I don’t have green fingers at all. I grew up in the inner City so never really needed to learn about gardening. During lockdown, I’ve been encouraging my children to do some planting and look at the progress of their broad beans, still in pots but thriving. The one thing about the plants thriving is I’ve noticed their happiness in the rain. We water these plants regularly but their strength cannot be compared to nature’s way in the rain.
During my last LinkedIn post, I talked about having some writers block and being distracted. I received a lot of feedback; the natural order of nature continues to help me and my writing is progressing. I have been grateful for the great friends I have reaching out, inspiring me with their journeys, but also being given a huge responsibility for a friend that has made me feel amazing. It was a small thing that I could do for someone so amazing, but a big responsibility in my heart.
It’s been an interesting time recently with Ramadan and celebrating Eid. It’s been great to have visitors in our garden and not feel so alone on such important religious celebrations. This isn’t a religious post, but one where we remember that having safety in our time is vital, and as a community caring for each other during this Covid pandemic has shown that the kindness of human beings is still there and we have hope.
I’ve been flexible with the girls’ bedtime so they did stay up some days in Ramadan to enjoy the excitement of having the evening meal with us. It’s natural for the children to be curious about us eating dinner at night, and for us, natural for us to eat as a family as although we gave them dinner at the usual time, they didn’t really eat with enjoyment until we were all together. During Ramadan, there is even more time for kindness, mindfulness, self-control and reflection. There is a patience in the air that is obligatory and a gratefulness to how fortunate we are. It’s been nice to have this without the distractions of work or study. Our nature as humans is kindness and we thrive on it like garden plants- and to see others’ happy and well. We feel a great deal of pain when we see human suffering and our worries are so small in comparison.
In my garden, a few spring onions have shot up on their own from the planting we did last year. It’s nice that even one effort in the past can still bring you a surprise in the future. Here are the spring onions, some baking that I’ve done, lovely flowers from my amazing friend and my younger daughter spending ages lining up stones she had collected in her net on the kitchen floor.
Skills Repeat 