Busy doing nothing

This week has sped by. This is the first chance I’ve had to get on the computer. I’ve been trying to think what has taken up so much time. Nothing much.

As you’ve probably realised by now, mornings tend to be my time to do my thing, It’s the time of day when I’m most with it, at my best both physically & mentally, so the Fox feels he can leave me on my own without too much anxiety. So what have I been doing these last few mornings?

Monday was dominated by the needs of getting the washing done & put out on the line to dry. I wanted to get it done quickly as I expected a visitor in the afternoon who would need to go into the garden. I had a short trip out to the shops on the Mean Machine, my electric mobility scooter, to by some fresh bread to have with the salad we had that evening for dinner. The trip took longer than expected as I got involved in conversation with a couple of lots of neighbours.

Tuesday turned into the mammoth ironing day. It took over two hours. It’s a good thing I can sit down to the job otherwise it would never get done.

Yesterday was just an off day, one of those days when you feel everything that can go wrong will go wrong. Eventually I retreated to bed for a reassuring snuggle with the Fox. I told myself it maybe had more to do with overtiredness than anything else. That probably explained why I was getting myself rather depressed about things.

Today the Fox is cooking. He asked me to get some potatoes boiled ready for his corned beef & lentil pot this evening. I’m also expecting the home help to come along to clean the place up.

Monday also saw the landscape gardener return for another discussion about our plans. I think we’re finally managing to get our ideas over to him, for him then to turn them into reality. We don’t expect to hear from him until the end of next month when, hopefully, he will have got some more detailed drawings and a DVD giving us a virtual 3D tour of the proposed new garden.

It’s also dawned upon us we’re off on our holidays very soon now & we still haven’t got our flight tickets. A hasty call to the travel agents has located them so we’ll have to go in to collect them. We’ll also get some euros while we’re out. I think that is the only thing we really need to organise apart from the inevitable dreaded packing. It’s not so much the putting into a bag I dread it’s the deciding what to take & trying to remember the odd items like the travel alarm, drinking chocolate etc. I wonder what the weather will be like in southern France…

A field of sunflowers

Earlier this week I took a guidebook to Provence out of the library. On the cover is a picture of a field of golden sunflowers. It set me thinking.

Sunflowers are so often used to epitomise Provence. You see them on pottery & tablecloths in the area.

Yet when I think of sunflowers I think of two places, both far from Provence. The first is a hill overlooking the confluence of the Vienne & the Loire, &, for that matter, Chinon. When we drove up to the top, we found fields of sunflowers drying in the sun ready to be harvested for their oil.

The other place I think of is Gouda in the Netherlands. I remember sitting in the market place one market day watching the world go by. Among other stalls there was a flower stall. So many people seemed to be buying sunflowers. I couldn’t help thinking they are such huge flowers to use to decorate the home but they were undoubtedly popular.

No, the flower I associate with Provence is lavender. One holiday we stayed in the foothills of Mont Ventoux, near Carpentras. One day we drove over to Sault. We passed field after field of lavender. All the postcards seem to be dominated by their blue-purple flowers, even though when we were there they were not yet in flower. Sault is the central collecting point for the lavender collected to subsequently be sent to Grasse to be turned into fine perfumes.

The other flower I associate with the region is the purple iris. They were in flower at the time of that holiday & seemed to be ubiquitous. That was the time I grew to appreciate Van Gogh’s painting of irises. (An aside: I wonder if the Van Gogh painting of sunflowers that make them so popular in the Netherlands? Or is it just some shared attraction to them?)

Maybe it is just a reflection of when we have visited Provence. It has always been in the spring whereas the Loire & the Netherlands we have visited in late August/early September when sunflowers would be more prominent.

For me Provence is about lavender & olives, but maybe I will come back from this holiday with a different image.

