as a pancake

So here’s the thing: when I was deep in the middle of my health crisis last month, when I was sitting in waiting rooms, when I was stripping my clothes off and putting on hospital gowns, when I was watching my phone desperate for results, and when I was awake distressed in the middle of the night, the thing I kept wishing for was some boring time. It was a month filled with such intense anxiety and distress that the thought of just cruising through life for a while felt like it would be heavenly. Like such a luxury. No extreme highs and lows, no crying, no fear, no dread.

And you know what? This time I got my wish. After my medical results started coming in negative and in the week since Jarrah left for overseas, life on the farm has been pretty boring. And I hate to admit it but I haven’t been loving it. I don’t know if it’s the come down after the traumatic experience, I don’t know if it’s post adrenaline fatigue - who knows maybe it’s even peri menopause - but life this past week has felt almost tedious.

It’s so silly, all year long I dream of these summer weeks when the flower garden is exploding with colour, and the veggie beds are groaning under the weight of their produce, but here I am feeling exhausted and heavy and like I can’t be bothered. I just can’t. Every day feels the same. I’ll never finish the weeding, or the mowing, or the tying up, or the harvesting. I feel flat and can’t think of anything except frittata and salad for dinner. Again.

Exercise helps. Seeing photos of my kids leading their adventurous wonderful lives helps. Walking the dogs with Bren each evening helps. Cuddling the goats helps. Having some fun plans for the future to look forward to helps. My mum thinks I need to get my hands busy with something really creative. She thinks that’ll help. But I haven’t knitted a stitch or thrown a pot for ages. I know deep down that she’s right, I’m sure that as soon I start wedging the clay I’ll get those excited, creative butterflies in my tummy, but I can’t seem to get out there. It feels like it’ll be too much work. Too dirty. Too hard. Maybe I’ll just have to force myself.

I am being kind to myself tho. I know that this feeling won’t last forever and that the best thing I can do is to give myself time and permission to heal and recover.

But in the meantime there’s the blog - 10 quick things. Here we go…

one - our dahlias are possibly the slowest in the Southern Hemisphere this season but they are finally starting to pop. Every time I go down there there’s something new and fabulous to admire.

two - how cute is this shaggy dahlia! For some reason her wild mane really appeals to me. The truth is I probably relate to her a bit too.

three - like the dahlias, the zinnias are only really starting to put on quite the show this week. I feel like zinnias were the first flower crop we grew once we decided to add flower farmers to our list of titles, so their success is always tied up with my own.

four - this is my favourite zinnia this week - her name is Queen Red Lime, isn’t she pretty?

five - I think this week’s theme might be ‘the slowest’, I doubt you could find many people in Australia picking the first of their broad beans this week. They’re definitely worth the wait though.

six - we had a disappointing moment yesterday morning when we were making our breakfast only to realise we’d run out of berries. We contemplated making a quick dash into town, we thought about going without, only to remember with delight that our strawberries are putting on their second flush and provided us with enough and more.

seven - this photo has nothing to do with the fact that we’re watching Discovering Anna on Netflix. You probably are too. It’s a bit annoying, but it’s also a truly incredible story. And it’s been so long since we’ve had a show to sit down and watch together at the end of the day.

eight - while I ran around taking photos for my blog this morning, Bren was cleaning leek seeds we collected last year to plant out in the garden. He was going to take it one step further and separate the seeds from their husks but we decided that because they’re such small seeds their husks will help spread them out evenly.

nine - these are some of the pots in the hot-house that I’m hoping will grow big enough to plant outside before the days grow too much colder and shorter.

ten - my bedside - dahlias from the garden in a pot I made next to some library books and some books Pepper wants me to read.

I’ve got about 20 pages left of The Promise by Damon Galgut. When I first read a review of this book that said that the story centres around the deaths and funerals of the four main characters I tried to ban my mum from reading it. ‘We need to read uplifting stories,’ I urged her, ‘we’ve had enough depression and misery for a while.’ But I’m glad she resisted me and I’m glad she passed her library copy on to me. The book isn’t about those deaths but it uses them as a vehicle to tell the story and to move it along. It’s beautifully written, it’s engaging and parts of it will stay with me for a long time.

And here we are at the bottom of the blog.

Thank you all so much for the happy moments you shared on my last post. They were so varied and delightful. Everything from stories about carwashes, to bus drivers, to lasagnas, to vegetarian recipe swaps, I’m so happy I did that, it was like a little hit of dopamine each time I opened one. If you need a little burst of happy you could go and read some. I’ve still got a few to accept and reply to. Hopefully I’ll get them up on the blog tomorrow.

This week I’d love it if you would share something you do to pull yourself out of a funk (is that a thing?) Maybe you crochet blankets, or write music, or bake biscuits, or dig holes. Whatever it is I’d love to know.

And with that I’ll be saying goodbye til next week. See ya!

Lots of love,

Kate x