A busy morning

It seems to have been a busy morning already.

First was the challenge of the shower. I only have a shower once a week – it’s just too much hard work to have more. I thought I’d best be clean in case they decide to examine me at the hospital. They haven’t of late but you never know. It’s usually been a chat & a blood-let. I should add I’m not usually filthy. I do wash every day, just not a shower.

Since then I’ve opened up the side gate. Carol, our gardener phoned yesterday to say she hoped to get here today. Her absence has been a mixture of further crises in the fitting of the new kitchen, plus upset tum the result of eating cheaply & not so well, possibly not very hygienically, as she’s had no kitchen cook in.

Then I’ve got on with my own cooking. We’re having a prawn curry this evening. It’s nice & easy to do when we get back from the hospital, nothing more than a warm up, some rice & naan bread. I only make the sauce in the morning. The prawns I’ll get out of the freezer before we set off to Lancaster & the hospital. They will cook through when I warm up the sauce later on.

Now I’ve quickly made a few changes to my freezer list after yesterday’s food shop. Next I intend to have a look at website I’ve come across about wheelchair access in Austria, just in case there’s something helpful for us. However, that may have to wait if Carol arrives first. There’s a few things I’d like to discuss with her about the garden. I’m anxious about some of the prostrate rosemary that doesn’t look too healthy. Then there’s some perennial sweet peas I’d like to see planted somewhere. I noticed, too, some climbers that need a bit of tying up & some extra wiring for them to climb up.

I also want to tell her we’ve agreed that the wild garden is going to have to be scrapped. It’s not working. The last two weeks she’s spent 4 hours getting it back off the path into the bed. She spent hours earlier in the year cutting back the rape & deadheading the narcissi. She’s yet to cut down the grasses at the end of the season. All this work would be worth it if it looked wonderful but on the whole it looks a mess. She has suggested re-planting it specifically with the wildflowers we like e.g. an area of cornflowers & poppies & getting rid of the dock etc. which is spreading like wildfire without adding anything to the beauty of the garden. The Fox wonders if it wouldn’t be best to grass it over, while leaving the narcissi to grow through the grass.

One thing is for certain, if we ever lost Carol, there’s no way we could keep this lot under control. It would take over the whole garden given half a chance. It certainly isn’t low maintenance which is what we need. As it is we feel there’s better things for Carol to do, just keeping on top of the weeds in the rest of the garden, which is made worse by the dandelions etc. in the wild garden spreading everywhere. We would of course want it still to be a wildlife friendly area as we love watching our bees, birds etc.