Boredom

I’m having trouble with the computer today so if anything comprehensible appears here it will be a minor miracle. I suspect a whole lot of programmes are being updated interfering with my use of the machine. Or maybe it’s just another one of my off days. It never ceases to amaze me that I do exactly the same things one day, or so it seems to me, and everything behaves perfectly, but on another there just seems to be one hurdle after another to jump to get anywhere. Today is definitely the latter sort of day. It’s taken me 3 attempts just to get booted up and ready to go.

Yesterday was a rather sobering day. We went along to the golf club, where we joined Fran & Den. Their first bit of news was that Mrs B, the retired headmistress, was laid up. Some years ago she had an accident resulting in an ulcer on her leg. It took months to heal up. Apparently she’d accidently scraped her leg, more or less on the same spot, and now it wouldn’t stop bleeding. She’d had the nurse round. Even so, in less than an hour the blood was once more oozing through. She’d been given instructions to rest up as much as possible, which was why she hadn’t joined the others for lunch.

As the afternoon passed, we couldn’t help noticing Fran closing her eyes & nodding off. It suddenly dawned upon me she was chronically bored. Whenever we spoke to her, directing questions at her, involved her in our enthusiasms of the moment i.e. our plans for the garden, she brightened up & became lively. Whenever Den set off on one of his long, often repeated stories, her eyes closed. It had never occurred to me before that part of her spiritual absence has just been sheer boredom rather than a medical problem.

They’ve not been married that long, nearly 4 years. Den lived as her lodger for many years when her first husband was alive. The three of them went on holiday together, were more often than not in company with each other, and so she must surely have known what Den was like before the wedding. It just seems so sad that someone could be so bored with life that they are literally shutting down before your very eyes. It’s all the sadder when you see the looks of total adoration for Fran in Den’s eyes.

Part of the problem undoubtedly is Fran’s failing physical health. Her mobility has declined noticeably, not entirely surprising since she is now in her 80s & she had a rather poor hip replacement done years ago, long before we knew her. She’s had several falls in recent years, not breaking anything but seriously bruising herself. She’s never been a great one for hobbies & crafts. She loves seeing people & shops but the latter she is no longer really up to doing. Her whole incentive for life seems to be dying.

Usually I regard boredom as the pause that spurs you on to find something new to get involved in. There are so many potential aspects of life & thought to interest you. The world is full of wonder. You just need to choose a direction to explore. Even if you can’t physically cope with doing too much, that’s no reason not to do a little & to think & learn something new, to observe the little everyday changes. Boredom soon disappears then.

Getting there

As you will realise from recent blogs from both of us, the Fox & I have been obsessed by thoughts about our garden.

As I have said we were not immediately bowled over by the designs proposed to us. We have been trying to clarify in our minds what we do want &, to some extent, what is practical. What we don’t want is something that looks fabulous now but which will be impossible for us to maintain with the result we have another jungle in ten years time.

We’ve had our noses buried in garden design books. We’ve watched garden makeover programmes. We’ve kept our eyes open as we’ve gone out & about, peering into other people’s gardens, noticing path materials, trying to work out what attracts us & what does not.

We finally think we’ve got an outline idea of what we want. We’ve drawn a rough sketch which we can both agree on. The time has come to talk once more to the designer to get something more exact on paper & to check over some of the practicalities. We’ve not even thought about the planting beyond “Here a raised bed for perennials & few annuals”, “Here trees”, “Here shrubs”. But at least I think we’ve got something more definite for a designer to work on.

Ultimately we just want something that gives us pleasure to look out on but which doesn’t involve a lot of work to maintain. Neither is up to the latter &, as we grow older, we can’t see that changing. But we do want to enjoy sitting outside occasionally when it is warm. And for that we want privacy, to not be too overlooked by all our neighbours. We do want to encourage the wildlife to continue to visit, though a few less slugs & snails & other pests wouldn’t come amiss – my basil bush has just been consumed by cabbage white caterpillars, our hostas are lacy from slugs & snails, our marigolds under attack from blackfly. We certainly don’t see us sitting at the far end of the garden or even venturing down there that often though I am hoping that with appropriate paths I will be able to go down there on my Mean Machine some of the time.

