Gardening involves a lot of standing staring at a space waiting for ideas to materialise, or seeds to sprout, or plants to flower, or flowers to fruit, or fruits to ripen...

I tested a bulging pea pod this morning. The peas inside were sweet and delicious and tiny. Not yet peas.

Elsewhere on the plot I found bulging kohlrabi, a courgette, salad leaves, beetroot, teenage carrots and potatoes.

We ate well.

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Harvest Basket originally appeared on Taexalia on July 30, 2010.

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Waiting For The Sun originally appeared on Taexalia on July 28, 2010.

• Bee disease confirmed: American Foulbrood found in West Lothian. http://bit.ly/bcTcSH (via @scotgovweb) #
• "The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a comfortable living from a small piece of land." ~ Abraham Lincoln #
• Police probe stabbing on Edinburgh street: http://bit.ly/c2pzgi (via @STVNews) ~ so glad we moved away from that area!! #
• is thinking of planting a rice paddy in my garden #
• Where have all the kestrels gone? http://bit.ly/auajUS (via @guardianeco) #
• There's a man on my chimney stack and he isn't Santa. Nae luck. #
• @LeafySuburbs I haven't figured out Crow yet, but I think I know "she's filling the feeders" in Sparrow in reply to LeafySuburbs #
• Evicting protesters from Parliament Square eh? Free speech and democracy? #
• David Cameron's Big Society http://macnumpty.blogspot.com/2010/07/why-florence-and-precious-must-stay.html #
• @theknickermafia already did. Nothing of note in reply to theknickermafia #
• Shocking decline of the cuckoo http://tinyurl.com/32d6yqv (via @Natures_Voice) #
• @LeafySuburbs heh I take bacon and things out for the Crows but they still look at me like I'm a human in reply to LeafySuburbs #
• ADVISORY of Heavy Rain for Central, Tayside & Fife valid from 0001 Wed 21 Jul to 2359 Wed 21 Jul http://bit.ly/dzD5fE (via @metofficeEScot) #
• If I put a bikini on under my waterproofs will it feel like summer? #onlytimei #039;deverwearoneanyway #
• @josordoni deviant and clammy!! in reply to josordoni #
• @josordoni unpeeling waterproofs from bare legs is not the best way to start the day in reply to josordoni #
• Another stabbing in Craigentinny in the news this morning. Glad we moved. But what is with all this knife crime? #
• Exploring a box of *stuff* including diary scribbles from 1989. Oh the angst of teenage love! #
• Song for the blog trip down memory lane... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJGyrtg49Lw&feature=youtube_gdata #
• It is not raining men, cats and dogs or even in my heart. It is just raining. Ad nauseum. #
• @mrmickmars no bad thing. hmm. in reply to mrmickmars #
• @ThisisDavina surely BB asked for it of they put someone in who was committed to making her walk?! in reply to ThisisDavina #
• FFS David - people *are* flawed. Even you! Deal with it. #bb11 #
• That's me out of the closet - addicted #
• US Senators call for probe into a Scottish Govt decision but they never did a thing about Bush and Obama still oversees two wars? Hmm? #
• I disagreed with the Megrahi decision btw but I think the USA should keep it's fingers out of pies where they don't pay tax #
• CalMerc: Obama and Cameron play a shameful game of politics over the Lockerbie bomber http://ow.ly/2eCJT (via @CalMerc) #
• I found Wayne Hussey in my cupboard http://taexalia.me/2010/07/21/step-back-in-time/ #
• @theknickermafia you got our rain. Here it feels like The Day After The Flood. Hope you feel better soon x in reply to theknickermafia #
• RT @Dom1985 Fifers! Start dancing! The sun's out HOORAH! < is shooglin #
• Dancing With La Loba http://taexalia.me/2010/07/22/dancing-with-la-loba/ #creativity #wildwoman #
• This US senate investigation - are they thinking of declaring war on Scotland? Whilst our troops are dying for their illegal war? #
• oops... wars #
• This US senate investigation demonstrates the US govt believes it rules the world. Face it: you have no jurisdiction in Scotland. End of. #
• And please note Obama, Clinton, Kerry are all *democrats* - so much for a change in foreign policy... #
• And any government running something like Guantanamo Bay has no right to be questioning anyone else's justice system #
• Why doesn't my greyhound catch dust bunnies? #
• Disagree with MacAskill's decision to release al Megrahi. Agree with MacAskill's decision not to attend US "hearing". #
• O2 phone signal is utter utter crap. Charging money for this should be illegal. #
• @O2 you should be ashamed of yourselves charging me for no coverage. Especially on my birthday. in reply to O2 #
• is technically 39 #
• Best. Birthday. Ever. #
• Women With Altitude are taking on Ben Cleuch today #

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Twitterings originally appeared on Taexalia on July 25, 2010.

