Old style dream life vs real life

MJ_Wilton wrote: »

Hello Angel_Jenny. I feel like I’ve found a kindred spirit! I too would love a simple countryside life surrounded by a library and the things I have crafted, and I’m also hampered by living in the wrong place with not enough money to change it! But I feel I’m a few steps ahead of you, so here’s what I do to “deal with such a disparity between your actual life and what you want”:

I’m not good at sticking to new resolutions. So I try to alter my habits gently. I practise my knitting (I’m not very good yet) while I watch TV. Sometimes I knead read with the tv on too!

I can’t promise myself I’ll bake every week on a particular day. But I’ll pick out a recipe so that when I’m in the mood to bake, I won’t waste that time looking through cookbooks or pinterest.

I’m slowly learning to bake better. I’ve got a simple recipe for cake I baked until I perfected it, and now I’m branching out to pastries and more complicated cakes. I’ve started learning about bread too, using library books. I recommend Jack Monroe’s books, since her recipes are so affordable. No buying fancy ingredients you’ll never use up and it doesn’t feel like a waste when it goes wrong! And she does such a lovely variety of baked things

Our garden isn’t tiny, but was overgrown with weeds when we moved in. Little by little I’ve been claiming it back! Each year I’m adding a couple of new flowers and a new food crop as I learn how to care for them. It’s about to be our third summer here, and we’ve got strawberries, two tomato plants, one lettuce, one cabbage, one cauliflower, four runner beans and a huge row of potatoes! Most of this was free. My Granny gave us a few of her spares – do you know anyone who grows their own veg who could share with you? And our potatoes were once growing eyes at the bottom of our cupboards! When I find one that’s got a bit old to eat I’m delighted nowadays, and chit and plant it up!

Another Granma gifted us the seeds she got free with her gardening magazines but didn’t want. Free flowers! Seed packets start at under £2 and can have hundreds of seeds in them. I recommend Sweet Peas for an easy, colourful, and above all cottage-garden feel I always make sure I’ve got pots of flowers on the windowsill outside, so I can see them from indoors. Sure the rest of my house is ugly, but at least I can see my aquilegia Grandmother’s bonnet!

Even without much garden, pots are ace. I’ve herbs growing indoors on a few windowsills. I’ve little wooden and chalk-board holder for one, and a self-painted plain pot for another. It looks very pretty, even though the rest of my seeds are in loo-roll tube and old ice-cream tubs! But I’m slowly upgrading and choosing to focus my attention on the things that do look how I like them.

I hope this this given you some ideas on how you can add a bit more of what you love into your life. The answer to “how do you deal with such a disparity between your actual life and what you want” is, I think, make small changes in the right direction. And then focus on enjoying them!

So start that Saturday tea-time. Even if it’s only the days you’re off work and feel like baking. Drink it alone with whatever china you have, but bake enough for others to share if they want. Maybe it will develop into a lovely family tradition, or maybe it won’t. But either way you’ll feel better for living a life more like your aspiration!