At the end of 2012, I was writing posts that were predicting the weather for 2013 but the one thing you cannot predict, is what happens in the garden and in life itself.

I can quite easily say that 2013 has been the most challenging year for me…. in both the garden and in life. This isn’t going to be a post looking for sympathy or for me the get those virtual violins out but how life’s challenge’s, affect you in the garden and vice versa. Many would say this is the case for any job…. I would beg to differ. The garden is a living breathing environment with a history and a lot of feeling to go with it. With all the these troubles of this year has had an effect on my health, having had more trips to the doctors than I have at any time in my life and recently being rushed to the hospital…. bit of bugger that was! Having been away from the garden for a while, I feel I have lost touch with it feel like it has become a bit of a stranger to me. That friend I always could confide in seems very distant. I know this is only temporary and soon I will be back and with a few changes in place, reacquaint myself with the garden.

I’m looking forward to going back to work seeing the people, the garden and being part of a team again. I have been back to say hello from time to time but it’s not the same as staying and mucking in even if it is with the admin or in the garden. Yes, sometimes us Head Gardeners do get our hands dirty and not just when we fall over. Patience is something the garden teaches us all but this is something I haven’t got much of at the moment. So as soon as I can get back in the garden again and lose myself within the surroundings, I will feel a lot happier but this cannot come soon enough.

Trinity College is a wonderful place to work and not because of its wealth and status, this doesn’t bother me, even though I often joke about it but for me it is it’s gardens. How many Head Gardeners can say, to walk from one end of their garden taking in all the courts and gardens that you have to cross: three public roads (four if you go to the sports field), cross the River Cam, walk down an avenue of Limes, walk through the famous ‘Backs’ of Cambridge, down a avenue of Plane trees and across a Brook. Bin Brook, that quiet little stream that causes me very few problems, well sometimes…….

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With all these beautiful gardens and courts all steeped in history anything from: Sir Isaac Newton (Newton’s Apple) right through to the ‘Chariots of Fire’ race, there is one area of the college I often sit and be a peace with…….

It is away from the main part of the college I find the most peaceful, it is overgrown in places, natural, crawling with wildlife but completely relaxing. A place where all your worries and stresses are seen more clearly and after a few minutes there, the problems don’t seem so great and a lot more easier to deal with.

‘Happiness is not the absence of problems; it’s the ability to deal with them.’

To find peace in the garden for me it doesn’t always have to be in the main areas. That scruffy little area where the weeds can be weeds, the wildlife can happily scurry about without me getting a phone call, saying that we are under attack and there is no one about. Over the last few weeks I have missed being able to do that as well as all the gardening activities that you do.

There have been some good things in 2013: my son got into Essex University, we sorted out a work placement for a WRAGS student through the ‘Womens Farm and Garden Association’, I judged a flower show and they want me back next year and the cut flower patch has been a massive success. As they say… ‘Every dark cloud has a silver lining’

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So will I be doing another one of those rubbishy blogs predicting next years weather…. oh yes! T’is all a bit of fun but you can never predict what life is going to hand you and you can only predict certain things in the garden. I do know one thing though, that come the 31st December I won’t just be sticking my fingers up at Jools Holland and calling him every name under the sun like I normally do but also too 2013 itself. From now on this year will always be known as ‘Two thousand and Fucking thirteen’!