Ep 012 - The Last Love Note, Cottage Gardening & Chasing Stars featuring Emma Grey

We dedicate this episode to my grandpa Bob. This is my last love note. Rest in peace, grandpa. I love you. Before we start, Seedy Chats would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the Ngunnawal and Namburi country, the land on which we garden. Our land's first gardeners and caretakers. We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging. Hello and welcome. Welcome to Seedy Chats. Hello and welcome back. Welcome to Seedy Chats, the podcast where imperfect gardeners, Avril, that's me, and Bernadette. Hi, that's me. Chat about our favorite topics, gardening and life. So whether you're new to gardening, a seasoned pro or somewhere in between, join us on our journey to be mindful in gardening and life in general. Today we're talking to Emma Gray. Emma is a novelist, feature writer. photographer, professional speaker and accountability coach. She's been writing fiction since she first fell for Anne of Green Gables. She wrote her recent adult novel, The Last Love Note, in the wake of her husband's death, a fictional tribute to their love, an attempt to articulate the magnitude of her loss and a life affirming commitment of hope. Emma lives just down the road from us, outside Canberra, with her two adult daughters, young son. loved stepchildren, writing endlessly and chasing the Aurora Australis, which we're going to talk about. Yeah, I'll tell you what, Avril, there must be something in the water around here because we're producing a few stars in Gookong in more ways than one. Not just the Aurora. The Aurora, but who'd have thought that the Aurora was just down the road from us, Bernadette? I haven't, we have to check that out, right? We are, well I reckon we can go fumble around with Emma. Go fumble around and have a root in the boot, eh? People wouldn't understand that, Brett and I, unless they listen to other podcasts. Yes, so, Seedy Chums, we hope you enjoyed this interview as much as we enjoyed speaking with Emma and as much as we enjoyed the book, and I can't encourage you enough. If you're looking for a book to listen to, a world to escape to, you know, feelings to share, check out the book, The Last Love Note, by Emma Gray. Emma, welcome. I'm Avril and this is Bernadette. Hi. Thank you so much for coming and having a chat to us. We were pretty excited and I'm a little bit starstruck because after reading your book, I'm like, oh, here you are. Yeah, we both took on the challenge to read it together, didn't we Bernadette? Oh gosh, it's the first book I have gotten into since I had my daughter. I used to read and then I just, and then I haven't, and I've got the audible version. I tell you what, five out of five for that lady who did the reading. Well, she is Leanna Walsman. She was in Looking for Ella Brandy and Seven Types of Ambiguity and a whole, I think she was in Star Wars as well as a, I mean, I'm not, I'm now entering territory. I don't understand. So I don't know who she played in Star Wars now, but. Yes, she's amazing. She's just got an incredible delivery, hasn't she? She does. She delivers it beautifully. It's so exciting for us to have a book that mentions things like Kingston. I know. And, you know, like, and Rhodes. Lanyon Drive. Lanyon Drive. And the Brindabilla Mountains and things like that that just, I just go, oh my God. I've actually just been editing it again for the US release and so it's coming out in America later in the year and I was really worried that they might suggest we move the setting because you know that kind of thing does happen sometimes with books. Yes. But thankfully they haven't so we're about to put Jera on the international map. Oh my gosh, Jera Bombera. It is very exciting and you know knowing that you just lived down the road from us like I kind of have been quite sentimental now driving. Just because I finished the book and I'm just thinking back to it. And plus you need to release another one. I did leave. I did leave a five star review yesterday and I said, I demanded on core pretty plays. That's me. But I haven't got, I haven't got to the end yet. So please no spoilers. Well, we can't really, can we? Because our listeners. Yeah. So that's. So you must be well versed in talking about it, but not. giving too much away. That's right, yes. I have done a few podcasts, recordings recently, which is always just lovely. And it's interesting that everybody gets something different from it. And so talking to really truly local readers is very exciting. And actually I've got an event coming up later in the month at Queanbyon Library and I'm really looking forward to that too, because it'll just mean that we can talk about what it feels like to have our local area appear in... writing. I think Canberra in general has been sort of overlooked for a long time for various different reasons and it's just you know I think we've grown up a lot and it's nice to share that showcase our city. And it reminded me of the beauty and the things that you do take for granted a little bit even just reading about those things like having the blue mountains in the background. I moved away for 10 years and I moved home and whenever I used to come back to Canberra and drive you know down the down the Hymn Highway and see those blue mountains. That was always that feeling of home, which we're just so lucky here to be surrounded by that. We are very lucky. And I remember when I moved here from Sydney, I said to my husband, we're only here for a year. That's it. 10 years later, because I couldn't think of any reason to move back to where we came from, like where we had moved from. It's just so serene, so beautiful. You've got... space. It's yeah, yeah, so it is pretty special. So, yeah, Emma, can