But first, before I contact the designer, I want to sort out a few websites & pictures of the sort of things we have in mind. Maybe that way he will have a better understanding of what we want. If not, it will be time for us to try to find another landscape designer to try. There must be someone who can understand our vision & turn it into a reality.

Another social afternoon

Yesterday turned into another very social day.

We started by doing the dreaded big shop. As we contemplated whether to buy some ready made coleslaw to have with a salad later in the week, a cheery voice said hello. It was Linda & Ken. We haven’t seen them for a while. It’s strange. Only the other day, I was thinking about the regular last-Monday-of-the-month meals we used to have. Linda & Ken were regulars. Linda joined the merry group when her husband died. She needed somewhere social she could go without feeling awkward about being on her own or feeling pressured into finding a new partner. Eventually she did meet Ken & started to bring him along too. The years pass. It is good to see they’re still very much together.

We went home first as we had bought quite a few frozen things & it was a warm day. However, having got everything into the freezer or fridge as necessary, we set off for Snatchems. As there was nobody there we knew, we happily found a seat on the balcony overlooking the Lune & watched the birdlife – the geese & swallows – while chatting over our drinks.

Then I thought I recognised a face. He called “Orin”. This confirmed the identity – we don’t know many Orins - the son of a couple of friends, Jimmy & Dor. Sure enough, inside our friends had arrived. We joined them.

Even as we chatted Howie & his wife passed through, stopping only to tell us off for abandoning our usual village pub.

Jimmy & Dor are Manchester folk. They have a caravan just behind Snatchems. They try to escape up here whenever they can, often bringing one of their sons & their little grandson, Orin.

Then just as we were getting ready to leave in came Den & Fran. Fran seemed a lot happier today. We didn’t stop, but I suspect she’s calmed down about that scam letter she received last week.

But they weren’t the last people we bumped into. This time it was Steve & Kieran. They’re in the process of buying, restoring & hopefully then emigrating to Limousin in France. Steve is a builder by trade so he’s in a good position to do most of the restoration work himself. It sounds like it’s a barn conversion. They’ve now got electricity & running water installed. It’s all coming along.

When they first spoke about moving to France a couple of years ago we’d thought they were going to do an instant flit without so much as a word of French. They’d never even visited France before. We thought it was like so many of the couples you see on the property programmes on TV, with no realistic idea of what was involved. However, they’ve taken their time. They’ve found a property near where one of their friends live. They’ve coped with French bureaucracy. Kieran has started to go to college to try to learn some language. Steve is confident he will be able to find work as there are many English people living around that region who need an English-speaking builder. They’d just come back from their latest visit, taking a whole lot of tools he needs to do the renovation. They’re planning their next trip back in a couple of weeks.

We feel quite envious of them. The idea of moving to France does have an appeal. However my health benefits are not transferable to be paid in France &, anyhow, I’ve found it difficult enough explaining my medical problems & understanding what the docs have had to say in English. I don’t fancy my chances in French. But the idea of life in France does appeal. We make do instead with regular holidays there, like our trip to Provence next month.

 

Forced change & anxieties

It’s been an odd few days. Our world seems to be changing at the edges.

I suppose it started on Thursday when we went down to our new butcher. After the demise of the farmers’ market we had started to buy most of our meat from this butcher in Morecambe. We were pleased with the general standard of the meat. We seem to be having a fishy week or two so hadn’t been along for a while. Imagine our surprise to find the place well & truly shut up. There was absolutely no sign of life. It looked as though it had been lying derelict for months. Once more we seek that rare breed, a decent butcher with good quality meat at a fair price.

