WHO AM I?

A woman grappling with serious who am I and what do I want to do with the rest of my life issues. You’d think I would know by now. After all I have just turned 60! But the great thing about getting older is the way it surprises you. By turning out to be nothing like you expected. So I don’t have all the answers. I don’t feel particularly grown up. I haven’t settled down and stopped wanting to do new things. And I’m always learning.

I am, however, a frustrated writer, with five novels under my belt that I can’t seem to get published. Luckily, in the gaps between writing, I’ve been getting up close and personal with my garden. So when it began to dawn on me that my novels were unlikely to see the light of day, I turned to garden design. Which was why, in January 2013, I started a course at the KLC  school in Hampton Court. Which is where this blog began….

SO WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?

I started out writing about learning how to be a garden designer. But when the course finished, the writing didn’t. Now my focus is on gardens and gardening, with a bit of travel thrown in when it takes me away from the green stuff. My commitment is to writing when I have something I want to say, and not just for the sake of it, so if there’s a gap it’s because I’m lacking inspiration. I love it when people leave comments and let me know what they think. So keep me posted if you like what you read. I promise to reply.

One of the unexpected things to come out of jumping on the blog train is the way it has inspired me to take more photographs. Which means I’m not just a word person anymore; I’m a picture person too. One of my resolutions last year was to take my photography a bit more seriously, so I signed up to do a four week online photography course with the great Clive Nichols. All the pictures you see in these pages are taken by me. Unless I tell you otherwise.

The positive feedback I’ve had from this blog has encouraged me to revisit those five books I spent the last fifteen years writing and have a go at self-publishing. I re-edited and tidied up the book I’m most proud of The Greenyards Legacy, Now you can buy it on Amazon. The people who have seem to have liked it!

I always seem to have a plot bashing around in my head – always have had, probably always will. So the big question is ‘Do I have a go at writing another book?’ At the moment I’m thinking not. For now it’s gardens – other people’s gardens, my garden – that look likely to keep me very busy. I’ve recently set up a website which you can find at Jane King Gardens and am looking forward to new projects in 2018, and the opening of my garden to the public for the NGS in June. But I’ve learnt over the years to ‘never say never’. So who knows. The one thing I do know is that, whatever happens, I’m going to keep on learning.

So all I can say is…

Watch this space.