you give us a little a little blurb a little insight for our listeners about the last love note about the book? Yes, well, it's a book that I it's the fifth book that I've written. I previously wrote a couple of teenage novels. One of them I wrote for my daughter who's actually a hairdresser in Gugong. Shout out to Sophie. Yes, we know Sophie. Well, Sophie, when she was in high school, hated reading but loved Harry Styles and you probably know still loves Harry Styles, covered in Harry Styles tattoos as we speak. Anyway, so I took her back then to the Warran Direction concert and about 10 years ago and got the idea to write her a story just to show her that reading could be fun. So I wrote a book about a boy band and a girl. and she sort of got all involved in helping me come up with the storyline for that, which was really fun. And then a school friend of mine, who was a composer in Sydney, decided that we would co-write a musical based on that novel, which we did. And we put this musical on at St. Clair's College, where Sophie was. Oh, that's where I went. Yeah, right. Oh, there you go. More connections. And so that was just this. hugely fun thing with a glitter cannon and you know just teenagers and energy all that stuff anyway so that was some of my earlier books and then in 2016 we suffered a family tragedy when my husband Jeff passed away unexpectedly he actually died from a heart attack and I knew when that happened that I would end up writing about grief but I sort of wasn't sure how I would, you know, in what way, would it be a memoir, would it be a self-help sort of book, and in the end I chose to make it fiction. And I'm really glad because it meant that I could just create this entire world that was similar to our own but not our own story and let me explore all of these themes. So I've written what's turned out to be a romantic comedy which might seem a little bit counterintuitive in a book about grief, but it's a book about a midlife widow, 38 when her husband dies and it's a story about her processing her loss at the same time Over the next few years as falling in love with someone else So it's the kind of thing that if it was made into a movie, which I hope it will be one day You would emerge from the theater with mascara down your cheeks, you know but also really uplifted. Yes, too. Yeah. Or even a Netflix original series. I don't know whether I just want the movie, wanted to end. I don't know whether I want to- I can't. I think I would want it to go on for a little longer because I loved how certain scenes, I was thinking, oh, it's in my own head, the storyline is gonna go in a certain way. But you just stayed. there describing the moment for as long as you could. And I loved that. I also love how you go from the past to the future so that when the past is too heavy and I get to this point where I'm like, I don't know if I can deal with this, all of a sudden I'm like, and we're back checking out the neighbor. You know, like, so you can, you get this little reprieve, you get a little breath. and then you can go back. I actually enjoy, I really enjoyed being on the journey with Bernadette because you'd send me a message every so often, whose team are you on? I can't say, I don't know whether I should give away the names, are you team so-and-so or team so-and-so? And I'd be like, this is awesome. I love that, friends reading together. Yeah, I think that whole thing about including the light and shade was really important. And I think that's what life is like, isn't it? Even... in the lowest moments, there's often laughter. You go to a funeral and then attend, you know, a wake or a celebration afterwards. And there's a lot of laughter in the room because people are remembering the good stuff and the funny stories. So I really wanted to create that sense of, you know, the happy and the sad all sort of intertwined. It's a little bit like the way Marion Keyes writes. I think she does that with deep topics, but she has a lot of humour. Yes. I just... Yeah, it just makes me feel like I'm doing a better job as a human as well. There's something really vulnerable about her character and that is also relatable that makes you go, you know what, especially, you know, I've got a one year old, we're both mothers and you have those days where you're barely holding it all together. It's so reassuring to know that you're not alone. But you really share the warts and all that maybe sometimes we don't even share. in our mum's group or with our friends, but this is really the whole picture. Yeah, that's really important to me. I've got three kids and my oldest is 24 and my youngest is 12. And when I think back to the mum that I was when Hannah who's 24 was little, there was a lot of self doubt and a lot of, why am I finding this so hard when other people seem to be doing it in so much easier than me? and I sort of realised over the years the older they get I think when they hit teenage years it kind of levels everyone out and we all realise we're in this together and let's just hold on and get ourselves through. Absolutely there is light at the end of the tunnel. A lot of that pretense that people sometimes go on with when when kids are younger where they don't share that really difficult stuff sort of drops off at some point. But it's nice to create that thing, that feeling that it's not just you, because it's not, it's all of us. And just, yeah, a feeling of, like, you know, it's like you've found your tribe. When I was reading the book, I'm like, yeah, this is so... It just makes you feel like, yeah, you're not alone. That's one of the parts I've really enjoyed about it. And a lot of the... some of the topics are really heavy. It deals with things like, you know... mental health, the loss of her