Then on Friday we were told of Fran’s upset. Fran is in her 80s & not in the best of health. She’d received a letter in her previous name. It purported to come from a lawyer in China, concerning some money left by some distant unknown relative. We all assured her it was a scam. Sooner or later a letter will come asking her for some money before the thousands of US dollars could be released to her. She naïvely is upset as there is no address to reply to & she feels she should reply if only to be courteous. She is also anxious about the fortune that she thinks is coming her way. The fact that the letter does not have a Chinese stamp on it, or that she’s been found purely because she has the same surname as the “deceased”( which would not be a legal basis for inheritance, especially as the surname used is that of her first husband, not her own) is passing her by. She’s just getting in a state of over-anxiety & despondency over the whole business – not what she needs when her own health is not at its best.

On the way home on Friday we stopped at a clock shop to find it displaying a contact number. We duly rang it. Now our kitchen clock has gone off to the repairer. The wall looks very bare without it. The silence without its regular tick is deafening.

So yesterday we got down to our village pub. Howie, who I only mentioned in my blog last week, came in. He seemed casually dressed, rather than in his usual work clothes. It seems he’s had a couple of close shaves with death, resulting in ambulances, resuscitation & days in the Intensive Care Unit. He’s now in the process of selling his business & going into forced retirement. It is clearly a shock for him. He is still a relatively young man, just in his early 60s. At present he’s finding the forced idleness very stressful. He’s very much a doer, rather than a man who can relax & enjoy watching life go by. We hope all goes well for him.

As for us, we continue to dream of our future garden. We have some clarification in our ideas but still nothing is fixed. At the rate it’s going we can see it will be next year before anything gets done.

Meanwhile we dream of our next holiday, next month, when we’re off to southern France for a couple of weeks. We’re starting to get quite excited about the prospect. We’ve started getting organised by buying a new suitcase which will be hopefully easier for me to pull along while the Fox pushes me in my wheelchair. Our old one has a tendency to tip over on its wheels, making even a short journey seem very long.

A change of plans?

Yesterday it turned out to be Ray we bumped into. He & his wife have only recently moved into Heysham. They arrived just before Christmas last year. Since then most of their time has been spent making their house into a home. A frenzy of redecorating has been under way. Now Ray finally thinks he’s got time to make the model railway set he’s been planning for the last 25 years.

Meanwhile at home the sound of the saw has dominated, along with billows of smoke. Our neighbour has decided his garden too is disappearing under self-seeding trees. The time has come to do something about it.

I wonder if what he does will affect our ideas of what we want to do. I had been thinking in terms of a series of trees on the left side of the garden, where the fence is low, to give us privacy. This neighbour, on our right, is now cutting down some of the trees on his side which may mean we will be overlooked from that side too, so will we have to think of screening of some sort on that side too?

I’m certainly thinking of having plenty of trees & shrubs anyhow. Partially because they will help take up the excess water which we suspect will still be around despite any drainage scheme, partially because they take up a substantial amount of space without requiring too much attention &, above all, because they provide homes for our feathered friends as well as perching places. We want the garden to remain wildlife friendly. Seeing the birds, butterflies & frogs give us so much pleasure. And we love trees anyhow.

Meetings

Yesterday turned out to be a highly social day.

As you know, I was intending to go to get some salmon in the afternoon. While doing so, we bumped into Heidi, an old friend form Pub days. We haven’t seen her for a couple of years. She apparently has moved up to Heysham these days. It’s strange we bumped into her sister-in-law at the golf club on Saturday, again for the first time in years.

After a long chat with her, we got off to the library, then our local village pub. Here we met up with Lynn & Rob. They were full of enthusiasm for their recent holiday to an island not far from Tunisia. It didn’t strike us as a place for us – all sun & sitting around a pool, with plenty of alcohol as it was an all inclusive holiday – but it seems to have done the job of re-charging them. They, too, are looking into the possibility of another holiday in September.

We had barely finished talking to them, when we in walked Howie, another regular we’ve not seen as much as usual. Admittedly we did bump into him at Snatchem’s last week with his wife – we’d never met her before & had begun to think she was one of those mythical creatures who didn’t really exist. We usually see Howie on his own, getting a quick drink to unwind from the stresses of work before venturing home for the evening. It was good to see him in smarter, more casual, attire looking so relaxed with his wife.

