By Julia Freemantle
( et de fleurs! )
Julia Lynn Floral Design and Flower School
As I sat at my newly acquired allotment with the sun on my skin an overwhelming feeling of going full circle and returning to my roots hit me. Why had it taken so long to follow my passion for nature and creativity? My younger years were spent in rural Oxfordshire living on a smallholding with my parents and four siblings. My parents ran the plant nursery and farm shop alongside my father’s landscape gardening business. With pigs, chickens, cows, dogs, rabbits and my horses, my childhood was idyllic. My memories of these times are so vivid, not only for the joy but of the hard work and dedication my parents gave to everything they did. Long after we moved my father continued to be a landscape gardener and he did so for the rest of his life; this was a true inspiration to work hard.
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MENOPAUSE LIFE SUMMER 2022
My love for being outdoors and nature has always been part of me, yet it was my passion for teaching and empowering others to flourish and reach their full potential that took me on another career path working in early years settings, schools and specialist provisions for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities. Content with my career choice I worked hard and strived to progress. I went on to become an HMI Ofsted Inspector for Central Government and a Childcare Development and Business Officer for the Local Authority Children’s Services department. Having become a single parent 12 years ago, the guaranteed salary that employment provides was appreciated. By the end of 2018, I had one child at university and one child in the last year of school. It was then that I wondered if I could follow my dreams to work with nature and reignite that smouldering fire inside of me as there was now time for me. Having turned 50 in January that year I had not consciously felt any desire to change my life because I had reached this
milestone birthday, however, looking back subconsciously those embers had definitely started to glow a little brighter. Almost daily I would think about what an absolute joy it would be to combine my knowledge and passion for teaching, for nature, for gardening, for flowers and for the creativity of floral design all encompassed with the well-being of the whole person that had always meant so much to me. Being outdoors, nature, gardening and flowers touch all of our senses and benefit our mental, physical and emotional health and well-being. Five major gynaecological surgeries, two with serious life-threatening complications, both times I required lifesaving surgery, and viral meningitis all within a few years were a harsh reminder of how life is precious and how life can easily be taken. Looking back, it was gardening and flowers that got me through these challenging times. The first stages of planning to develop my own business as a side hustle to my employment began with the hope that one day this would be my main income. Then
