The 26 year old Nature Diary

    Chris Fagan Gibraltar

My Nature Diary was inspired by the very famous Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady `written by Edith Holden in the early 1900s.  As a nature lover myself I was fascinated by her watercolour illustrations of the English countryside and her studies of plants and birds .  I began my own diary at the age of 14 and would collect things like flowers, leaves, feathers etc, take them home and study them, often using reference books, of which I had plenty, especially of anything related to nature.  This became my hobby for the following three years.  I regularly went for walks in the Alameda Botanical Gardens, where I was taken as a child, and there, I would collect my information which I would record in a little notebook, later, to be transferred to my diary in the form of illustrations and notes, all in my own handwriting. In my diary you can see many studies of birds, leaves, flowers and insects, amongst other things relating to nature. 

In 1983, with my exams looming, studying would take priority and I had to sadly put my diary to one side.  It is now 25 years later, and I have kept the diary in its original condition as best as I can. It has travelled to and from England with me (where I lived between 1987 and 2001).  Due to age, the paper has deteriorated so some pages are no longer complete.  I have only salvaged the parts that are unspoilt.  Perhaps , the yellowing of the paper makes it even more unique! Anyone who loves nature will appreciate the time and effort spent on every little study, whether it is an ant or a feather.  I also took the trouble to find the latin names for every plant, insect or bird I studied.  You could say I was having my own private Biology lessons after school!. It was a private hobby I loved, and at the time, would never have dreamed it would ever be seen by anyone but myself.

This all changed at my first watercolour art exhibition on 18th April 2005, which was held at John Mackintosh Hall in Gibraltar.  Apart from 28 watercolour paintings on display, I decided to display the diary in its original state for the first time ever.  It certainly caused quite a stir and was even mentioned in one of the reviews of my exhibition in a local newspaper.  Luckily, my exhibition was a tremendous success and it gave me some funds to buy a laser printer, a binding machine and some A4 covers. My husband Alan scanned and resized each page of the diary individually which was quite a task due to the condition of each page as I mentioned above.  The result is a hardback A4 size book with colour dustcover and colour throughout.  Due to the cost and limited time and resources, we were only able to produce 13 copies of the book but I hope to professionally publish the diary and launch it in 2008.

     The Nature Diary is in A4 format,  with over 130 pages in hard back, bound at home by ourselves, each one being an individual item.

Christiane's Nature Diary -  over 130 pages of a  nature diary with the innocence of only a child's  narration compiled when she was only 14 years old and written and painted over a period of 3 years.

We only have 13 available so far.  Watch this space for details of the official launch of the book in 2008.