The little things....

      As you may have gleaned from my profile or words I now earn a crust, albeit a thin one, from gardening these days. The change of career from engineering for over thirty years was the culmination of separate events that together led to one of those 'catch your breath moments' and for me to take the plunge into being self employed.

     Listed briefly the events that happened, perhaps not in precise order were; my breakdown and the subsequent turmoil that ensued, my divorce, the take over of the factory where I was working at the time and the idiotic engineering manager who usurped the original team, the realisation that material gains mean nothing if your not happy within yourself (or if your dead for that matter), meeting G and the support she has given me, support that until meeting her I had no idea that I was missing and a raft of other, smaller events that all summed up together to make the change in my life.

     So the plunge was taken, a risk for both of us not just myself, and my gardening career began. That was some five-ish years ago now and to say that it has been wonderful all the time would not really be truthful. For a start financially it has been a killer with me earning far less than fifty per cent than what I could have as an engineer, the work is so weather/seasonally dependant to make it seem at times feel that it truly is not worth it and I have to be nice to people...a lot!

     It is especially, at times like now where I have been rendered basically housebound and unable to work due to snapping my collar bone that I rue the change of career. If I don't work I don't get paid, there is no company sick pay nor any holiday pay for me and when you are as poor as I am at managing money then this becomes a real blow, putting pressure not just on me but onto G and our relationship. 

    But G has been a rock and my bone will heal (as long as I am sensible about giving it enough time that is), so we both know this time of hardship will pass. And if I am being honest a return back to the factory life is never on the cards, mentally it would be the end of me as I still teeter upon the edge of the abyss at times. It is hard at these times to be positive but it is the little things that sometimes do the most to help and remind me that I was born to gardening and working outdoors, just took some decades and a breakdown to realise it. The client base that I have slowly built up are in the main kind, appreciate my work and ethics, and are a pleasure to work for.

    This evening the little thing that reminded me of why I do what I do happened whilst looking for some picture to 'jazz' the blog up a bit and I came across these...

    Last month I was working for a client that had contacted me earlier in the year after her garden had been left in a right bloody mess by one of the so called 'big landscaping companies'. The story of the garden's progress this year may well be worth a post in itself but I shall have to ask her permission to tell that story. She is a dream to work for and bringing her a garden for her to enjoy has being fulfilling to say the least (not to mention she provides copious amounts of tea or coffee). On the last visit she handed me the above book "as a thank you for the work so far". As I turned the pages I realised that this was more than just a book but from the late nineteenth centuary (the hand written gift message is dated 1874 the year of the books publication) it had been somebodies treasured garden companion with dried flowers secreted between many of the pages and almost every page having hand written notation upon some aspect, either observed or learnt, of gardening. I was basically moved to tears and told her that this was a treasure that I could not accept but she insisted saying "it is because you see it for what it is and not as a material thing that I want you to have it".

     So you see working at a career, or for that matter a relationship that saps the soul and strength out of oneself just for material or monetary gain is truly not worth it. But working at a life where one is appreciated and is shown to be appreciated is truly worth it, but sometimes it is the little things that help remind one of this. Yes my ladder acrobatics have made it extremely hard for myself and G at the moment but together we are strong enough to get through this time, I just have to remember to take my safety net when next performing on a ladder.