Hello! It’s been a while. As you may have gathered, I have not been well. Some of you will know that I have bipolar disorder and that winter can often be a tricky time. I am aware of this, am used to this, and have a range of strategies in place which (usually) help me to manage this, but sometimes I’m hit with a curve ball for which I have no precedent, and for which I therefore have no coping strategy. This was one of those occasions: it was approaching midwinter and I was feeling just fine when suddenly, out of nowhere, I found myself completely unable to sleep. This state of permanent insomnia lasted for several weeks, before my severely sleep-deprived mind decided it was time to hit me with some full-on madness. Thank goodness for Tom, and thank goodness, too, that I was able to see a fantastic GP who really understood the situation and was able to help.
It has taken quite a while to get through this particular episode: during the extended insomnia phase I lost quite a bit of weight and the word “exhausted” doesn’t really capture the dog-tired, yet weirdly wired state of my body and my brain. When I finally did get to sleep, it felt completely amazing, but then of course I couldn’t stop. I slept solidly for two days (I think Tom was a bit worried by this) and then went through a sort of extended zombie phase, when I could hardly get out of bed, and even my knitting tired me out. When I eventually began to regain some energy, I made myself go out into the garden for a couple of hours a day and do some tasks. In January and February there is actually quite a lot to do in the garden, and, although the weather is cold and the jobs are dirty, this is also very rewarding work. I pruned shrubs. I tidied, fed and mulched the beds and borders. I cleared moss and weeds from the gravel (there is a lot of gravel). I scraped the mill race clear of leaves and gunk and did the same for the drains and drainage channels. I cleaned the paving stones and mill stones.
At the start of February, there were only the resident robins singing, but as the month went on, I began to hear more birdsong. A shouty thrush. Competing chaffinches. The ringing tones of great tits and coal tits. A trilling wren. The low ‘doos’ of collared doves. Then, one sunny day I heard the rock pipits lovely descending notes while I was walking at Brunerican. And the following morning, larks rose singing above the fields of Machrimore.
You would think there is not a lot to cheer the heart in the February garden, but that is not the case. Every day, as I scraped and cleared and tidied, I could see small changes and new shoots. The snowdrops have been so beautiful, as have the winter aconites. I have fallen in love with all the hellebores (and will show you these another time) but the flower that has really helped me to get through February is Iris Reticulata.
I planted shallow pots full of these bulbs back in autumn, and placed them directly outside the back door.
They started to come up alongside the snowdrops, and their colourful slow unfurling has proved a particularly cheering sight on cold, grey February days.
These irises are tiny, but they are also quite robust. As the “reticule” part of their name suggests, the flowers have an interesting two-part structure, with the delicate inner petals enclosed in a protective outer casing.
On a sunny day, both sets of petals open, revealing an interior quite obviously designed to attract all early pollinators.
What a delight to see the first bees of the year buzzing around the iris flowers!
The blooms are quite short lived (they seem to last about a week) but I packed loads of bulbs into my pots, at two different levels. . .
. . which has ensured a steady series of colourful blooms . . .
. . . through February, and into March.
When Iris Reticulata began to bloom I was still not feeling at all well.
I am now much better, and though not yet completely out of the woods, the fact that I’m sitting down to write this is a sign that I definitely feel on a much more even keel.
Sometimes I hear people talk about bipolar disorder with the misguided assumption that the manic part of it actually might be kind of fun. I can tell you that it really isn’t, and although this particular episode did not involve any immediately dangerous situations (as was sometimes the case in my younger days) it has certainly been a very unpleasant, strangely scary, and incredibly tiring couple of months. I never want to experience anything like it again.
I’m really grateful to Tom, Maylin, Claire, KC and Kendall who have tirelessly kept things going while I’ve been on gardening leave. I’m also grateful to you, readers and knitters – especially those of you in the Wester Ross club – for being so kind and patient while I’ve been getting better. There’s some editorial work for me still to do on the Wester Ross book, but I’ll be back at my desk and ready (as I’ll ever be) for work next week. I will let you know when we are ready to go to print (which will hopefully not be too long). Thank you for understanding.
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