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.

Today I thought not.

So, I logged in to remove the link to the Domestic Executive Facebook page. Part of my defiant attempt to squeeze useless social media from my life, and save the souls of others too.

And, here I am. Pondering, to blog or not?

It’s not like I don’t “blog” – I pour a daily feed of photographs of the good life from Instagram into the blog just to let my Dad and my in-laws know I’m still alive and kicking.

I’ve just lost the long-form blogging habit. The personal journal-like publication that became personally uncomfortable as my life changes and challenges.

But my Instagram feed is to be believed, basset blogging still rules 2018 style.

I love to write. To take photographs. Put the two together and you could have a blog. Who knew!

No promises. No more pondering. Let’s see.

It’s hard to conceive how far New Zealand is from the rest of the world until you want to get away. If you fancy a change of scene, respite from winter, have a burning want to drink in another culture or want to reconnect with kin elsewhere in the world, you soon realise nothing less than a longish journey on a jet plane will fix your travel bug.

The upside of New Zealand’s geography is that some of its closest getaways are the most beautiful pacific islands where time runs at half speed and an almost endless supply of sunshine. The idyllic islands are the perfect haven for anyone looking to fly and flop for a few days for personal restoration.

As many kiwis flock to the ski fields for winter sports, I’m much happier escaping to find winter sun and nothing more to do than count the waves rolling in over the coral reef. It’s pure indulgence that takes a few days for me to lean into but soon island life takes its grip and you acquiesce to snoozing under the shady veranda, cooling dips in warm sea and leisurely dining al fresco. Couldn’t be more blissful.

It’s the kind of decadence I dream about at my desk as the wind-driven rain pummels down.

I find the edges of the day on vacation are most calming and meditative. As we transition between day and evening, night and day, the light is gentlest and most contemplative. It’s nature’s poetry that for a photographer drives an almost overwhelming compulsion to whip out the camera to capture the moment.

Those sunsets and sunrises may be beautifully crafted but their meaning can only sit in the mind of the real-time observer. A bit like all our holiday snaps really. Probably best kept to ourselves and used to prompt our memories when you’re back at home and in need of some pacifica elixir.

Or not :o)

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.

But when a fellow photographer suggests a detour to make the most of the gorgeous evening light, I’m unpacking the camera bag right away. As we pulled into Finn Slough (pronounced Finn Slew) close to where my friend Sabrina lives near Vancouver I was slightly baffled by what we had come to see.

Depending on who you speak to, Finn Slough is either a squatters commune , historical fishing village, artistic or alternative living community. Truth lies somewhere among all of those definitions thrown in with a touch of enchanting magic, or maybe that was just the light.

Nestling into the landscape of the Fraser River, the residents of Finn Slew have built on the legacies of the first Finnish settlers in 1880s. They live in houses on stilts or in former net lofts above the river in tune with nature of this coastal environment. They are also fighting to gain their rights to a Crown lease who owns the land to make their residency bona-fide and beat away property developers hungry to turn Finn Slough into a modernised version of this riverside idyll complete with condos and other conveniences of modern life.

Finn Slough is one of the most photographic landscapes I’ve visited in a while. It’s tumble-down style belies a thoughtful ironic sense of humour that playfully makes fun of mainstream living.  See this house and doorway below, it’s not what it seems.

The evening light waits for no-one so we made the most of seeing as much as we can in the golden hour. It’s not hard to see how this would be a haven for local photographers to visit often. It felt good to have a camera in my hands again so here’s a few of the photographs I made. It was the perfect spot to end a perfect day in the company of a wonderful friend.

Snowdrops are some of the most determined yet delicate plants to have in the garden, a symbol of how nature battles on regardless to signal that new seasons are on the horizon. Time for new starts.

These snowdrops were crying out to be shared with the world a short while before the house sitters moved in and we start a new travel adventure for a few weeks. Seems a good a time as any to see if I can rekindle my blogging life as a domestic executive that has been so illusive since I wrote my last post.

So here goes…….