Every so often you come across something that appears timeless. Of its time, yet not. Something so ingenious and enduring yet probably innocuous in its time. Its timelessness is mysterious yet calming. The kind of calm that makes everything feel like the present, the kind of today you want to relax into. To linger and stay a while.

That’s why I love to read – the ability to get engrossed in an alternative truth. Where everything is fiction and authentically fake. The kind of fake that you can take to escape from the fake that is causing so much dysfunction in the world right now. That’s not to say that fiction is all goodness and light, especially when it comes to a good whodunnit.

But, give yourself a break and read one of my new favourites – books by Josephine Tay. A woman ahead of her time doing her own thing in her own way and making mystery in art and life.

Hard to think that the world needs more mystery right now – without transparency and investigation we’d never hold to the powerful to account. But uncovering the failures and frailties of humanity quite so relentlessly leaves me hankering for a simpler, calmer and more mysterious existence. Living on the edge of the world doesn’t mean splendid isolation. As much as the interwebs bring us closer to people in ways not possible 10 years ago, it also brings the challenges of the whole world right in the palm of your hand.

Of late, I’ve stepped back a little from media both the social and anti-social kind to shake down the sense of despair I have about how we are living life and treating other people. I wish I could tell you that it’s made me feel less restless and antsy. More effort needed to bring perspective and healthy disconnection.

Time to down on the basics of life in a slow lane even if it’s more mundane than mystery.  What do you think?

Chelsea’s annual glitterati of gardening is just a few weeks away. A cornucopia of the great, good and glamorous of the horticultural world.

Can’t beat it for armchair gardening.

You can turn horticultural pundit in the comfort of your home. Opining on growers, blooms, garden design and revelling in the gardening secrets of celebrities. There may be RHS spin-offs but none captures the glamour of gardening like the real Chelsea Flower Show.

Of course, I’ve never actually been to ‘Chelsea’. Not sure I want to break the telegenic spell shuffling amongst the crowds.

That’s the thing about gardening, is it’s less glamorous than the curated world of gardening on TV, in books and social media would have you believe. Even gardens you can visit are manicured for show.

Nothing wrong with putting on a good show. You’ve got to have something to aspire to. Although a little more small print might save us mere mortals from despondency and abject failure.

The biggest lessons in life can be found in a garden. Literally.

What lives, what dies and what thrives. If you want lessons in humility you could do yourself a favour and take up gardening.

Every year I’m more respectful of folk that live off the land. People who farm land so others can eat. Of growers of plants for their beauty and enjoyment. To grow successfully on a consistent basis takes skills, know-how and tenacity to keep going when nature turns against you.

I’m reading ‘A Wood of One’s Own’ by Ruth Pavey – perfect for us romantic ruralists. She buys a neglected orchard and woodland and sets about making it her own. Oh, such naivety – when it comes to mother nature she has its own game for you to play with increasing levels of difficulty.

Techies might think they invented the ultimate games but nature has been upping its game from the start.

This past year has been pretty challenging gardening at home. Weird weather patterns, erratic gardening schedules do not make for horticultural harmony. And just as you get one bit sorted there’s something else that needs your attention.

For us, there’s always a mix of home gardening and land management. Infestations of gorse, bramble and grass grubs can almost render me to tears of frustration. It’s always a toss-up between deadheading and preening or warding off the inevitable march of nature’s thugs. Wielding heavy duty machinery and careful tending.

There’s little glamour in that.

Just a grounding in the laws of nature. Grappling with the urgent and important.

For a novice gardener with a low tolerance for minutiae, it’s the ultimate challenge.

Great gardening is a habit. A discipline. A mashup of science, arts and crafts. But unlike other creative pursuits, you can pack away in a cupboard till inspiration strikes again. A garden won’t be packed away – at least not for long.

At your peril, you leave your plot unattended and untended. It’s a salutary lesson if you dare.

Depending on the time of year and unattended garden can turn feral in hours. It’s how courgettes turn to marrows. How buds turn to blooms. Seedlings turn to weed infestation. How bunches of grapes, bushes of berries and prized strawberries will disappear with the birds.