"The sole work of La Loba is the collecting of bones. She is known to collect and preserve especially that which is in danger of being lost to the world. Her cave is filled with the bones of all manner of desert creatures: the deer, the rattlesnake, the crow. But her speciality is said to be wolves.

She creeps and crawls and sifts through the monatanas, mountains, and arroyos, dry river beds, looking for wolf bones, and when she has assembled an entire skeleton, when the last bone is in place and the beautiful white sculpture of the creature is laid out before her, she sits by the fire ad thinks about what song she will sing." ~ Women Who Run With The Wolves by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Today I turned my day around and played it backwards. Instead of coming online and working, or being distracted, or getting caught up in feeling angry at the news... instead of finding myself at the end of the day with no time, or solitude, or energy to Be Myself, to connect with Wild Woman or Sing Over The Bones... instead I thought about my Bones first. I thought about the labels I want to give myself yet fail to honour... dancer, artist, writer... creatrix.

I thought about finding those bones and retrieving them from the desert, or the wild heather moor, or the depths of the sea. I thought about how best to return to who I am after the storm I have endured and I returned to my most favourite of books - Women Who Run With The Wolves by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes - and I started at the beginning. This paragraph jumped out at me:

"It is our brush with Wild Woman that drives us not to limit our conversations to humans, not to limit our most splendid movements to dance floors, nor our ears only to music made by human-made instruments, nor our eyes to "taught" beauty, nor our minds to those things we all agree upon already."

I thought about my feet, about how they connect with the earth and I thought about my pretty rounded toes with the sturdy width behind them that supports me even on my tippy toes. I thought about the curve of my arches and the graceful line of my feet en pointe. I got lost for a moment enjoying liking a part of my body before a hint of guilt crept in.

I looked down at my feet and beheld the expensive but chipped nail polish and the heels cracked with neglect. I thought about how far those feet have come and how far they have yet to go. I thought about how long it is since they simply danced.

I gave myself an hour, closed the curtains and played a CD that has lain silent for years. Almost immediately I loosened up and released my grace. I did not feel anything other than the joy of my own movement at first but soon I had to flick away the savage voice who tells me I am fat and ugly, who sidelines me, who says I chose to be the way I am. I shimmied past the long nose under judgemental eyes and let them fall into the shadows.

I became snakelike, or swanlike, or simply a shimmering sequin and I moved from free-dancing into a workout that is a cross between yoga and bellydancing. I raised energy and I could feel a cone of power vibrating even in muscles that rebelled and wailed.

I thought about my artist, my poor neglected pencils and I thought about the conversation at a recent dinner party where I had the audacity to define myself as "more of a gypsy artist." I recalled the response from a woman who has never seen anything that I have made, or drawn, or written. I heard her derision and her comments about art school and how competitive it is and her words suggesting I could not be an artist because I did not go.

I am not competitive. I find the competitive energy anathema to creative energy. It is narrow, constrictive and focused not only on a result - but on a result based on someone else's energy. I do not need the torture of such an environment to claim the word artist.

I remembered one of my loudest creative critics, a man who probably ensured I was saved from an art school environment. He was a lecturer on an art course I attended. He was trusted and paid to nurture young people in discovering their artist selves.

One day he took a piece that I had drawn in experimental mode, as requested, and verbally ripped it to shreds in front of the whole class. He belittled it, rubbished it, patronised it and had nothing constructive to say about it. I was mortified and any confidence that I had to experiment on paper dissipated.

Over time I have hoped that they chased him with torches flaring into the hills far away from the realms of young or developing artists. I wish that I had chased him myself.

He was still there today as I picked up pencils and began to make shapes on paper. He never let up and he is still there as I look over the first pencil sketch I have made in years.

I claim the right to make pages of bad art, instead of falling for the myth that every page should be a masterpiece.

I sit at the page scrawling ideas and images and conversations, moulding them, experimenting, freeing the voices. I write and write and write.