husband, pregnancy loss, dementia. Dementia. They are really heavy topics, but I'm sure there's a lot of other people out there reading it that can relate to those as well. It makes their own experience feel less lonely. And talking about it, because my mom is in the early stages of dementia and I just had so many moments. Oh God, I can't even feel myself welling up now. I understand. How many people do you make cry on a daily basis? That's terrible. Everybody. All myself together. No, my mom has. My mum has advanced dementia now, she's 90. So I know where this emotion is coming from. It's just, you're grieving a person while they're still alive. That's why it's so hard. And yes, it's, I'm sorry to hear that. It's such a tough family. It's something that I suppose my mum doesn't see as much as what we can see. I'm sure, you know, you can. relate to that. But yeah, it's really hard. And grief in general. And I think talking about it is so important. And I always say, like, tears are never wasted because they're important, they're an important part of that process. So yeah. That's right. It's very much why I wrote the book. I felt when Geoff died that we do grief so badly, we shy away from this topic. We're too terrified to talk about it. Nobody knows what to say or how to deal with it. I mean, that opening scene in the supermarket where somebody sees her and leaves, that's what happened to me in the Gerowoolies. You know, that- Where her friend doesn't even want to say hello because she doesn't even want to deal with all the awkwardness of her husband just dying. Yeah. So it's, you know, I think being able to bring these topics out into the open is really, really important. And- It's something that's happening to every single one of us. None of us can escape grief. Everyone who loves any other person is gonna go through this, you know? So the more we can talk about it, the more we'll be there for each other, I think. That's right. And it is the price we pay for love, isn't it? It is. Yeah, it is. I also had my brother-in-law, we had someone taken away quite tragically from us as well. And I think people don't know, like sometimes silence is okay. It's fine. Or if you just walk up to someone and you're just there, you're just in the moment with them. That's right. I always say, it's better to just go up to them and say, look, I don't know what to say. And just be there. That's right. It's just the presence, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Did you find writing about those things cathartic? Yes, definitely. Yeah and it took me three years to write the book and I think I had to take that long because I needed to be sort of going through a lot of that stuff alongside my character so that you know if I'd sort of finished writing it three years earlier I think there'd be a lot of the book missing because I just wouldn't have got up to that part of grief yet myself and to be able to write about it so it was really cathartic and it's actually cathartic speaking about it too and I am meeting a lot of people who are coming up and saying, thank you for writing this, you've put into words what I'm feeling. And even people saying, my sister is going through exactly this now and this book is helping me know how to support her and that kind of thing, which you don't sort of expect from a fiction book normally, but I think it's just that kind of topic that is airing something that we all need to hear. And so amazing that... out of that grief you manage to create something so beautiful, you must be so proud. I can't imagine even knowing anyone that's written a book this good, let alone them being from, you know, from around us. Like it's, let alone having six degrees of separation. Like I think it is just fantastic and I know that all my girlfriends will be reading it and enjoying it just as much as I am. It'll be one of those ones where, you know, you forward it to people and they go, you've got to read this. That's right. I think... When I finished, I shared on my social media story, like I laughed, I cried, and I just didn't want it to end. Like it ended and then I was like, oh, I guess I go back to life now. Well, you know, my little girl is seven, I've got a little boy four, and I don't think I have read a book since I've had them. That's really bad, I can't believe I'm admitting that. I think that's... the story with a lot of it. I think this is where audio books are so fantastic as well, because it means we can be doing our daily life and listening to a story, which is amazing. And I think as well, you're not alone because there's just so much going on, not only with our families, but just the distraction of social media and everything else that we have. And it's become, I think, harder for us to concentrate on books. And I was sort of aware of that when I was writing in, certainly when I wrote the book. the teenage novel for Sophie, I was very aware of that, that the attention span of younger people in particular has changed. And so I had shorter chapters and cliffhanger endings and all of that sort of thing to sort of, to keep people engaged. How interesting. How interesting. I never thought of the people changing the way they write to suit the way that we're, of course, but I just never really thought about that because some books are very difficult to listen to because I only have time to listen to listen to the audio, but it, and you find yourself, you listen to two sentences and then your mind drifts off somewhere else and then you go, crap, I've missed, I've missed it. What were they saying? But this one, you're able to just coexist and listen and it works. So, so interesting that you had that in mind when you wrote it, it works, it really works. It does work. It's an interesting concept. I never