Turn your back for long and your well-tended garden can succumb to drought, be wind broken or pelted by raindrops. Your beanstalks and sunflowers can break free from their anchors.

All those brassicas carefully cocooned doesn’t stop butterflies landing nor their offspring feasting. Canes designed to give your delphiniums lessons in deportment can fail too. Asparagus tips poking through the earth can climb dizzying proportions in the blink of an eye.

However much protection you plan. How much careful labelling you do. Turn your back in on your patch and it will sulk and rebel to teach you a lesson, or three.

Amongst the pain, pestilence and anguish there are the bright spots. The horticultural wins. The garden delights that spark new optimism and fortitude. Or nothing more primal than the gardening habit that can’t be broken.

After a soul-crushing spring and a drought-ridden summer, it was two buckets of earthy crops that have worked their magic this year. The humble spud and distinctly unglamorous carrots have re-grounded my gardening habit.

Having cast the carrot seed more in frustration and buried the potatoes in defiance of the weather gives the garden the last laugh at my expense.

Like a sugar addict to the chocolate bar and an over buyer to the shopping mall, I’m heading back to reclaim the kitchen garden. To begin the circuitous process of the seasons and cycles of growing.

To take the entertainment of gardening into the real world again.

Rural idylls don’t become so unless you live them. Romance is dead without true love. Gardens cease to be unless you keep creating. It’s nature’s way to resist and be recalcitrant to test your commitment and staying power.

After 10 years or serious gardening, I still feel a beginner. Every season is a start of something unique. A chance to dig in and begin again.

Somewhere in space is a spaceship that contains the fountain of eternal youth. It’s true. They even made a movie about it.

But who needs movies when we have built-in virtual reality. That secret life in our heads that is a playground, a retreat or a boiling cauldron of cruelty.

Now, here’s the thing.

My minds eye tells me I’m 27.

Not quite eternal youth but the age in my head on repeat for 27 years.

Yes, do the maths if you must.

Birthdays have a habit of creeping up on you at an alarming rate. But here’s a nifty trick. Pay no attention to the passing years, then the years won’t pass.

Stay in the present.

That’s the secret of eternal youth.

You don’t need pills, potions, fountains or spaceships. Just a vivid imagination, great memory, or both.

Whichever serves you best.

This jotting is powered by brainsparker to help boost creativity and dormant blogs

Where would your brain take you with this spark?

“Somewhere in space is a spaceship that contains the fountain of eternal youth……..”

There was the time I was convinced that I’d got a speeding ticket. Another year I was.  I can’t even recall. I’ve erased such purgatory from my mind. All I can remember is that there’s no ho, ho, ho on April 1 for me.

Confession – I have a fear and hatred for 1 April.

This year, I hope that all my fears and foibles don’t come back to haunt me.  This 1 April feels like a good time to renew.

To kick start, to activate some new habits. Like writing for the heck of it.

For so long my mind has been wandering, worrying and procrastinating on building a new professional life. But, I feel a chink opening up that will allow me to write for pleasure.

Talking to some MBA students this week they were curious what was my creative indulgence. After all, that’s what I was advocating to them.

Cue epiphany.  What a fool I am :o)

So here I am.

Hello world, this is the first post in a very long while.

Instead, I’ve taken up the mantle of owner of speakers’ corner and custodian of the household soapbox. Shouter outer of outrage and raling at vacuous talking heads that dominate our mainstream media. And, don’t get me started on the commentators and promulgators of dumbness infecting my otherwise smart technology

It’s hard to pin point when the floodgates of opinion burst open in me but as I take a deep breath to voice another opinion the true activist and politician of the house seems to mellow with every moment. It’s not my CV that reads President of Students’ Union, Local Councillor, member of political party and registered overseas voter. I’m the one that lives with the shame that I didn’t invoke my right to vote in elections until I was in my late 20’s.