It’s not often we bump into as many different groups of people in a day. I wonder who we will find at the supermarket today. But then Morecambe is such a friendly place you soon get a large acquaintanceship that rapidly become a circle of friends.

Chasing up

I’m back to chasing up the hospital. I’ve still not heard anything from Gastroenterology. This time they’ve decided to chase up the appointments department.

I couldn’t help pointing out that I’m going on holiday next month & I really don’t want to have to do as I did last time unless it was absolutely essential. Last time I seem to spend half my time asking the waiter whether desserts had alcohol in them. It didn’t worry me with main courses as the alcohol is burnt off in the cooking. This is not so with desserts. Sure enough the chocolate mousse, chocolate cake, tiramisu, the apricot torte etc all had alcohol in. I had to resort to a choice of fresh fruit salad or ice cream most days. A couple of days they did a strawberry gateau that wasn’t soaked in alcohol. That was a real joy. I even had to refuse free cocktails unless they were non-alcoholic. I usually ended up with a rather boring orange juice.

This account got the secretary on my side. She liked my thinking & could easily understand the urgency to have the MRI scan & see the specialist once more. So now I’m waiting for the phone to ring, hopefully with some good news of appointment times.

I was intending to pop down to the fish shop this morning to get some salmon for dinner. That can wait until this afternoon. We’ve just had another shower so it’s maybe just as well if I don’t venture forth on my Mean Machine (electric scooter) as it doesn’t like getting wet, & I don’t like getting soaked as is also the inevitable result. We have to go out to the library so it won’t harm to get the fish at the same time. It’s not as though fish takes long to prepare & cook usually.

Importance of history

Yesterday went well. We had the dining room to ourselves. We looked out across Morecambe Bay to the Lakeland fells on the other side. The conversation flowed as we once more caught up with each other’s lives. The food was okay but not exciting, but nothing seemed to matter as old bonds were once more forged. We sat a while in the bar overlooking the greenness of the golf course, before making our way back home. At home they were amazed by the sheer size of our garden – there are not many people who have a garden big enough to have 8 neighbours adjoining it!

By 5pm it was time for them to think of parting once more. Their Satnav had directed them a peculiar way to get here, taking them off the M6 at Junction 33 & taking them through the centre of Lancaster, getting them stuck in traffic jams for over half an hour. We told them how to find Junction 34 so avoiding the centre of Lancaster & hopefully the worst of the rush hour traffic.

The afternoon had gone so well, we’ve even provisionally agreed to join them for dinner, when we stay overnight in Manchester before our flight to France next month. Meeting twice in a year will be quite an achievement for us!

At the end of the day, I’ve come to the conclusion that the reason for the meeting, if reason was needed, was that Alan has discovered now his mother has died – he was an only child of a single mother - as I did, that when all the immediate family around in your childhood have died, then those who played a large part on the sidelines become all the more important. For him, I must be one such. He, my brother & another old friend, Gordon, were always together. At primary school one of my best friends was Liz, Gordon’s sister. As a result I was always there in Alan’s life as he was in mine. The real friends were the boys with each other, & the girls on the other side but inevitably there was an overlap. We can share memories of things, events & people that made us what we are today. And that becomes important when those more immediately a part of those memories – his mother in his case, my parents & brother in mine - are no longer available to reminisce with.

To lunch

The day has come. I await the arrival of my stepbrother & his wife. I’ve still not worked out what this meeting is about. It must be the best part of ten years since we last saw them. Is it just that now his mother has died he feels freer to socialise with us? Or is it something else? We’ll soon find out.

We’ve booked a table for lunch at the golf club. Everyone says the food there is great. Certainly the food we’ve had at various functions with a buffet has been rather ordinary-sounding, traditional English, but superbly produced. The warm beef has just melted in your mouth.

