14/5/22 Saturday
I am at work. Hydrotherapy on a warm spring day leaves us relaxed like rag dolls.
Washing is pegged and dried on the line. I had to add extra water to the lupin which appeared to have fainted. All the pots are well mulched but they dry out anyway. Luckily the maintenance is pleasing. I tell the plants how beautiful they are, and taste-test the mint.
Mr is out at Paddock Garden cutting up felled trees and clearing nettles to make compost tea while Dog slumbers in the stable.
15/5/22 Sunday
I peg washing on the line before leaving for work; as I start the car a light shower also begins.
Goodbye washing, enjoy your second rinse!
At work we have a mission of putting together some jubilee planters, so we scour the garden department at Homebase for red, white, and blue blooms.
I have mixed feelings about the jubilee, partly because the world is on fire and that seems more important. I’m neither a royalist nor a hater. It was good to have a Queen when I was growing up, she was a reminder that girls do rule, and she looked rocking on all those Sex Pistols posters. Maybe if I add some punk bunting I will be more into it?
16/5/22 Monday
I wake early and walk around our teeny lanes with my exceptionally pink weighted vest, under a grey heavy sky, flanked by hedge-flowers, before returning to bed to drink coffee, and then driving to work with rain pelting my car. Most of the scenery is faded into mist.
We bought compost so the jubilee pots are planted up now, and they look even jollier than bunting. Every time I look at them I get technicolour 70s flashbacks- I had a swimsuit as red as that, the sky was blue as that, clouds were neon-white.
17/5/22 Tuesday
At home. The weather is warm with a fresh wind that is pushing rain clouds our way, so we choose to do our fieldwork this morning.
It’s dry enough to drive the van down from the top field to the middle gate where we unload the beamingly orange chipper, and a box of things to plant- asiatic lilies that will bloom red and orange, a white and pink fuschia, a pink rose named Queen Elizabeth (for Nanny Liz, a matriarch not a monarch), a nearly-dead buddleia that deserves a chance, a bronze-red Acer, and probably something else that skips my mind in the general blur of digging holes and adding colour.
Wind turns the meadow grass to a billowing ocean.
Mr does the chipping, I, the planting; together, the admiring.
I find myself a spot in the top field to lie in the long grass and snooze. Dog lies down next to me so all is wholesome and well with the world.
This afternoon: much rain, optimal for floral growth.
18/5/22 Wednesday
Awake early, put on my weighted walking gear, yomp around the sunny lanes. Stop to befriend one snail and one cat, and to photograph the landscape from a field gate looking down towards our house.
At work: take Care Client to Newquay Garden Centre. Am tempted by a eucalyptus, and a smoke bush, and all of it- my mind can't stop planting.
19/5/22 Thursday
On the early shift. It's a long day, so I take a lunchtime stroll to break it up.
It’s warm and windy out. Heavy clouds. I bring my coat, which doesn't get worn but I pick up some shopping on the way back and tie up the coat sleeves to improvise a bag.
20/5/22 Friday
After a late breakfast, a small rescue. Grandchild 6 is at nursery but feeling unwell. Not so ill she isn’t delighted to see her Granma, but paler and quieter than usual. We go to meet Mummy who is busy at work. While we wait in the car G6 asks if water has a butt. A water butt is a thing, I tell her, and I’m getting one for my land. That, apparently, is disgusting, but amusing.
Next question: does poo fart?
While we are investigating the possibility of this; where do farts come from, does poo have a bum; Mummy arrives. She has done her work so fast she is made of steam. Little one falls asleep on the drive home. Aw.
I have my off-road running shoes in the car, so I stop at Wilsey Woods to have a jog.
I haven’t done any sort of running in a while so I set a timer on my phone to keep it gentle. Hacking up a hill, hot, tired, thinking this 10 minutes is dragging… yeah, forgot to press start. Then I take a ‘shortcut’ back to my car which adds a few more minutes and a quick check on Google maps to see how lost I am. By now there is more walking than running but here I am in these creepy-fine pine woods having an adventure, just me and the trees (which is good, since I can’t resist yelling ‘Does poo have a bum?’ into the open air).
