A source of great pleasure

As I spoke to our old friend Mrs B, a retired headmistress now in her 80s, on the phone, my eyes wander outside into the garden.

A couple of magpies strut across the lawn. Then one flies off to sit on the fence surveying all around.

A couple of wood-pigeons snuggle up to each other on the garage roof. The collared doves do their snuggling on the bird feeder.

Some blackbirds scuttle around the undergrowth, looking for food.

It’s a blue sky day after a very wet one yesterday. Everything looks fresh, the colours vibrant.

I sometimes feel sorry for Mrs B. She lives in a superbly positioned flat on the promenade. She has wonderful views across the Bay to the Lake District. The sunsets reflected in the water are superb. But she has no garden & she misses it. When she’s up to it, she goes along to nearby Happy Mount Park, just to sit & watch the world go by, see the plants & birds, even the people there. In fact she’s going with her grandchildren this afternoon to watch them play crazy golf.

On days like this, it’s wonderful to have a garden, an oasis of peace, full of colour & interest. I’m so glad we had the garden re-designed. It seems so much larger & lighter. There are niggles, a few changes we want to do to it as time goes on, but I think that tends to be in the nature of gardens. You want to vary the picture a bit every year. Some plants die, others self-seed & appear. New plants appear in the garden centres that give you the urge to find some home for them. When it’s like this, & not the jungle it was, it is a source of real pleasure.