How was your week? Physio, pot project, veg garden and memoirs …

If we were having coffee, I’d tell you my physio sessions are going well … well, sort of. The painful tendinitis in my right hip had almost disappeared until I started driving our manual transmission car. A couple of journeys in, pressing the clutch aggravated the tendinitis, so it felt like two steps forward and one step back. The physiotherapist has now given me exercises that mimic depressing the clutch to build muscle around my knee. Ouch! The exercises are painful, so she wants me to progress slowly. But at least I have an end goal to work towards. We will see.

Aged Pot Project – How to make a new pot look old

Yay, I finally finished my pot!

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Why my vegetable gardening mojo has finally deserted me!

Why? You love growing veg, I hear you say.

Yeah, I know, but there comes a point where you finally have to concede defeat. After a disastrous summer where my tomatoes flunked as did my courgettes, and then finally the aubergines succumbed to a mystery bug, followed by the discovery that the roots from the maleucla hedge had once again infiltrated the raised vegetable beds. The discovery of the mass of rogue roots was the straw that broke piglet’s back. I don’t have the mobility to dig them all out, reline, and refill the beds with earth. I have already done it twice before … Mr Piglet moaned that my vegetables were gold-plated; the cost and effort far outweighed the harvest, but, providing I enjoyed it, he was happy it made me happy.

On the upside, it does give me time to focus my efforts elsewhere, and as the rain and strong winds create havoc, now is the time for maintenance and battening down the hatches.

I’d like to write my memoirs, but where do I start?

Have you tried? If so, where did you start?

I want to devote the month of January to this project. I am at the planning stage, staring at a blank page and don’t know where to begin, rather like writing a book where you outline the chapters in advance. I have completed NaNoWriMo twice (50,000 words in November). Okay, I don’t want to write 50,000 words.

I asked ChatGPT for pointers. It’s reply:

Getting started is usually the part with the most fog. Once you’re in motion, the stories tend to tap you on the shoulder on their own.

A couple of low-pressure entry points:

1. Start with one tiny scene, not your whole life.
Pick a moment that still has a bit of charge—funny, painful, odd, comforting. Write just that scene. No introduction, no “this is my memoir.” One moment is enough to start a thread.

2. Borrow your own voice from daily life.
Imagine you’re telling a story over a cup of tea. Write it the same way you’d talk, even if it sounds messy. You can tidy later.

3. Ask yourself a single question today.
Something simple:

• “What’s the earliest thing I remember clearly?”
• “Who taught me something without meaning to?”
• “What was a turning point I didn’t recognize at the time?”

Answer it in a paragraph. That’s a beginning.

4. Give yourself a small container.
Five minutes. One memory. Stop when the timer rings. You can always add more tomorrow.

You don’t need to commit to a grand project—you just need the first spark.
Which of these feels doable for you right now?

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Hmm… food for thought. Maybe I’ll take the postcard approach. ‘A Slice of Life’. Different stories. Dig out old photographs. Write random memories, then piece them together in chronological order later.

I would be grateful for any further suggestions, please?

Well, that’s me for this week, folks off to check out more coffee shares then procrastinate/deliberate further on memoir writing!

Have a good week!