Feeling bad about the garden and other angsty thoughts

Before

I spent the bank holiday with mum trying to tame the wilderness that is my back garden.

When I first started looking for a flat I was adamant that I wanted something with some outdoor space. A mixture of serendipity, patience and sheer bloody mindedness meant I actually got what I was looking for: a spacious ground floor flat in a Victorian town house with 2 massive fireplaces, a courtyard garden and a proper pantry. All within my budget.

I was a good girl to start with; planting bulbs, climbers and veg with care and watering every evening during the dry days of summer. However, recently I have been a bit distracted and everything, flat interior included, has gone a bit Miss Havisham.



The lettuce (left) and broad beans (has beans)

I have included a picture of the lettuce that shot. When I pulled it out it was over 4 foot. I have decided that I am no good at growing edible things. Nothing makes be feel guiltier than throwing food away except perhaps throwing food away that I have grown myself and then left to rot in the ground. I am a terrible excuse for a human being. I also felt bad about the 30 or so empty wine bottles I took the the recycling yesterday. We couldn't park the car outside the flat so I had to do the clinking walk of shame over the road to the T K Maxx car park.


After

It looks like my hours at work are likely to be cut. I have spent a fraught week doing sums in my head, desperately trying to work out if I can afford to stay here or whether I will have to move somewhere smaller. I've just bought 2 pints of milk on my credit card so the answer doesn't look promising. Remember last week when I thought something good was around the corner? Well, feel free to give me an e-slap the next time I start prodding fate with a pointy stick.

My Fabulous Life

So, after 4 months of looking around grotty hovels I have finally moved in to what feels like my dream flat. As is usual with someone of my temperament, I am waiting for things to go horribly wrong.
I feel like I should be cooking lovely, nutritious food, buying flowers and decorating in a shabby chic sort of style ( I spend too much time on interior design blogs) whilst twirling around in circles and blogging about my fabulous life, but instead I am eating mainly Toblerone and last night saw me slumped on my loaned beanbag (sofa arrives next week) watching Glee whilst feeling vaguely melancholy.
I promise to post pictures soon of the paintings I have been working on, this is supposed to be an artist's blog after all. Tomorrow I am off to Art in Action at Waterperry gardens so a report on that coming soon!

My favourite door

I love this door. It's the door of an old barn just up the road from the cottage we stay in in Wales. I took photos of it last year too. Maybe I'll go back every year just to have a look at this door. This door reminds me of calmness and peace in times of turbulence. And turbulence is all there has been recently. I went to look at a flat last Thursday, signed a contract on Tuesday, gave away a huge wodge of money on Wednesday and I collect the keys on Sunday. This has all happened quite quickly and I have no furniture and have packed nothing.

This has been all I wanted for the last couple of months and now I'm here I'm suddenly petrified. I have never lived on my own before and life currently looks very different from the way i thought it would at 31.

Sketchbook pages

The woodland scene tonal sketches have been done as preliminary groundwork for a much larger than normal watercolour painting. The first three pencil outlines are for my watercolour class next week, the theme is windows and doors- not for the first time am I wondering whether I have made things a bit hard for my poor students.

Rather annoyingly there is also a smudge of something on the lens of my camera which is very noticeable in the first three images. What's a girl to do?

The flat hunt is on hold for a bit. It was taking up all of my emotional energy and my attitude towards my art had been "I'll just wait until I'm settled somewhere new and then I'll make a start". I hadn't even realised I'd done this until a week ago when I realised I hadn't painted anything for ages. No wonder I was feeling a little fraught. And dreaming about Farrow and Ball painted walls.

The Great 2010 Flat Hunt

When I moved back home last year I said I would give myself a year to sort myself and my finances out. That year was up last Monday. I actually started looking for a flat about 4 weeks ago and, my God, has this been a depressing business. I'm not sure what I expected, I am rather impatient. Once I have decided on a course of action (in itself quite difficult) I sort of expect things to fall into place but the perfect apartment has remained an elusive beast. My days have been punctuated with feverish assaults on rightmove followed by bouts of "I'll never find anywhere" and "I'm going to end up in some depressing bedsit listening to The Smiths". Last Saturday afternoon was spent loitering in the drizzle outside the most depressing of ugly new builds waiting for an elusive estate agent. He never did show up.

However, this morning brings with it a glimmer of hope. The viewing is on Monday. In the meantime, there are always more cupcakes.