It's alive!

This is the brutally pollarded willow tree, just three weeks after the final cut. I am amazed how fast the new shoots are sprouting. There are 21 in all. So far. 

I was never in real doubt that it would survive, but the speed of its regeneration is astonishing. 

Thank you for the kind words yesterday. I really was losing patience with my back's recovery, but having read your comments and chatted with various friends I am feeling very much more settled about it all. This too shall pass. 

During one of those conversations, while on a completely different topic, I made a semi-thought-out throwaway observation about the nature of my mother's relationship with me, which turned out to be a light bulb moment.

You know how sometimes something sets off fireworks and bright lights of linkages in your brain? It was one of them. One single observation explains everything (everything) about her attitude towards me, and my lifelong struggle with our relationship.

I have been scribbling pages and pages in my diary, desperate to write down how and why this changes my view of the past, and how it could change the trajectory of my future. It is something I am still processing, and I may or may not share some of it here. 

Suffice it to say, I will be very much more at peace with myself for the rest of my life.

Goodness, it is good to talk...