Inspiration . . . .

You may recall my previous post regarding my credit card woes.

My bank has kindly credited my account with the amounts that appeared, but today I received a letter from them with a form I must fill out to officially dispute one of the transactions.  Enclosed with the letter was a copy of the invoice from the store in the United States where this transaction was made, together with a copy of identification of the purchaser, who by now I guess is in possession of his new Bulova Watch, his Citizen Watch and his new flash Nike Trainer Running Shoes.

I opened this letter, addressed to me as Mrs Juliet ******* and I have to laugh that they need me to formally advise them that I did indeed NOT purchase these items.  Let alone have them sent to me in SINGAPORE!!  What an absolute star Mr Vincent Gie is!!

I can tell you though that it is somewhat creepy to see your credit card number on someone else's card, right down to the supposed security number on the back.  Well, it was my credit card number, it is no more and I'm guessing it isn't my friend Vincent's credit card number any more as well, he's probably moved on to any number of other poor unfortunate victims' cards.  How many watches does one little Singaporian need anyway?

I used to buy myself gardening magazines on a fairly regular basis.  Then in the last year or so, I haven't bothered.  A good indication of my lack of gardening mojo.

I buy my sister a subscription  to a home decorating magazine for her birthday each year.  We were discussing on the phone some weeks ago the fact that everything is online, you can read a magazine on your iPad these days, page by page, but never hold it physically in your hands.  I asked her if she wanted to still receive it each month in her letter box or read it online.  No, she would rather get the magazine, even if she is running out of space on her bookshelves.  She loved to be able to refer to it later, to sit in the sun and read it slowly, or put it away and peruse it at her leisure.  Then she said something about how she thought it was her way of staying inspired, that inspiration for the decoration of her home, which is gorgeous I might add, didn't just come out of the blue, she needed to see what's out there, to see what other people have done and to find ideas that she could use or that gave her inspiration to make up her own ideas.

And as she said it, it dawned on me that I  am the same about my garden.  The magazines I used to buy, whilst not always applicable, gave me ideas and started my brain thinking about plants and plantings and accessories and all the other joys that come with making a garden.

I was depriving myself of this important inspiration.

So that very day, I organised myself a subscription to perhaps my favourite gardening magazine, The English Garden.  Yes, I know the seasons are all wrong, that their summers are so cool compared to ours and that their winters can include snow where ours here don't, I can cope with all that, but I am always inspired by something that I see between the covers of this magazine.

And my first issue arrived today.  It's all about the Chelsea Flower Show, and I think I need to visit that one day.  Even the ads I find interesting.  And inspiring.

Pity Mr Vincent Gie didn't get into gardening, instead of the rubbish he's doing at the minute . . .