I’ve always kept politics with a big P at arms length. I’ve never taken to the streets in protest, avoided people waving pens and petitions at me on the high street and through professional expedience kept to small talk about weather than big issues of the day. Even when I worked for a trade union, I comforted myself that I was advancing professional standards and public service rather than waving the placards of employment rights. And as much as I am a champion of women’s rights, you’d never find me burning my underwear in the name of feminism.

Goodness knows what I was thinking.

Maybe its just the changing times or I’m turning into the stereotypical grumpy middle (r)aged woman, but being passive, politically or otherwise, at this moment in the life of humanity just feels wrong.

It seems that most conceivable forms of war, conflict, terror, dirty dealings, coups, crimes, punishments, arguments, splits, murders, maiming, mysteries, mistakes, accidents, idiocy, prejudice, persecution, discrimination, errors, lunacy and dereliction of duty litter the news each day. And at a time when you look for leadership, good sense and wisdom from those who should know better, a chasm seems to open up leaving us starring down at the abyss.

It’s hard to know if in 2016 we’re looking down deeper into a new sense of hell in the world or we’re just better informed and the spotlight is brighter on the darkest and dankest corners of the world.

Of late, my deepest sense of injustice and unfairness has woken up to embrace a much wider world. The greedy take, take, take that has fuelled prosperity for a few leaving people with fewer options sitting in a bigger pool of despair and cynicism. At its most acute, despair turns to helplessness, anger, hate and destruction, all aimed at gaining control and power, if only for a moment in time. Those with power tighten their grip on control building their own confidence, ego and diminishing their capability to empathise with others at a very human level.

Name calling depersonalises and dehumanises. Discussion and debate turns to tirades of loud voices and no-one listening to anyone anymore. People start to feel unsafe and powerless that turns to helplessness and despair. And so the cycle starts over. It’s how human neurobiology works.

Whereas I used to feel helpless and numb in the face of current affairs, I now get angry and ranty. Where I use to be amused or forgiving of human frailties and foibles, now my intolerance of intolerance keeps me awake at night.

I don’t expect the world to suddenly blossom into Utopia, but a touch more openness, willingness and honest to goodness generosity mightn’t be a bad idea. A little less hatred when people don’t share your point of view and a lot more exploration, debate and pulling ourselves together so more people can do what’s right for the world.

A world where people, planet and profit can sit more comfortably and equitable together. A place that is more peaceful than it feels right now. A society when we all make more effort to be kinder and have greater humility.

A tad more optimism and positive momentum would go a long way to get the stuff done in the world that helps those who need it most.

I know we can’t all become freedom fighters, diplomats and socially conscious world-changers but we can use our voice politely but persistently, use our votes wisely and make our decisions well informed. For those of us that can afford, we can put our hands in our wallets and share our wealth to make a direct investment in improving someone in need.

As much as I this blog is my virtual mouthpiece, I promise not to overkill with the new activism in life. It’s too passive for that. I’ll keep my thoughts to realtime discussion and the occasional spouting on through social media. Although I would love everyone who reads this post to take a second to think what is one small thing you can do today, and then tomorrow and the next day that will make the world a better place.

Create your own soapbox and stand on it with pride that you’ve taken the time to think. To speak. To act in a way that benefits others, however small, in the long run you’ll help us all.

So there you have it from me. Keen to know where you stand. Let’s talk.

And then I win. Words dance across the screen. But that blinking cursor is always one step ahead of me. And so the battle to turn thoughts into words starts all over again.

So there you have it. My version of writers block.  For years I’ve spilled the beans on my living a life in New Zealand until that blinking cursor got the better of me. The pull to beat that cursor ebbed away.

Of course, it’s not the cursor’s fault. Writing, or not writing, simply reflects the ebb and flow in life. Changing interests and changing times.

Knowing that this blog would pass its tenth anniversary in June, I planned to write a post that brought down the shutters for good. A finale to what’s been a fun thing to do.

But, somehow I couldn’t do it. Or at least not yet.

