Natalie’s Garden

Natalie is in her garden again.

For most of my working week, I’m in the small studio space I had built at the bottom of mine.

This has been both a beautiful and terrible experience.

Terrible because humans are thoughtless and stupid sometimes; wielding chainsaws and bringing down the trees we rely on for biodiversity – the bugs we need to produce our food and sustain the ecosystem to which we belong – and always for silly shit like ‘not enough light in my kitchen’ or ‘I want a car parking space.’ This is agonising for me, a parent of kids who rely on the generations who went before to pave (no pun intended) the way for theirs, and as a lover of the natural world.

Beautiful because there’s Natalie. Natalie, who has taken some time out from her career following personal change, and has poured so much time into transforming her garden into a soul-nourishing green space.

And when she’s out there, it’s incredibly comforting to me. I leave the studio door ajar just to listen in on her digging or arranging while listening to podcasts and BBC Radio 4. In the evenings, in this drought we’re in, when the pink sun sets on another unseasonably hot day, it’s incredibly soothing to take in this domestic tranquility.

That’s when the space I made for my creativity is just perfect. In these moments, I feel that whatever next, it will be OK.