“”Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” — Mary Oliver”
I celebrated my 28th year on this planet recently. Twenty eight years of my one wild and precious life. This is what I decided to exchange a day of my life for on this particular day.
The Eden Project in Cornwall houses the world’s largest greenhouse. Inside the artificial biomes are plants that are collected from all around the world. It was delightful and quirky and beautiful – the perfect birthday setting for a girl who loftily aspires to bring more of these very things into the world through her art. There were charming little details like stairs designed just for children… and Mike.
And quirky sculptures throughout.
Despite having looked forward to the rainforest biome the most, it was the gardens I got the most joy out of. I found myself thinking about elements I would like to incorporate into our future garden, namely wonky little fences made out of sticks, little stick teepees providing a vertical home for creepers and rows of lush edibles. Plus, who doesn’t love purple balls on sticks?!
Surprisingly, another highlight for me was the cafe! It seems somebody told them it was my birthday because it was a baked goods extravaganza – we’ve been without an oven for a year now and every now and then we crave cheesy baked comfort food and apple crumbles – exactly what we ordered at the Eden Project cafe and it was excellent! The cafe itself is surrounded by a beautiful, brightly coloured vegetable garden. Staff filled up their buckets with delicious looking edible bounty presumably for use in the cafe’s cuisine. There was something very satisfying about watching them work and I found myself thinking what a wonderful job that would be.
We topped the day off with a very satisfying Indian feast – our first Indian (not including the horrible, over-priced quasi-Indian we had in Rome) since we were in England this time last year! A foot massage over an episode or two of our new favourite and surprisingly educational TV program, “The Tudors”, topped off the perfect day. Ooh I almost forgot to mention the triumphal birthday present. I’d had my eye on this skirt for a little while and this was the last one they had – the one on the mannequin in fact – and it fit perfectly! It was meant to be! Thank you mum, dad, Margaret and Chris! I definitely wouldn’t have bought it without your kind birthday donation. Oh, and chartreuse is totally my favourite colour now thanks to the top I also found that goes perfectly with the skirt! Aaah, birthday serendipity.
I am super proud to say that I saw in my 28th birthday, confident that I am putting my one wild and precious life to very good use.
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