It seems this is the weekend of one of the biggest inter-golf club competitions in the area. The game is to be played away at Heysham. When we went to book the table on Thursday we were the first table to book. Most of the regulars were apparently going to play, or support the Morecambe players, at Heysham & so dine there. I hope there are a few more people at Morecambe today. It’s going to be a bit miserable being the only table in a huge empty room, especially if there is tension in our conversation, or the food proves disappointing.

At least the idea of dining at a golf club appealed to them. It is suitably aspirational, exclusive-sounding, for them. They were somewhat surprised to discover we were members. It was worth the membership fee just to hear their shocked approval.

I’m afraid to say, that much as I like them in many ways, we are a mystery to them. He has been a part of my life from childhood. Indeed Alan was the first boy my brother met at primary school. They went through the school system always in the class. As a result we were often at his place or he at ours. Chris, his wife, I’ve known longer than Alan has. She is the daughter of one of my primary school teachers. I got to know her in my late teens when I was still at secondary school. I could never say we were close friends but we rubbed along. At that age our few years’ difference in age was important. I must have seemed just a kid to her, just as she, by then already old enough to be working, seemed very adult to me.

I think we’re a bit of an oddity as far as they are concerned. They just don’t seem to know what to make of us. We’re just not sufficiently ambitious, aspirational, materialistic. As long as we’re together & we’re able to pay our bills, that is enough for us. We’re happy. We’ve never understood the drive for higher wages, higher social status. We are what we are & are content. The latest fashions pass us by without us aspiring for them. A 15 year old car, as our present one is, is fine by us provided it keeps running well without too many expensive repairs to keep it going. I admit, these days it is nice to be in a financial position to travel the world if we want, to have our garden professionally redesigned without worrying unduly about the cost, to no longer have to count every penny as we do our food shop as we did for many years, but those are just perks, very nice perks but perks nonetheless & we know it.

They have had a life of international travel. Alan has been an accountant for some big international companies, travelling regularly to the United States & Italy. Chris has helped run Manchester Council &, later, Wythenshawe Hospital, both huge institutions. Now Alan is a local councillor, Chris retired. They’re both highly successful people, high achievers. I am pleased for them. It is what they wanted & what they succeeded in getting. It just wasn’t what we wanted. It’s a life that suits/suited(?) them, not a lifestyle that even appealed to us, let alone would have suited us.

Anyhow, we’ll soon discover how things go, whether years of knowing each other will provide the magic gel of old that enables us to be friends. I hope so, otherwise we’re in for a very awkward meal ahead.

Return of the sun

Yesterday saw the return of the sunshine.

After I had my hair cut, I toodled along the promenade to the fish shop. Usually, as I go along on the Mean Machine, my electric scooter, I pass, or am passed by, various people as they walk their dogs, go jogging or cycling. Most call a cheery hello. There’s something more relaxed & informal about going along a seaside promenade rather than a city street. All are on the move.

Yesterday was different. For once the numerous seats were occupied. It was warm enough for people to sit & stare, enjoying the wonderful views across Morecambe Bay. On the sands whole families played with their dogs.

As I came to the fountains at one end, a couple of young girls played. On their scooters they tried to dart between the spurts of water without getting wet. The older child was quite successful; the younger one was sodden.

I bought some tuna for our dinner. I find this a strange fish. The tinned stuff, which I tend to think of as the real thing, we love. It’s good & fishy. The fresh tuna always seems almost meaty, somewhere between chicken & pork. I also think it’s very easy to overcook fresh tuna & end up with something dry & rather tough – impossible with the tinned stuff. Yesterday we had it with a creamy mushroom sauce, which helped keep it moist.

I got back from the shops just in time for Al, our gardener, to arrive. He was eager to look at the designs. He thought the drainage scheme was inspired, though in need of some amendment so there was a drain for the water from the shed roof too.  He went on to discuss what he saw as the pros & cons of the various schemes we’d been given. We don’t entirely see eye-to-eye on this. Al is essentially a veg grower & wants orderly straight lines; we want the swoop of curves & a more natural look. Still he does agree our variation for the patio area should be feasible.