La Loba sits on the edge of the moor peering into my circle, grinning a toothy and wicked grin.

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Dancing With La Loba originally appeared on Taexalia on July 22, 2010.

I am dreaming about turning our loft into more than a place for old water tanks and spiders. I am dreaming about putting in some sort of window and getting an even better view of the Firth. At the very least I am dreaming of putting in a floor type affair so we can throw boxes of junk up there.

So this morning, looking for a baby step towards that goal, I braved the shadows of the bedroom cupboard. The bedroom cupboard is begging to be furnished as a walk-in wardrobe. A small-ish walk in wardrobe, perhaps more of an open the door and you can stand inside wardrobe. A stand-in wardrobe with a light.

The cupboard is currently the repository for all the boxes that aren't in the loft because we've only floored part of it. Those boxes are those mystery boxes that you can never say exactly what's inside but you just know you can't throw away because they still have a pulse.

So the first box I opened is full of papers and it's a veritable minefield of letters never sent and scribbled diary pages.

As I am typing there is a baby Crow on top of my chimney haranguing its parents and the noise as it reverberates down the lum is the weirdest thing.

But back to the box - mostly I can surmise that in 1989 I wrote a lot of bad poetry and short fiction that exuded angst and self-loathing (I *was* a teenager!) and, for around six weeks, loved two men who didn't love me back - sometimes consecutively and sometimes concurrently. Although it should be noted that nice piece of word-play doesn't insinuate we were all in the same bed at the same time. Nothing quite so Jackie Collins, I'm afraid. It was angst-ridden torture of the unrequited, unexplained kind since neither of them would say Yes. Or. No. and I didn't have the self-esteem to expect better or just be single. Or decide for myself.

I can safely say I am not having a mid-life crisis because the idea of returning to all of that makes me shrivel.

I keep it because even amongst the reams of bad sentences and bad love stories, there are some cracking good lines that I've already transferred to my re-instated writer's notebook. Yes - I am writing again.

I keep it because it makes me thankful for the life I have now.

I keep it because I am a Russell Hoarder and it's in my genes.

But amongst the teen angst, I found the poem Wayne Hussey wrote for me as we shared a bottle of Blue Nun in a dressing room in Carlisle. I was too naive to be a real groupie and, in true rock n roll style, my parents were waiting for me in the car. I didn't really fancy him anyway. But, looking back, he was the consummate gentleman. At least he could write the word "love" ;o)

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Step Back In Time originally appeared on Taexalia on July 21, 2010.

"The craft of questions, the craft of stories, the craft of the hands—all these are the making of something, and that something is soul. Anytime we feed soul, it guarantees increase." ~ Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Having been forced to dance to the tune of someone else's drumbeat (actually someones else's drumbeats in two different locations), I am now in a time of reclaiming myself, my time, my freedom to sleep all night, to concentrate, to meditate, to feel safe and comfortable within the walls of my own home.

No more noisy fruit loops, dear Universe. Thank you.

This morning I pulled out the SoulCollage box of tricks and decided to make a card. I quickly found an image with lots of red shoes that I've been saving and thought about making a card about the story of The red Shoes, and it's meaning to me. As is the way with SoulCollage - and creativity - it didn't turn out the way I expected it to. It doesn't even carry the original image of red shoes I started with.

It doesn't matter because flicking through images and sorting and cutting and playing and sensing fed my soul. It raised ideas and thoughts about dancing to my own tune (something I know all the theory about but never quite seem to get down pat).

It made me want to write a blog and step out of the box I managed to put myself in (which incidentally resulted in the drying up of any blogging at all) after I was given the blog award in the Nature/Green category. I am not sure why I found myself internalising someone else's categorisation of this blog, but it doesn't matter because, as the card suggests, I've taken of those red shoes too and I'm walking barefoot in my blog - as well as in my house.

And, as the quote says, "anytime we feed the soul, it guarantees increase"... Amongst the images I found a random image of a random object that sparked a random idea that is quietly simmering.

The  creativity flows...

SoulCollage® is the process, developed by Seena B. Frost, of creating a deck of collaged cards from found images—cards that are arranged in suits for the primary purpose of self-exploration and self-acceptance. SoulCollage® cards are made from original purchased art (e.g., art published in magazines, calendars, books, cards, etc.) and personal materials (e.g., photos). SoulCollage cards are not to be sold, traded, or bartered and are to be reproduced only for the personal use of the maker of the card.

