SADness Easing

Yesterday I just couldn't shake the SADness, although I wasn't falling all the way down. The first thing that started the uphill climb was getting a text from Nick and Izzy asking if we were doing anything, and then, as we weren't, they came out to sit by the fire and chat, and look at the moon, and be in the country peacefulness. It was just the kick-start I needed, and this morning I decided to be a bit proactive. I discovered something a while back, when I was working through John Kirwan's book, All Blacks Don't Cry, and website about depression. When I was depressed and people said, "do something you like doing, to cheer yourself up," it made no sense to me because when I am depressed, I don't like doing anything. Through JK I discovered that what I actually need to do is, 'do something I enjoy doing when I'm not depressed, even though I don't feel like it at this time.'

So I grabbed the camera and went for a walk around outside on this glorious sunny, wind free day.

 We discovered the kettle has been leaking, so after a couple of days of drying out, Mac is finally turning the slab of macrocarpa into a bench top!

 Such lovely wood.

 The ducks make me smile just because they are, well, ducks!

 The rhubarb hasn't died off this winter: the stems are shorter and thinner, but they have kept on growing.

 Snow drops are possibly my favourite spring bulbs.

 The tagasaste is buzzing with both honey bees and bumble bees.

 The magnolia which was a land warming gift from my friend Margaret, is finally flowering.

 Dew covered spider webs are always breath-taking.

 The hyacinths re a bit stunted this year, but still fragrant and beautiful.

 

 And who could fail to see summer in this glorious incarnation of joy?

 Mac was ploughing up a new potato bed, and I got stuck into the vegetable garden, so that when it's time to sow and plant, the beds will be ready and waiting. Gardening works for me in so many ways: just connecting to the earth, but also, the anticipation of harvest, the physical hard work, the sounds of birds and bees all around, the sense of usefulness, of purposefulness.

There's not much to eat at the moment - loads of parsley, a little silverbeet, pak choi, beetroot, miners' lettuce and carrots. But soon there will be lots to choose from, I hope.

Then, tired and sore from the digging, I watched as the light faded from the day. I'm still not out of the woods - but I can see the light over the mountain.