Decadent Neglect

No more the grand vistas of colour and scent 

Enrobing all in acres of bloom and beauty; 

The crowded beds of a million blooms are gone 

Leaving sparse clusters of brightly-stained flowers 

Amidst an increasing sepia of decay.

NW

I wish I'd brought my secateurs the last time I was here. :: sigh ::

If You Can't Say Anything Nice...

"Nic is getting pretty fed up hearing how people are being 'shamed' into losing weight because they received insults from friends and/or strangers about their appearance to 'spur them on' to doing something about it, like the insults are a good thing.

Why is insulting someone, bullying someone, ridiculing someone now being lauded as the way forward to display (faux) concern for someone who is not considered to be (by them) desirably-bodied?

Masking hatred, ignorance and own-self-issues in false barbs of 'it's for your own good', really meaning 'it's for *their own* own good' is puerile, cowardly and dangerous.

If you genuinely care, let love be your maxim, let your outlook be positive, and your words be kind. Otherwise STFU and GTFO."

It can be said that I perhaps spend too much time on facebook, but to be honest, I've learned an awful lot more about the 'real world' on there recently than in the actual Real World. Being of the bigger persuasion, I've learned to surround myself in a layer of emotional bubble wrap when venturing outside - one barb from an outraged 'Citizen of Self-Proclaimed Normal' may occasionally get through and puncture my albeit rather paltry self-esteem, but on the whole there are usually more deflections than direct hits. So, being click-baited to stories of epic weight loss triggered by someone-or-other saying something disgusting to a larger person is quite the eye-opener. And doing only a tiny online search brings me tale after tale of how insults, name-calling, sometimes even physical aggression have been the alleged flame to light the touch paper of weight loss attempts.

This APPALS me.

The only people with ANY right to say anything about your body is you, your doctor, and if they are wonderful, your partner (and imo only if you ask them to).  

What appals me even further is that there doesn't seem to be any backlash or comeuppance for those that insult, the aggressors, the bullies, au contraire, they seem to be more congratulated than condemned for doing what is being spun to sound like a public service. What on earth has happened to decency, decorum, and good old-fashioned mind-your-own-business?

For sure there is no one single catalyst that ignites the weight-loss spark in us. There can, and are, a myriad reasons to propel us towards change, many of which should indeed be lauded to the heavens and celebrated for the good that they do, but hatred should not be one of them. For no matter what the 'but I'm saying this because I care' lot say, insults in whatever form spring from a well of animosity and bitterness; the same tainted source from which the bullies, and out-and-out haters get theirs.

Sure, it may be fair to say that perhaps had it not been for those spirit-crushing insults, the insultee may not have been spurred on to change their lives at that point in time, but what happens when the route down which they feel they're being propelled leads to an altogether different, less favourable end?

This exaltation of contempt needs to stop.
 

Gather Ye Rosebuds

Do you remember me telling you about the mammoth quest my sister and I undertook to find a fabled land of heady blooms and acres of lawn? That, armed only with a vague description (it's HUGE, so much SPACE, so many ROSES, to the EAST) supplied by my brother, a determined step, and an empty SD card, we set off with the intention of fulfilling our olfactory and visual hopes and dreams? 

Yeah, that time we got lost in a park at the wrong side of the city after discovering we'd been given the wrong compass points. That time.

Well, this time, THIS TIME I am here with the roses, and for all his vagaries, he was absolutely spot-on - there is so much space, the lawns are pristine, the roses are many. Timing is of the essence, though. I was here late last July with my sister, and so many of the blooms were already past and setting into hips. It appears that they don't exercise a dead-heading policy in the park, because these roses should be blooming well into November if they're properly looked after, not already finishing up at the end of July because someone decided to skive-off their rose-caring classes at horticulture college. (I may be being mean. Of course I have no idea why the roses are left to bloom, decay, and set fruit, but considering how well the rest of the gardens are tended, I can only presume it's on purpose.) 

So time really is of the essence if you want to experience the full wonder that is the Rosarium at Westbroek Park, because when the stars are aligned you're presented with quite an astonishing, and beautiful sight.

I Am What I Am

"Nic has a strong suspicion that all her gorgeous (now too big) plus-size evening gowns she sold on eBay have gone, judging by the buyers' names, to drag queens! 

Huzzah! And may those dresses continue to have fabulous lives!"

You heard me lament last year that I had outgrown, no... That I had ingrown... Ew, no. That I found myself unable to fill my wonderful concert gowns in a manner appropriate to their ample dimensions.

Thankfully I still had a couple of dresses that were of simple enough construction to let me take in the bodices, and nip in the waists so they didn't hang off my now smaller frame, but my more fitted dresses (currently a fashion oxymoron) were too complicated to alter, too marvellous to throw out, so finding them new owners was the course of action I chose to follow.

And they all went. I had five gowns listed, and they were all won by people with male-sounding names. Now I know not to presume, and that some potential winners don't use their own accounts when bidding online, so the chances were that not everyone that won was male, and if they were they may not have been bidding for themselves... Nevertheless I'd really like to think that those five dresses will be worn by amazing people who know much more about how to wear make-up than I do.

Viva le dive!

Ignorance Isn't Bliss

In all my years of living three miles away from St Andrews, or visiting St Andrews, or studying in St Andrews I never once visited the Botanic Garden. In fact I didn't know it was there for the longest time. The town isn't huge by any stretch of the imagination, but just to the south of the Kinness Burn, which at this point meanders through a pretty well-off area, stands eighteen and a half acres of delightful green space, hidden from view by an old, disused railway embankment, and some building developments. That's a lot of ground to be overlooked in the centre of an old medieval town!

According to the website of the garden itself, "about 8,000 species of ferns, herbaceous plants, shrubs and trees, are grown here. Some are native to Scotland but most grow wild in other regions of the world. All those outdoors are hardy and can be cultivated successfully in the climate around St Andrews. The soil is developed in glacial till overlying magnesian limestone. In the upper part of the garden the texture is a clay loam but near the Kinness Burn, it is sandy with some gravel."

The day was dreich, but it hardly mattered, because my word, what an impeccably kept space! Utterly chock full of colour and variety, and I suspect I took around one photo per each of the species represented, plus a good few extra of each of the irises - my favourite type of flower!

Lamentations Of A Chocolate Kind

"Nic was starting to think that going gluten-free might not be quite so excruciating after all, until she read the ingredient list of a Cadbury's Double Decker.

WOE, OH WOE IS ME!!!"

Not even a 'may contain gluten'. Nope.  Straight out PILES of wheat and gluten and I want to stamp my foot on the ground and tell the world that it's just not fair.

I won't, but my inner toddler is having a right old tantrum just now.

East, West, Home Is Best

My sister and I went on a walk along the West Sands this afternoon. Long walk plus real sand equals screamy-tired leg muscles. But happy ones, because this is a view from my childhood. Not to much the white tents that are there for the Open, but that iconic skyline. Yeah, and the grey skies pretty much, too. The dunes have been fenced-off since I last walked along here (which is too-long ago) to protect them from erosion, but there are board-walks both old and new to take you from the beach to the road that separates it from the Old Course golf links just behind. 

It's really pretty wonderful out here on this spit of land!