Life in the garden (plus sporting heroines)
ELLE's May issue is out, and I'm gardening (like everyone else)
I’m enormously proud of our new issue of ELLE Australia, one that was originally intended to celebrate our Olympic athletes. They, like so many of us, are on pause at the moment, but their incredible feats still deserve the limelight. So here they are: basketballer Liz Cambage on the cover, and in the inside feature, tennis-player Ash Barty, surfer Steph Gilmore, wheelchair racer Madison de Rozario, 800m runner Morgan Mitchell, soccer player Tayla Harris, and rugby sevens players Charlotte Caslick, Alicia Lucas and Evania Pelite. As you can imagine, it was QUITE the drama photographing them all - I can’t decide whether it’s harder to book in an athlete for a shoot or a comedian; both appear very tricky to pin down! - but the beautiful results are so worth it.
We shot Madison and Morgan at the Olympic stadium in Homebush, in Sydney, and it was a day of lateness (ours not theirs!), chaos and pouring rain. But I had such fascinating conversations with each of them. They’re both so young but have suffered various setbacks that have made them really examine their motivation to work as hard as they do at their professions. They’re both very wise and thoughtful women, and I hope you read the results of those chats, and all the others, in the magazine, on sale in newsagents and supermarkets now.
Sadly, ELLE has suspended publication temporarily, so the lovely August issue I had planned won’t be happening, but we’ve been told we should be back in a few months. I do hope so - I’ve managed to make a living in the fractured but fabulous print magazine industry for nearly 20 years and I would dearly love to make it for a few more! I’ve already got some freelance stories in the works and am looking for more, so please hit me up if you know of any editors or businesses who are commissioning.
What I’ve been reading
Penelope Lively wrote one of my most loved books, Moon Tiger, which I’ve written about before. She’s also written three beautiful books of memoir, Dancing Fish and Ammonites, Oleander Jacaranda and A House Unlocked. Her childhood was spent in Cairo, in a rambling garden coaxed from the desert with the vision of her English mother and the patient, indefatigable toil of their gardener and his boys, who were occasionally allowed to flood the dry, sunscorched garden with water to keep it flourishing in the Egyptian heat.
This book has the sure touch of a veteran writer - it’s a delightful ramble through the gardens Lively has known, loved and worked in, as well as a wander through gardens in literature, both fictional and real. It’s beautifully written and researched, of course, but meandering, soothing and not too demanding - perfect reading for these times!
Things that help
Obviously I’ve been a bit up and down this week, and I know I’m not the only one. Things I have found that helped:
reading Life in the Garden, the book mentioned above
walking among tall trees
scrambling over rocks at low tide and watching a snail climb very slowly out of a rock pool
planting seeds and bulbs and popping outside each day to check on them
I’m hardly the first to make this observation, but watching all the richly intricate and varied processes of nature just keep going, regardless of human crisis, reminds me of how temporary our worries are. It’s the same principle as watching the stars at night and feeling just how small we are. It’s at once awe-inspiring and comforting, and inspires me to slow down, take a breath and get things into perspective.
See you in two weeks!