Signs of Life
It was a tiny sprig, wrapped in cotton wool, a gift from a friend’s garden, which she had snipped from the plant she had grown from a similar sprig from her holiday garden in Cyprus. Lemon Geranium, so-called, and it grew so well in my new (to me) garden when I moved to this house 3 years ago that I had several pots of it scattered around. But last winter was rough, and by January all I had in those pots were dried up bare stumps.
II thought I was coping ok with Lockdown, but I struggled to find the inclination to get out into the yard at all By tje time I did, a huge tidying up was required, but several pots were left, abandoned.
About a week ago, I was enjoying my breakfast coffee sitting out in the sunshine. Glancing around to see what was behind me, I noticed some tiny bits of green in one of the pots, below the thick straggly old dried up — what would you call them? Branches?
On closer observation, I recognised the shape of the leaves. It’s Alive!!!
And here is its sister plant, much further advanced.
I can’t help thinking of these as a metaphor for my writing process for the podcast. Each week I sit at the computer and dash off an episode, then spend a day rehearsing, recording and editing it. The plan is always to have it up on Buzzsprout in time to be released at midnight Thursday evening. And each Friday morning I feel empty, and I start worrying that I won’t have any ideas to write another episode and get it uploaded in time.
So far I’ve managed it. And at this moment, I’ve not only written and recorded this week’s episode already, but I’ve got next week’s episode ready to be recorded as well.
I had so much fun working with Christopher McDougall on the last two episodes. We were in the middle of recording “Hey Old Lady” the week before last when I suddenly realised it would be even more fun if he played the wait staff at the cafe as well. He created such a quirky character that I had to bring him back. I hope you enjoy the Polish Waiter’s encounter with Susie, Helen’s granddaughter.
You may also notice that the website has had a shake-up. Still work to be done, but I’m getting there…