I am at work. Hydrotherapy on a warm spring day leaves us relaxed like rag dolls.
Washing is pegged and dried on the line. I had to add extra water to the lupin which appeared to have fainted. All the pots are well mulched but they dry out anyway. Luckily the maintenance is pleasing. I tell the plants how beautiful they are, and taste-test the mint.
Mr is out at Paddock Garden cutting up felled trees and clearing nettles to make compost tea while Dog slumbers in the stable.
15/5/22 Sunday
I peg washing on the line before leaving for work; as I start the car a light shower also begins.
Goodbye washing, enjoy your second rinse!
At work we have a mission of putting together some jubilee planters, so we scour the garden department at Homebase for red, white, and blue blooms.
I have mixed feelings about the jubilee, partly because the world is on fire and that seems more important. I’m neither a royalist nor a hater. It was good to have a Queen when I was growing up, she was a reminder that girls do rule, and she looked rocking on all those Sex Pistols posters. Maybe if I add some punk bunting I will be more into it?
16/5/22 Monday
I wake early and walk around our teeny lanes with my exceptionally pink weighted vest, under a grey heavy sky, flanked by hedge-flowers, before returning to bed to drink coffee, and then driving to work with rain pelting my car. Most of the scenery is faded into mist.
We bought compost so the jubilee pots are planted up now, and they look even jollier than bunting. Every time I look at them I get technicolour 70s flashbacks- I had a swimsuit as red as that, the sky was blue as that, clouds were neon-white.
17/5/22 Tuesday
At home. The weather is warm with a fresh wind that is pushing rain clouds our way, so we choose to do our fieldwork this morning.
It’s dry enough to drive the van down from the top field to the middle gate where we unload the beamingly orange chipper, and a box of things to plant- asiatic lilies that will bloom red and orange, a white and pink fuschia, a pink rose named Queen Elizabeth (for Nanny Liz, a matriarch not a monarch), a nearly-dead buddleia that deserves a chance, a bronze-red Acer, and probably something else that skips my mind in the general blur of digging holes and adding colour.
Wind turns the meadow grass to a billowing ocean.
Mr does the chipping, I, the planting; together, the admiring.
I find myself a spot in the top field to lie in the long grass and snooze. Dog lies down next to me so all is wholesome and well with the world.
This afternoon: much rain, optimal for floral growth.
18/5/22 Wednesday
Awake early, put on my weighted walking gear, yomp around the sunny lanes. Stop to befriend one snail and one cat, and to photograph the landscape from a field gate looking down towards our house.
At work: take Care Client to Newquay Garden Centre. Am tempted by a eucalyptus, and a smoke bush, and all of it- my mind can't stop planting.
19/5/22 Thursday
On the early shift. It's a long day, so I take a lunchtime stroll to break it up.
It’s warm and windy out. Heavy clouds. I bring my coat, which doesn't get worn but I pick up some shopping on the way back and tie up the coat sleeves to improvise a bag.
20/5/22 Friday
After a late breakfast, a small rescue. Grandchild 6 is at nursery but feeling unwell. Not so ill she isn’t delighted to see her Granma, but paler and quieter than usual. We go to meet Mummy who is busy at work. While we wait in the car G6 asks if water has a butt. A water butt is a thing, I tell her, and I’m getting one for my land. That, apparently, is disgusting, but amusing.
Next question: does poo fart?
While we are investigating the possibility of this; where do farts come from, does poo have a bum; Mummy arrives. She has done her work so fast she is made of steam. Little one falls asleep on the drive home. Aw.
I have my off-road running shoes in the car, so I stop at Wilsey Woods to have a jog.
I haven’t done any sort of running in a while so I set a timer on my phone to keep it gentle. Hacking up a hill, hot, tired, thinking this 10 minutes is dragging… yeah, forgot to press start. Then I take a ‘shortcut’ back to my car which adds a few more minutes and a quick check on Google maps to see how lost I am. By now there is more walking than running but here I am in these creepy-fine pine woods having an adventure, just me and the trees (which is good, since I can’t resist yelling ‘Does poo have a bum?’ into the open air).
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