We still find our minds wandering towards the garden plans. We’ve even got a book out of the library on garden design in the hope it helps clarify what we’re really seeking. Once we can decide on the hard landscaping our thoughts can move more towards the planting, at least the qualities of the planting we want, if not the specific variety. The idea of a pergola of some sort, draped with an easy going, slow growing, climber, possibly sweetly scented, does appeal. But where to put it? We’ll think on.

Uneasy

It seems very strange today. There’s nothing I have to do this morning. The Fox has already made up a Shepherd’s Pie for this evening, so that’s the meal sorted. With the deluge of rain we had all yesterday, my washing hasn’t dried, so there’s no ironing to do.

I would do a bit of tidying in the garden but it’s too wet underfoot, even though it has stopped raining. I will have a go at filling up the feeders for our avian friends but that won’t take long. I also need to not do too much physically as today is Big Shop day when we go to do the main food shop, always traumatic. I sometimes wonder if it wouldn’t be easier to order on-line & have the food delivered, but I like to judge the quality of veg & meat before buying & that I don’t trust anyone else to do.

Tomorrow I’m off to the hairdresser. It’s time for a prune. I’ve been growing my hair out a bit of late but ultimately I’m coming to the conclusion that my silvery hair these days doesn’t have the healthy sheen of old to look good all one length, or even long. It’s time to go back to some sort of layered bob, the mushroom look as the Fox would say.

We’re half expecting my stepbrother & his wife to visit on Saturday. We’re both a bit anxious about this. We haven’t seen them for years & now suddenly they want to come to see us. And they want to come to our house, not to a pub or somewhere halfway between us. We can’t help wondering why. I know I rang to offer our condolences when my stepmother died recently but we hadn’t expected this reaction. We’ll find out at the weekend, though so far we have no idea when they expect to arrive, merely that we are to choose somewhere to go to for lunch. We’re thinking of trying the golf club. Everyone says the food is good there. Certainly whenever we’ve had a buffet at receptions there it has been excellent. At the moment though, we both feel a certain uneasiness about the whole event.

Wandering

Throughout the night, whenever I’ve woken up, I’ve heard the sound of rain hitting the glass of our open windows & of the greenhouse not far beyond them. Today seems set to be wet. Still the rain comes down. It’s quite a contrast to what we’ve had of late. Our spare ponds are rapidly appearing.

It raises in our mind some doubts concerning the proposed garden scheme. It is suggested the whole of the garden should be raised, with added drains from near the greenhouse (site of one impromptu lake) & the garage (another occasional lake), taking the excess water to a soakaway at the far end of the garden (where exactly unspecified). We can’t help wondering if this will solve the water problem. Won’t it just move some of it to the far end, which is already pretty boggy? And what happens to the water that lands on the patio above the level of the drains, & the water that streams through, across the patio from next door? And what about the water that comes up through the ground as the water table rises? I’ve just about got the present bog garden sorted. It’s even beginning to burgeon out. A few more tweaks & it will be perfect. But that area is proposed to go & the landscaper reckons there will be no bog there anyhow so those plants wouldn’t survive the changed habitat.

Still my main focus of the day is the dinner. We’re once more using up from the freezer. It’s amazing some of the unexpected things you discover in the depths. Today I’m tackling some scallops. I’m thinking of making a tomato sauce for the scallops & serving them with some linguine. In other words we’re going Italian. My mind floats temporarily off to Italy & our recent holiday by Lake Molveno.

Our minds are constantly floating off at the moment. Neither of us is entirely happy with the garden designs suggested. As a result we’re trying to sort out a clearer image of exactly what we do want with the garden. We’ve finally clarified what to do with the patio area assuming it’s practical. It’s taken us all weekend. Now we have to sort out the rest of the garden. We keep doing one thing, watching the TV for example, when suddenly a garden idea pops into our heads & we have to stop to discuss the possibility.