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Red Shoes Barefoot originally appeared on Taexalia on July 20, 2010.

• I wish my dog would write a dream diary #
• Homegrown gooseberries yummy in my tummy #
• I write like Margaret Atwood. Proof: http://iwl.me/s/31ac0f16 - fun analysis of your writing style linky #
• I like it when they get the forecast wrong - off to plant a second sowing of peas... in the front garden no less #
• You don't want to be slipping on a banana skin when you're an ice cube... The wisdom of Super Monkey Ball... #
• Most. Delicious. Potatoes. Ever. #growyourown #
• Virus phone scam being run from call centres in India http://bit.ly/cp9W51 (via @guardiannews) #

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Twitterings originally appeared on Taexalia on July 18, 2010.

"Should is a word that makes a prisoner of us." ~ Louise L Hay

I'm completely rubbish at exuding self-confidence. I've come to the conclusion this is why I seem to be afflicted with unwanted, ininvited "you shoulds".  It seems to me that if I had the knack of exuding self-esteem, people wouldn't feel compelled to patronise me or treat me like I need help and advice with everything. It's pretty much like this: if you aim a sentence at me that begins with "you should" then my brain is going to shut down on you. "You should", you see, is so often about failing to acknowledge the current achievement. "You should" ignores the smile on my face because a seed turned into a seedling and survived weather, snails, slugs, soil conditions and my erratic planting calendar and grew into a plant.

My gardening seems to attract a lot of this negativity from one or two people, and half the time I have to sit down a figure out whether I really am the crap gardener they were anticipating, or whether I'm doing just fine after all. I'm quite happy to potter about in my garden and do my own thing. I'm not afraid of failure and I'm lucky enough to be in a position where, if all else fails, I can still put food on the table - even if I did have to buy it from someone else. I'm one of those people who learns by doing, by trial and error, by searching out some information and maybe applying it and maybe making it up as I go along. I like to experiment.

My potato patch is a case in point. I had no idea how to grow potatoes when I started out. I didn't care if there was a school of thought that potatoes are hard to grow because they sometimes get blight. I didn't care about how much space they need and whether that was too much in relation to the rest of my garden. I still don't.

I wanted to grow potatoes because my Granda grew potatoes, because I remembered the excitement of sticking a fork in the earth and uncovering the swollen white tubers that would be on the table within hours, shiny with melted butter and bursting with taste.

I bought some seed potatoes, chitted them and planted them out in the soil. Maybe I was too early, maybe I was too late, maybe they were too close to each other, maybe not. I watched the soil every day and nothing. Hindsight says that of course I didn't know how long potato seedlings take to show because this is the first time I ever put a tattie in the soil and waited. But the doomsayers had a feel day (is it field day or feel day? I think feel day, in the Doric sense, is about right...) and the "you shoulds" came pouring out - as well as the even more unhelpful "you should haves".

When the greenery finally started poking out of the soil, the congratulations did not come. "You should" prefers failure.

The potato plants got bigger and bigger. I had to endure more than one conversation about how I've grown too many potatoes. Because of course I have to have done something the wrong way.

At this point I will add that my own internal critic quite often feels redundant.

I'm told it is too early to pull a plant up for potatoes and I'm thinking that if I have too many potatoes then surely it's best to start eating them sooner rather than later... No?

"You should wait..."

Which is sort of like a red rag to a bull.

The fork goes in the soil a little later, and I dig up the first ever portion of tatties that I grew myself.

Just enough for two people to have with home-grown salad...

You should have seen the smile on my face.

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Not Buried originally appeared on Taexalia on July 18, 2010.

• RT @Beathhigh Goodbye, fiction. We don't need you any more. Events in Rothbury are making you redundant. Bagsy me for Gazza's ghost writer.. #
• FLASH Warning of Heavy Rain for Central, Tayside & Fife 1715 Sat 10 Jul to 0500 Sun 11 Jul http://bit.ly/csVuoj (via @metofficeEScot) #

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Twitterings originally appeared on Taexalia on July 11, 2010.

• I'm only interested in Rafa changing his shirt, not the other guy! #
• @craigwriter woo hoo! in reply to craigwriter #
• A strawberry each for breakfast #
• I love white billowing cumulus rising against crystal blue after rain #
• Is laughing at the BBC Wimbledon wood pigeon #

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Twitterings originally appeared on Taexalia on July 4, 2010.