really thought of it from the author's point of view. I would just think if it's not for you, it's not for you, move on. But it's important to kind of change. Yeah. Well, I think it is. And I think, you know, it's not a case of dumbing it down or anything like that. It's not that. It's just having a light touch. And I guess one of the best pieces of writing advice I've heard was that you should enter a scene late and leave early so that you're not putting all this extra... blah, blah in there that nobody wants to hear about. You know, the small talk. You want to get right into the action. So there's a lot of that. And I've cut out, I mean, I think I cut out something like 30,000 words out of that book eventually in the editing process. The small words. Like it was, I'll send you the stitch. It could be a series then, it's awesome. And I mean, a lot of that was just because Nobody cares. Like I sort of had to ask myself, what's the point of this paragraph? Nobody cares and take it out because I don't want to slow down that momentum. Yeah. And did you have help with that? Like, did, cause that sounds like it'd be quite hard. It's your work. Yeah, it's all great. To kind of tear it apart. You get very close to it, but thankfully I had a really great publisher and editor at Penguin. And so they gave me fantastic sort of advice and steered me in the direction then I went off. In fact it's a bit of a funny story because the day before it was due, the edited version was due back to the publisher, I had COVID and I was delirious and I decided that I would restructure quite a big section of the book. So I did and I thought it's fine because tomorrow morning I'm going to get up and just do one more read through and make sure it's okay but I woke up too sick to do that. So I just... as is and that's what we got in the end so it must have been something about delirium. It worked. It worked. Maybe now that you've got COVID again you need to edit something else today. You'll be going around licking doorknobs just every time you need to do a final edit just to get yourself in that same state. In the book you do touch a few times on climate change, which is something that's close to our heart. Why did you decide to include that in the book? Well I guess it's just another one of those important topics that it's good to work into things in unexpected ways, so in fiction, not in a way that is a lecture, but just to keep things front and centre. in people's minds. And I think as parents in particular, we all feel, we are feeling the risk that we're facing. I have a friend who's a professor who specialises in climate change and she was on the climate council, Hilary Bambrick. And I remember having a conversation with her about three or four years ago. And I said that my eldest daughter was questioning whether or not she should even think about having children in the future and can she even bring a child into a world that's heading down this path. And I said, can you give me anything to sort of, I'm thinking about future grandchildren here, can you give me anything to, you know, like hate that worries you? I suggest she starts listening to Elon Musk. He's very pro-children. I think he's got 11. That's right. And Hillary said, well, I wish I could, but it's actually worse than you think. And it was this incredibly sobering conversation. She started describing what we would start to see within a couple of years. And everything that she said has already unfolded. All the things, those bushfires of 2019-20, all of that, just the increase of severity of events. You know, the next thing we're having to replace the roof of our house from the hailstorm that ripped through our suburb. You know all of that sort of stuff has started to happen right in front of our eyes I don't think it's something we can ignore so I did want to set the the book in that they work at a university in Canberra and work in The what's it called now? I've gone completely blank. You know, they're fundraising. They're like charity. Yeah And so I wanted to give them something good to be focused on in those projects. And so climate change it was. Nice to have brought it into the book, but potentially I like the way it was worked in. So it's not as much urgency because I think sometimes the media can, you know, that scaremongering, it is a very urgent situation. But, you know, you don't want it to the point where it's affecting people's mental health and prohibiting them from starting families and things like that. It's trying to balance. that approach about empowering people to make action, not just being having paralysis by analysis on what's happening. That's right. Yeah, we use that a lot, don't we? Paralysis by analysis, because it is something that people, like you are that rabbit in the headlights and it can definitely panic people. So yeah. And you're a fellow green thumb, aren't you, Emma? Tell us about your garden, Emma. Well, let me clarify that. I absolutely love my garden, yes I do. When I, after Jeff died, we decided to move house and build a house. And that seemed to be really important for us, just to start from scratch on a block of land and be able to sort of almost get down on our hands and knees and crawl around on this dirt and make something new for our family, for a new start. And so... It's only a small block, but at the front, I've got a white picket fence and sort of a symbolic picket fence. And I've created with the help of a very dear friend who is a very, very much a green thumb, a lovely garden, a very simple and small little garden out the front. But it's become, in fact, our neighbors joke about my front veranda being the counseling veranda. Because if any one of us has an issue, we always go, let's go and sit on the veranda. And we