Oh well I suppose such dreams are free. Trying to turn them into a reality is another matter.

Our Garden of Eden

We’re almost silenced in thought & dream. Yesterday was notable for two things.

The first was the pleasurable arrival of a letter from the new friends we met on our holiday in Italy.  They sent a card & now I look at the TV. On the table by the side is this card featuring a family of elephants, and smile. Ruth & Col have been much in my mind as we’ve played our dominoes in the garden.

The second thing is the landscape gardener came round with his designs. No one design stands out as the one. Instead we’re left trying to get a clearer idea of what we do what, how to incorporate the best of each design to suit us.

One conclusion we’ve come to is that I would like a circular path around the garden, so I have chance to do what I can to maintain the garden. I would certainly would like to look around, see which new plants are opening up, see any frogs etc hiding in the undergrowth. When we first moved her 13 years ago, I could manage most days to stroll round the garden. It was as much a part of my morning routine as the first mug of tea. These days I can’t walk that far & I can’t go by wheelchair or scooter as the ground is too uneven & there are steps on the way.

All sorts of drainage ideas are planned, the efficacy of which we can not judge. If they do work it will make quite a difference. We’re just about starting to learn to love our selection of bog plants. Now they will be dying of thirst. It is proposed to raise the whole garden rather than ramps down into the lower region.

 

Villanddry France

Some of designs seem too geometric for our tastes. We prefer the softer shapes of the curves of nature to the harsh straight lines of man. We’re not sure the idea of an essentially rectangular lawn appeals. A more kidney shape appeals more, something that doesn’t go straight up the middle with paths & beds evenly on either side. Geometric patterns reminds me a little of the formality of the medieval knot garden. Much as I admire the garden at Villandry for example, I wouldn’t want them for my garden.

I want flower beds that overflow with colour & scent, where there is so much growth weeds can’t find there way in much. I want trees & shrubs of various heights & colour. I want some evergreens to give the garden structure all year round &, at the same time, I want some of those shrubs to change at different times of the years to reveal blossoms & berries.

I want some raised beds which I can look after easily. There I would like to put some annuals that vary from year to year but give us plenty of colour & pleasure. The herb garden at the front has got the idea. Now the sage & curry plant dominate. The sage is purple& green leafed, with blue flowers at times. The curry pant is silvery leafed with yellow flowers. In another spot the oregano spreads out, now full of bees supping on the white flowers. There are the unusual shapes of the leaves of the southernwood & the woodruff. Textures, shapes, shades of green, colour all vary. High above everything comes the feathery fennel just starting now to open it yellow umbrels. Some lavender & hyssop peep their purple flowers through all the greenery. The chives are between phases of pinky purple pompons. This garden only takes a couple of hours attention a year just to tidy it up a bit at the beginning of spring, to cut back some of the excess growth to allow other plants to see the light, to add a few extra plants if any bare patches have appeared. Very few weeds ever appear. I want all the beds in the back garden to have a similar sense of controlled wild abundance, full of colour & scent, & above all requiring a level of work I can cope with.

 

A large lawn does have a certain appeal. It is comparatively easy to get someone who can mow a lawn, particularly if it’s not too complicated a shape. Finding someone to weed is a different matter.

Ideally we want a feature at the far end to draw you in. Our ideal would be a Barbara Hepworth sculpture but I can’t see us affording that! A seating area has been suggested but we just don’t see us ever sitting up there. A seat or two along the pathway maybe, but not at the far end. A summerhouse perhaps, but that would need maintaining. We’ll have to think about that one.

In a way I’m quite reassured to know that if the work goes ahead we will be watering an army of workmen for about a month. If it’s going to take that sort of time I feel it will be carefully done. We’re just going have to buy a lot of tea & coffee.

Maybe before we come to any firm conclusions & make any commitments we should have a tour of some garden centres & gardens to sort out what we really want.

We just want our Garden of Eden, a paradise!