I like my life

Today has been one of those days when you can smugly say to yourself ‘ I like my life’... finding myself sat on a wall on the beach overlooking the sea I had to remind myself that yes this really is work! I feel I should be wearing something rather glamouress and floaty though and calling everyone darling, maybe next time!
As the photographer positions the products and children for the flax & finch summer photo shoot, the products were so much easier to control!, my day seemed a million miles away from the challenges of yesterday...a conversation with my bank on the challenges of developing a new business and their lack of understanding on this issue, I remember hearing myself say the words ‘bordering on incompetence’, can’t imagine why I would be making those references about a bank!
I decide to let the memory of yesterday fade into the background, that’s for another day...instead I let myself relax into the late afternoon sunshine ...we could be in the med if I imagine that the screams of ‘OMG, that’s freezing ‘ are references to the ice in a tall cocktail, shaken not stirred, and not the North sea on a July afternoon in Norfolk.

A Country Life Less Ordinary: Hmmm..the first strawberry of the season grown by ...

A Country Life Less Ordinary: Hmmm..the first strawberry of the season grown by ...: "Hmmm..the first strawberry of the season grown by my very own hand, nothing has tasted sweeter. I’m guessing the birds think so to, given t..."

Hmmm..the first strawberry of the season grown by my very own hand, nothing has tasted sweeter. I’m guessing the birds think so to, given that a number of my treasured succulent fruits have got a bite out of them! Although I have attempted growing my own in the past, it has been more of a passing whim which has resulted in a few tomatoes that even the birds won’t eat and a couple of very suspect shaped cucumbers, you’d never see those in the local supermarket! This year I’m going all out and have everything now planted and raring to go. Don’t be misled though I don’t have an acreage of raised beds and poly tunnels, I have a small patch, almost a corridor actually at the back of our beautifully landscaped garden where I potter and daydream about how this year we will live off the land..well at least have a few salads during the summer anyhow...

I could never have imagined all those years ago when I was living in my little terraced house in suburbia that one day I’d be gushing about the beauty of living in the countryside, getting excited about my seedlings starting to appear or thinking about getting chickens! How my life has changed and how my tastes have changed with age. I had to smile yesterday when I finally found time to sit down to read a magazine with a little bit of naughtiness, chocolate! and found myself first turning to the sections on what’s in homewares and how to grow your own! I also find myself today at 6.50am thinking about going for a walk round the village, 20 years ago I’d have been nursing a hangover, oh how life really has changed! But it would be misleading you to say that I am part of the welly brigade 24/7, my life is anything but straightforward and the term ‘variety is the spice of life’ was certainly written for me!

It would be fair to say I spend my life juggling, apparently this is now called having a portfolio career, this idyllic rural life; seedlings, chickens and all that alongside running two businesses, taking me to London and back and working as a volunteer for a charity which means I often travel at short notice to overseas destinations,...oh yes a country life very much less ordinary!