sit there. with the roses and the little cottage garden along the front fence and the fairy lights in the Japanese maple and it's just such a sanctuary and it's not elaborate at all but it's just a beautiful little space. You did post on your socials a picture from your veranda. Oh yeah, so it's absolutely... It is beautiful. Like it is... That little cottage garden that I've now got along the front fence is my dream. It's just so beautiful. It's very Anne of Green Gables inspired. You know, it's just this rambling flowers along the fence. And the garden, that part of the garden came about because Sophie was trying to sell her car, which used to be my car years and years ago, and it was all too hard. And in the end, a family, a friend of a family said, um, that they were looking for a car for their son who was his first car. And I said, Oh, look, just take it. You know, it was, it was, it reached a point where we would have to go and spend money to, to get it registered. You know, she said, Oh, we can't just take it. You know, what can we do? And came up with the idea of a garden makeover. So, so her son who then received this car, um, spent, you know, several days just digging up, front garden creating this beautiful little cottage garden of my dreams and um and I send her progress photos all the time and she comes and sits on the veranda for counseling as well. That's beautiful. It's beautiful and I just thought it's such a lovely thing about this sort of bartering arrangement that we came up with it was just so kind of old-fashioned and community-minded and organic and we're very Yeah, and we very much like that with our next door neighbors as well. For years, I haven't mowed my front lawn. I look out and there's the neighbor's son just mowing the lawn. And he's now older and now it's my son mowing their lawn. That is just beautiful. That is so important. That whole community, that word, there's so much more to it than, you know, than when we say it, there is so there's there's a lot of depth to it. And we don't we don't realize how mowing someone's lawn can. pick them up and make them feel, you know, like you're inside riding and you're thinking, I have to go mow my lawn, but you don't have to. Yes. That feeling of, I think particularly as a single parent too, that feeling of driving around the corner and seeing the lawn has been mowed. It's just amazing. And one less thing to do. That's right. And, and, you know, these are the neighbours who, when the hailstorm did rip through the suburb, you know, within minutes they were out on their roof helping because we had. ice coming through the ceiling as water dripping all over our kitchen bench. And so they were up there getting the ice off the roof and just, you know, always there and vice versa. We've, we've always been there for each other. I don't think I've ever really had neighbors this close in my life. And it just feels so privileged to have formed a relationship now with people who we know we can trust and be there for each other. It's beautiful. That's right. You're never going to move from there. Like it sounds like you're super glade, it's beautiful. It's great. I think that's, it's so special and sometimes people don't find that. So it's a very special love that you found it. And I really love that you know they helped you create that space too that you might not have been a green thumb to start with but now you have that space that you appreciate and love. And it's so hopeful isn't it gardening? You're always looking forward to something. Yes it is and I just love going to the nursery with I'm even sort of trying to do cuttings now and all this stuff that's completely me I've just been transformed but it is it is just I mean it is one of those things that could be overwhelming and what has been overwhelming at different times you know just in life as a new as a single mum I guess and and to now have developed this new Such a lovely thing. Goes along with my Aurora hunting hobby. And tell us about your chasing of the Aurora. I said it incorrectly last night, my husband kept correcting me. Aurora Australis? Australis? Aurora Australis, yeah. What is that, a star? You're chasing a star? So I had, so you know the Northern Lights? Yes. That dance across the sky, there's beautiful green. lights in the sky. I've always had that on my bucket list as the number one thing I want to do but I've never got there and I vaguely knew that we had southern lights and it wasn't until about seven years ago that I finally realised we actually not only have this beautiful purpley pink southern aurora but we have access to it from around the Canberra region and it can be seen even further north than Canberra sometimes. Unfortunately not with the naked eye, you've got to see it through a camera with long exposure photos, but it's right there. And people have seen it through the top. What if I put a shirt over my eye? No, it's not like I put the sun through a pin top. No. So for years, I'd then, so as soon as I knew that that was the thing, I then became obsessed with, I need to go and see this or find this. But I had no idea what I was doing, no idea where to go, didn't even realise that you have to wait for a solar flare on the sun and then it has to be facing earth and there has to be this whole magical set of scientific circumstances to make it possible. So for the first seven years or so, I just was, you know, never saw anything. And I then finally did a workshop, did a lot of YouTube videos, worked out how to do it, worked out how to use the camera. And then I would go out in the wilds of the dark with my son and then I'd get spooked. and I think without even trying. So there's all that sort of story of failure in there. And then it was about a year ago I saw it