I figured if a basset hound could wear a little creativity then there is hope for me yet. So, I’m aiming for at least one journal, essay or story a week that I’ll publish on a Saturday or Sunday. A weekend treat. For me at least.

Anyone that has hosted a party or started a venture will know what a roller coaster ride it can be. Will people come? Will they like it when they get here? What on earth was I thinking hosting an event two weeks before Christmas?

As people streamed through the doors for our inaugural taster event there was nothing else we could do but play host and follow our plan. The social whirl in the room was electrifying to watch. Seeing strangers deep in conversation and friends reunited across the table and across the room was exactly what we were trying to create. A time and space for people with busy lives to come together.

It was fun but mostly it was fast.  Two hours passed in a flurry of wrapping paper, food and chatter. As people drifted home at the end of the evening it felt good although I was almost dead on my feet. All the doing and worrying was over. It was hard to avoid the natural instinct to critique and debrief as overall it was a great success with lots of people declaring their intention to return for more events.

Plans for a monthly supper club are coming together – our first is at the end of January. We’ll be taking Food Gatherings to different eateries across Wellington and curating conversations around the table. It’s an adventure in what works and learning more about what people want from Food Gatherings.

Friends, colleagues, acquaintances and complete strangers have been so enthusiastic to the idea of food gatherings its been humbling to have their support. It’s early days but I’m excited to be making this happen working together with my friend, Naomi.

If you really want to understand what it’s like to be launching a new venture you should listen to the podcast StartUp. Food Gatherings may be in a different industry and league to the launch of this podcasting company but the thoughts, challenges and dilemmas are so similar in lots of ways. It’s a fun listen – especially if you want to hear how not to pitch your business idea to a billionaire investor.

I’ll give you a sneek peek of what it’s like behind the scenes of Food Gatherings as things unfold. If you’re based in Wellington you can of course come along to one of our future events or join our Facebook page and follow our adventures vicariously.

But for now I have to curb my impatience that Wellingtonian restaurants and cafes are shut for the holidays just at the time ideas for future food gatherings are brimming over.

To get that same sense of new possibilities for the blog you’ll see that we’re all spruced up with a new look. Technologically speaking too it needed to move with the times so should be easier for phone and tablet toting readers to keep up to date. You never know, this new suit of clothes might even make my wordsmithing grow.

As usual I have grand plans for the year. More reading, writing, photography and getting inspired in the kitchen. Less weeding, basset pandering and worrying about the un-ticked to do list. I’m all for living life at a much slower, richer pace.

The sun is out today to celebrate the new year. I hope wherever you are in the world that this year brings you health and happiness and all that you the good things you hope for.  HAPPY 2015.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way. . . .”

Setting aside Dickens’ talent for melodrama he was an incisive social commentator and showed you ways to think about the world that you might not otherwise do on your own. His words sum up far better than I can the paradoxes not just of the modern world but for time immemorial. The mind-spout of Dickens is without doubt a symptom of being immersed in books about history, novels set in earlier times or books that pick apart the recesses of the human mind. It’s an awkward yet comforting feeling that modern humans are as infallible and primal as our forebears.

Reeling off my list of recent reading/audio book listening to a friend yesterday I realised I probably need to change gear with my reading to break my writing slump.  It’s hard to uplifting stories of living the dream life when you’re feeding your brain with such literary and historical gravitas. Don’t feel too downhearted though, I wholeheartedly recommend you read/listen to the following. You might want to pace yourself and perhaps throw in some easy reads to balance out the fun.

The Hare With Amber Eyes – a thought provoking biography by Edmund De Waal about a collection of Japanese Netuske and his family that owned them. This is a tale about the Jewish Ephrussi family from 1870’s to today that charts how their wealth allowed them to collect the netsuke from Japan and how changes in the world impacts each generation as these miniature art works of remained the same. It’s as much about the story of European jews as is a personal family tale which obviously gets pretty harrowing as it charts the world wars. Nevertheless it’s a beautifully written book and gives you a peek into Japanese history and culture which I particularly enjoyed learning about.

