Reflections on a misty morning

When I was running a botanic garden (up until August 2023), I enjoyed and found time to write regular magazine articles, weekly blog posts, and the occasional book. That's alongside radio contributions, lots of evening and weekend talks, and enough diary entries to make me feel like my life could be readily reconstructed in a rather crude and hagiographic way - to what end, I'm not sure.  

Now that I am in 'semi-retirement', with book writing now a major occupation, I can hardly find the mental or physical space to write anything for this blog, or my diary. Somehow, it seems like treachery to sacrifice half-decent (or not) sentences or squander beautiful (or not) words here rather than in one of the books. 

But that is only half the story. Doing the CEO job well (enough) meant I had to find ways to express myself outside of meetings and budget crises. A creative outlet if you like. Snatching a moment here and an idle thought there, I could cobble together something immediately satisfying. No consensus or convincing required.

I still enjoy writing in stolen moments, early in the morning or while dinner cooks. Longer stretches are good for editing and 'writing through', but a few minutes here are all I need to trap ideas and thoughts generated while cycling for a coffee on a frosty morning or weeding - forever weeding - the garden. These are the moments I once allocated to blog and diary. I now need them for the books. 

I had thought this blog would become a sounding board for stories that would end up in those books. I made a start with oaks, for the oak book, and then bled a little into flowers, for the flower book (and yes, I do have better titles for both). 

Similarly, when I moved from X/Twitter to Bluesky earlier this year, I took up the handle The Sceptical Botanist, thinking I would use that platform to test and promote The Sceptical Botanist: Separating Fact from Fiction (in this case, the final title).

Good intentions, failing in execution. 

This blog was never about saving the world, simply trying to make sense of it. Or at least the parts that had something to do with plants (and sometimes algae and fungi). 

TikTok may have been a smarter move, but that boat has sailed: I'm not interested enough in creating moving pictures and I sense it may well be on the wane. Whatever follows will I'm sure be even less appealing, to me. 

So, what to do? 

I could winge, like I've just done. Top and tailing with pictures such as these I took while kayaking on the Wingecarribee River last weekend (from a batch posted on Instagram). Or more usefully - for me and hopefully you - keep the blog going for those moments of inspiration and information.

I'll try to avoid too many of these self-indulgent pieces. Nobody needs more of them.