for the first time on the Williamsdale road, south of Canberra, which is about 15 minutes from home. And it was just one of the most incredible experiences of my life to set up the camera and take a photo and then have this beautiful pink glow appear on this photo. And it was just this bucket list. thing achieved. It was your whale, your Moby Dick whale, you know, to see it after all of that. That's right. Then I've seen it about six or seven times. And in fact, last a couple of weeks ago, there was a really strong one. And I was down there with I was down there on my own, but then a guy turned up who I follow a photographer who I'd never met in real life, but I follow his photos and vice versa. He turned up and the two of us were just standing there in the dark with this incredible event happening in our cameras in front of us and we were both in tears. It was just so so moving. It was extraordinary. And then I ended up on ABC radio the next morning talking about that with Brad Tucker, the astrophysicist. How exciting. And I just thought, you know, seven years ago, I would never have imagined this was even going to be possible, let alone all of this. So I have So it is one of her top bucket list things as well. And I think if we can, it doesn't have to be chasing the Aurora, but if we can all just find something that's out of reach, that gives us purpose, that we wanna strive for, and it's fun to sort of search for. I think the searching is half the fun of the whole thing. Yeah, it's not the destination, it's the journey, right? Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah. You'll have to share a photo with us of the Aurora. I think, didn't you share a photo? Was there a photo shared on your socials? Yes, of course, I'll send it to you. And it ended up on the ABC website and on several other news websites, actually. What is happening? I don't know, exactly. I'm thinking this is a person who was fumbling around in the dark for seven years, literally, you know. It's funny that you say that because I was entering the horticultural show recently and with my one year old daughter I had to wake up at 4am in the pitch black dark to harvest my vegetables and I'm having this moment right where I'm going what am I doing with my life but I'm out in the yard, my husband's in Darwin, my tortoise asleep, I'm harvesting and I got spooked. And I had to come back in and I was like... Well, I'm just, I'm not gonna be able to enter anything this year because it's too scary out there and it's probably a mouse. Oh, the poor mouse. You disturbed him. Did you enter? Did you enter in the end? Oh, did you what? I did. I did quite well. That is so brilliant. Congratulations. I love that. I love that you conquered the fear. Oh, look at the ribbons. Beautiful. Champion vegetable. What else do we have? Champion. I think that's a champion. Miniaturize. Yeah. I only got. This is lovely. And a champion orchid reserve. Yes. That was the orchid that you bought. Oh, actually. When Andrew's father passed. And it won champion. Isn't that lovely? That's beautiful. That is beautiful. That's such a beautiful moment. And isn't that lovely between the two of you as well? Yeah. For that story. Hmm. Oh, reaching. She's reaching for the stars. That's it. That's exactly what I mean. That, you know, it's having, I think there's a risk when we've got young kids of thinking, well, I just will defer all of that until they're older. And you know, I've realised and other people have realised who've had these sudden losses in life that we don't have the luxury of time necessarily. And we have to just do it in the middle of all the mess right now. So it's not perfect. you'll have crying children around you or something will go wrong with the house or the mess but you'll have these ribbons, you know? And I think that's the point, that we just have to grasp it from the middle of the mess. Yeah. And not like perfect get in the way of good enough. That's been a lot of my personal journeys accepting after having children that I don't have the same time or concentration that I used to have. But you can still do something. That's right, you can. Yes. And you can do it with them, right? Like you can, like you bring your son, Chasing, Chasing the Aurora, which is beautiful. That's great. So you like, you write a book, imagine writing a book. Like, isn't that the most beautiful thing? I actually was watching Bluey recently with my daughter and Hamish was on there and I thought, I bet he's done that so that his kids can watch with him. Isn't that beautiful? But it's the same sort of thing like, That's just mother of the year, my gosh. To write a book for your child that doesn't love reading, I just love that. It's a- It did get out of control and she kind of, you know, was left in the dust while I got all excited about that book. It wasn't like I hated the process, but it was a lovely thing. And she ended up being the stage manager at the musical too, so. That was lovely. That was really nice. And she wasn't on stage acting, but she did have a part to play where she pretended to be a security guard for the boy band. And that would have been her dream. Oh, absolutely. In real life. Absolutely. No. Ah. That's great. Emma, do you have a, like a first gardening memory at all? Do you have, like what will be your first? And describe it to us like you're writing about it in one of your novels. That's high pressure. You know, it's gonna be a bad. Not a bad one, but just a funny kind of recollection, because I know my parents, I grew up with parents who loved the idea of gardening, but we were the kind of people that used to go to the nurseries and get all excited and bring home punnets, and then they would just die on the front steps. We planted them. It happens to