Stoner by John Williams became a 2013’s bookselling sensation, fifty years after it was first published. On the face of it this is a grim, sad, depressing tale about an academic whose life is pretty wretched but turned out to be one of the most remarkable books I have read since Wallace Stegner’s Crossing to Safety (see my thoughts here). It’s a real page turner if only to lap up the language that builds deep intimacy with the life of William Stoner and the world in which he lived. The ending is exhausting as it builds to a poignant end. Those last paragraphs will live in my mind for a long time.

You might not think that stories about being a neurosurgeon would be that readable but I’ve been fascinated with all manner of tumours and operating techniques not to mention the outburst of grumpiness towards NHS bureaucracy.  Do No Harm by Henry Marsh is a lively memoir that brings sharp focus to how neurosurgeon’s hold life in their hands and the personal, professional and ethical dilemmas that this presents. Reading this book is like walking a tightrope not knowing if there is a safety net to catch you or not. Although heart-warming it is sobering stuff and a bit biologically gruesome at times.

The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer was a bundled with Do No Harm as a birthday gift, which goes to show that although your sister-in-law might have an eclectic taste in birthday gifts she knows how to pick a good book. Another popular winner in 2013, Filer’s first novel speaks of acute mental illness in a heart-wrenching yet hilariously funny way. The book is full of grief, madness and the perceived insanity of mental health services by those that have to use them. It’s a dark book shot through with flashes of optimistic and comedic brightness. At first it was hard to make sense of the structure of the book but then the penny dropped and I relaxed into reading although there were times I started to a feel a little manic in tune with the central character of the book.

For a little light relief I’m listening to Food: A Culinary History by Ken Albala, part of my DIY programme of studying gastronomy. It’s a powerful romp through all the ages of history and how food and cuisines became shaped over time. It’s a fascinating insight into the biological, ecological, economic, religious, technological, political and commercial perspectives of history and how food as an essential to human life drives development of the world across time.  The interspersed in the lectures are renditions of ancient recipes showing people have being paying attention to the nutritional and pleasurable properties of food for centuries. Also, how class and power structures within societies shape food consumption and social etiquette with cuisines being adopted and adapted from one nationality, religious groups and geography. Gripping stuff if you like history and/or food.

All this reading/listening is a necessary respite from work and working on a new project that is also a distraction from the disciplines of blogging.  More on that soon.

Would love to know what you’ve been reading recently and how it shapes your view of the world.

It’s been a total luxury not to have had to rush back to work but give myself time to readjust to the time zones and make a gentle re-entry back to normal life. That said, I had to miss the birthday party of a friend that it didn’t start until 8pm which is about the time that my body clock has insisted I lie down and go to sleep. She was very understanding but it still feels like a feeble excuse.

As the head fog has lifted its been good to reminisce about my time in the UK packed with lovely memories with family and friends. Spending snippets of time with people you love is so romantic. A passionate interlude of chatter, laughter and adventures that you know won’t last so you make the best of it all. Playing auntie to my nephews was certainly a highlight of the trip – reading books, tucking in, indulging, teasing and occasionally chastising them. All this wonderful humanity was wrapped in long sunny days that magnified the beauty of an English summer.

The freezing temperatures and darkness of home has been an unpleasant shock although days of sunshine have made the homecoming easier to bear. It’s wonderful of course to be back with my nearest and dearest although there has been a fair amount of basset rule breaking whilst I have been away that needs remedying. You can’t get away from the fact that we’re in the grip of New Zealand winter but I feel boosted by my holiday and raring to go with projects of all kinds.

I’m declaring my  Wordsmithing challenge during June a success in that it confirmed my love of writing and built my appetite to blog. From what they tell me,  family and friends enjoy checking up on what we’re up to even if publishing a personal blog is a wildly self-indulgent thing to do and I have some way to go to up my writing game. Whilst there is evidence that maintaining a daily writing discipline is a good thing to do publishing a blog on a daily basis is just not sustainable for me. Instead I shall aim for something between once a day and once in a blue moon.