{"id":1643,"date":"2011-03-16T07:53:28","date_gmt":"2011-03-16T07:53:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.com\/?p=1643"},"modified":"2011-03-16T07:53:28","modified_gmt":"2011-03-16T07:53:28","slug":"jasmine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/?p=1643","title":{"rendered":"Jasmine"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Last week at the garden centre I treated myself to a little jasmine plant. It was completely in bud, but hadn’t started to open yet. I’m always a tiny bit wary about buying jasmine plants. I don’t really have \u00a0a good record with keeping them happy. My house is too dry and sometimes the little buds just shrivel right up before they even get a chance to open. In winter it’s too warm and despite several attempts, I have never managed to overwinter jasmine and get it to flower the second year. I’m a dab hand with orchids, but jasmine, no.<\/p>\n

Despite all this I bought my little plant.<\/p>\n

Why?<\/p>\n

The smell. Jasmine flowers have a perfume that never fails to lift my spirits. It’s very strong and I love it. As you can see, my little plant has now started to bloom and is filling my little work area and my bedroom with a scent that intoxicates. It changes my whole mood from the very first breath. It greets me when I walk up the stairs and into the room and I can feel my shoulders dropping and relaxing. It calms and focuses. I have even caught myself just sitting and breathing, drinking it in and savouring every breath.<\/p>\n

I don’t know how long it will last, my little plant. Or how long the flowers will stay before they die and lose their fragrance. It didn’t cost much – maybe as much as four cups of coffee in a caf\u00e9. At the time it felt like a bit of an extravagance, but it is giving me so much pleasure. Just sitting next to it means that my day starts out right. Ironing right next to it this morning was way more pleasant than usual and I feel calm and ready to tackle whatever delights the day (and my teenagers) may throw at me.<\/p>\n

It was something nice for me. Something small that I almost didn’t buy, but which has brightened my week. Something small that has made me happy.<\/p>\n

Sometimes we need those little things. They do make a difference.<\/p>\n

Helen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week at the garden centre I treated myself to a little jasmine plant. It was completely in bud, but hadn’t started to open yet. I’m always a tiny bit wary about buying jasmine plants. I don’t really have \u00a0a good record with keeping them happy. My house is too dry and sometimes the little […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[11,6],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/sQtrc-jasmine","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1643"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1643"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1647,"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1643\/revisions\/1647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runquiltknitwrite.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}