smell of booze.
Thanks for the non-alc marg mix, I yearn.
Play food, glory be I spent so much money on that when my kids were your kids’ age. Le Toy Van *clutches heart*
Ghislane de Feligonde one of my favourite roses. Along with Roseraie de L’hay. Which flowers for ever, and the scent is AMAZING!
Had to cut down all my tulips. I’m somewhat in mourning. Need a visit to the garden centre….
Aah how lovely! Looking up Roseraie!
I know isn’t it sad! Mine need deadheading now, a very sad May gap waiting for the roses to bloom next to the dying tulips 😭