all of us. It's okay. Memories of my mum standing outside, watering the roses in the front garden, in our house in Garren, where we grew up, and... So often when she comes over here I'll give her some roses and you know as I said she's got advanced dementia now and so she loves flowers and in fact we've now reached a point where we buy artificial flowers for her because it's just easier for Dad in the aged care facility where they are if he doesn't have to look after another thing but that even that even the concept of of having an orchid from know, Kmart, sitting there. It really does brighten her life as well. So I think my earliest memories not necessarily of triumph in the garden, but certainly the idea of wanting to create that. And now I've learnt, you know, I just come home and plant those things right away without getting them in the soil. Get them in the soil. Yes. But isn't it interesting that you have roses in your garden now as well? But the rose memory obviously is quite nostalgic and... That's right, it is. It's beautiful. Roses are beautiful. Yeah, all the roses in our garden have sort of a memorial meaning behind them as well, I think that is. And there's lots of different varieties of roses and very specific roses, different names of roses. I nearly bought very recently, there's a Queen Elizabeth Oh, right, yes. Rose which they've released and I thought, because she's just such a hero of mine, I thought wouldn't that be lovely? addition. It was just perfect too, this sweet little pink, light pink rose. Yeah, beautiful. Yeah, that's lovely. Yes, I think, I think the idea, you know, when people die, people send flowers and it is lovely of them, but then the flowers die and we walked in from the funeral and I remember walking in the middle of winter and having these three children just looking at me as if to say, well, what are we going to do now? And it was this real moment of I have to be some sort of leader in this situation now. I was grief stricken at the time and I saw all the flowers around the house and I just remember saying to them, I think tomorrow we'll get the family over and we'll just take apart all these floral arrangements and we'll re-bunch them and drop them off at the hospital while they're still alive. And we did that just to a random ward in the hospital where the kids were born. And that sort of started our... approach of looking at looking just looking for life affirming things to do but I often think that when people die it is nice to give a plant rather than flowers. Yeah. They keep growing over the years. It's something that you know you're experiencing now with with having almost a commemorative garden full of things that really mean a lot to you. That's right. And I think it's a lovely thing to do. Yeah, I remember when my brother-in-law passed, a lot of his friends gave plants, beautiful plants that his mom now still has, but his sister, who is a slow florist, we have interviewed her. The wonderful and wild Abigail. Wildly Abigail, yes. So she's a slow flowerist down in Launceston. But her first interest in flowers was through grief, was through the immense amount of flowers that the family received and she she pictured all she so she got her camera and she photographed every single flower in front of her face. So it was just her with the flowers, maybe a bunch or a single flower in front of her face. And then she's done a lot of installations with with flowers, but it all started through understanding why people give flowers. More for that time. And it's beautiful. It's beautiful because her business has come about because of that. And she's beautiful in everything she does and she's very mindful. So she supports all her local farmers. She used to be, well, she is a grower herself. She's just recently moved out. So she's reestablishing a garden. But yeah, it is interesting to give a flower which gives us joy, but then it does fade away as well. But even when they, you know, the flowers, you know, do die, when my father-in-law passed, you've seen I've got a dried. flower arrangement that I've done, we received, and it was a bit different, I was, and as in the grief as my husband was at that time, so I had a bit more capacity, but we dried those and we've got them sort of displayed on a table, and that's, you know, that you can still enjoy them for many years, you know. You can do, yeah, yeah, yeah. As we know, some of them don't dry as well as others, am I right? Yeah, throw those ones out in compost. They're the ones that should go. Do you have a favorite bookstore in Canberra? Emma, do you have a favourite book store locally or around? Well, I absolutely am loving The Book Cow in Kingston. And have you met the book cow? No. Oh my goodness, you'll have to go. It's opposite Green Square in Old Kingston and it is lovely and they're so friendly and helpful in there. But I also love Paper Chain. And what's the one in Gungahlin? Oh, it just escapes me for some reason. But anyway, it could be the COVID. It could be the COVID, but be careful. Anyway, there's a lovely bookstore in Gungahlin too, in the shops there. And of course the National Library Bookstore as well. So there's four. Yeah, and are you a big... Harry Hartog, go on. I do love Harry Hartog actually. Yes, they've... Yeah, it's a good one. I know if I have my kids with me. that I can bring in and we'll have a good conversation in there about books or socks. But let me give one final shout out though to Canty's bookshop in Fishwick. Luke Canty is a friend of mine and Canty's is a long running family second hand bookshop and it's like entering another world. It's like entering some sort of you know Harry Potter world or something where there's just endless little corridors and new rooms. full of books. So I