Hello from Dandelion

Hello! I’m Dandelion. Brought up in Gloucestershire, I moved
to the South East when I went to Art
College to study ceramics
and textiles. There I was also taught how to knit Scandinavian-style,
and we had Kaffe Fassett as a lecturer teaching us about colour. This was the
time that I discovered growing things, which helped me to recover from a period
of depression, and I have grown things to eat for most of my life in gardens of
varying sizes. After I got married I taught for a while in Windsor then had three children. We all moved
to Herefordshire in 2002 to be near to my parents who were becoming elderly. Mr
D and I now both work at the same secondary school, me as a cover supervisor, he as
a teaching assistant for children with autism – less money than teaching, less
stress than teaching, and six lovely weeks off in the summer! I trained as a Master Composter in 2009 – this is the
part of sustainability which fascinates me the most: recycling, having a use
for everything, not wasting anything. Mr D and I are part of a very small
Christian community; although we don’t all share a house we are very close, and
are exploring ways of working together and living more simply.


Mr D and I grow as much of our fruit and vegetables as we can, and
have two chickens. There is not as much time as I would like to be able to be
creative – I would love to get back to weaving, silk painting and drawing at
some point: roll on retirement! I read to relax, listen to Bach and James
Taylor, and enjoy the films of M. Night Shyamalan. Our youngest daughter is about to go to Art College - so it begins!!

Hello Dandelion!

I have only just realised you posted this up Sorry!

Hey Dandelion, I didn't know you weave, and like James Taylor :-).

Oww how can you not weave and do all those things if you hands are trained to do it!! I'm jealous....

It is interesting what you say about the community. This way you can integrate your lives with common aims without living with each other. I was talking to a friend who basically has a community in their street (well there's a new idea!!! )

Zoe wrote:Oww how can you not weave and do all those things if you hands are trained to do it!!

That's a good question - I have found that I have had to choose between people and things for a lot of my life. When I do something creative I find that I retreat into myself and don't want to be interrupted - I had intended to carry on developing this part of my life when the children were growing up, but in practice I found it made me grumpy and frustrated, because my children needed me to be there, and although present in body I was somewhere else mentally. So I put this on hold, apart from a bit of drawing and silk painting. Things changed for us when MrD was ill and had to leave teaching - now that I work full time again I don't have the mental space for my own work. But my creative urges go into working in the garden, where I can be on my own and be quiet. It will be interesting to see where my path leads to next!