would recommend everyone. I have to take a trip there. There used to be a really old bookstore in Curtin underneath. Yes. Because being from Ireland, we have very old bookstores. I quickly looked up the oldest one this morning, which is called the Winding Stair in Dublin. So when you do get there, and then you'll have to go to the Trinity. college library as well. It's pretty spectacular. But I kind of miss that. You know, when you walk into a bookstore, a lot of them are quite new now. And I miss that kind of winding through the bookshelves and the smell, the old smell. So yeah, so I'll have to take a trip to Fishwick. There's another place in Canberra called Smith's Alternative. Do you ever hear of Smith's Alternative? Yes. I've been there for a few things. It's great. There's the same kind of thing actually that's sort of... Oh, there's just something very alive about a secondhand bookshop, I think. And it's the idea that all these books have been loved by other people before you. And that you don't quite know what you might find. That's it. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there could be something like a love note, maybe. Yeah, there will be. Well, thank you so much for sharing your time with us. It's great, Emma. Thank you. We really enjoyed that. And for your imagination and for making this story and just I just feel like... It's been a real value add to my life. So thank you so much. Yeah, lovely. So glad. It's been a delight talking to you both and I know we sort of live locally so we must catch up when I'm COVID free for a coffee next time. That'd be fantastic. That'd be fantastic. Love to. Ruta, thanks so much today. It was a great chat. Thank you for getting me involved in the... I really am loving it. I haven't finished it yet. No spoilers for anyone. But I really, really, really, it's a real escape. Yeah, yeah. I kind of rushed through it at the end because I couldn't stop looking at it, listening to it. I did a bit of a binge, which that's not for everyone. I just put my headphones on. My kids, I was like, I can't hear you. Yeah, sorry. You have to look after yourself. Send for yourself. I'm in my zen. Mummy's busy. You need something cold at it. Bernadette, I am putting in some broccoli, by the way. Oh, yeah, it's a bit early. I'm just sticking it in. It's going in. That's it. From seed or little seedlings? I got seedlings. I did a tray of seedlings and about a third of them worked. So I've got to stick them in before they die. But I don't. I've yeah, I have to. I don't know what I'm going to do there, actually. I need some more brassicas. Did you get yours just from the local gardening store? Yes, from the local gardening store. I have reached out to our local farm as well that sometimes they're a bio-dynamic grower and sometimes they have a few spares. Don't forget to soak them in your food to soil solution before you transplant to give them that little boost of life. Yeah, I'll do that after they're planted, right? I think Josie, if I recall correctly, she was saying that she soaks the roots in a food to soil solution. Maybe it was 50 to 1, a bit of a super soak. before she transplants them. Maybe helps with the transplant shock. Well, I normally do that with a little bit of sea salt, but food to soil is definitely my go-to. Definitely because of what I've seen, the results, I'm definitely encouraged to buy it again. Yeah, I'm gonna give that a go with mine. And any tricks for transplanting your brassicas? Do you do anything special? I'm just going to put a little close show for mine. Oh yeah, yeah, they're really handy, right? And I get a lot of slugs and things, so just a clear. cover over them to protect them until they're a bit more established. So you can use things like old milk bottles as well. Yes. Cut off the bottom of them and use them that way, which is really good. Or water bottles. Yep. If you have them. So trying to think of something that you can use that you already have instead of having to go and buy something. Water bottles are great because with the lid off, they let the rain in as well. That's right. Yeah. And they have a little vent. Did you do something for our seedy listeners last night? I did, Brenna. What have you done? I have a book. The Last Love Note. We have one to give away. And you're going to get it signed by? We're gonna hopefully, we didn't actually ask her on the podcast. But look, we know where she lives. You had great success with our last giveaway and now we've got another one for our seedy chums. Seedy chums. For our seedy giveaway. She had a giveaway. It's such a beautiful book. I felt that we we had listened to it. We'd listened to it together. And it brought a lot of emotion out in in in myself. I know in Brindad as well. But I enjoyed it so much. I do a lot of podcasting. But to get engrossed in a fictional novel and was just beautiful. I just I enjoyed I enjoyed the whole experience. You know, in the evening time, I just. didn't sit down and watch my shows that I normally would watch or... It was a trait, wasn't it? Do some editing of SeedyChats. I basically just... Our throng of fans on social media. Be on social media, because we do answer all our fans and we love doing that. But sometimes it's just nice to take a little bit of time out for yourself. To take a break from your only fans. Fans only. Should we do a fans only page? Maybe we could do like a poll for that. What's a stripper poll? No! No! For our only fans? Yes or no poll? We'd just be gardening, Bernadette. Fans only isn't for seedy. Seediness! It would be the proper seediness. Thank you for joining us our seedy chums and until next time... Slán la. Garmanka. Garmanka. Garmanka, that voice. Oh, it's in Patrickstown Friday. Oh, I've seen Slodja. Oh, Slodja. Slodja.