Good Intentions

Under the huge weight of the pink rambling rose stretched along the middle halfway up the picture are a brick wall, a wooden trellis and a garden door. The trellis is broken, the wall is cracked and the gate is held shut with string. HH (handsome hunk, how could you forget) will come and mend, as soon as the rose has finished flowering. The rose will be chopped and chopped and chopped, until there is little more than it’s thick trunk. That beauty is more than twenty five years old  and still going strong.

I feel like time is standing still. Time was when things just happened, then they were over. Time just passed. We always come to the end of things, it’s a kind of relief to know that. Is that true still?

Urspo, in a slightly pensive post, reminded me of Beckett's ‘Waiting For Godot’, a play exclusively about waiting, waiting for an event that never happens. Is that what happens to us? Will there ever be a vaccine and a solution for Covid19?  Or will we sit, like Vladimir and Estragon, in this desert of humanity’s own making for evermore? Will it help if I turn a blind eye and do what Voltaire suggests in Candide :”Il faut cultiver notre jardin.” I want to take this line literally, without looking for Voltaire’s social criticism. Candide exposes the failings of his society but at the end of the novel, Candide and his companions find happiness in raising vegetables in their garden.  The garden represents the cultivation and propagation of life, which, despite all their misery, the characters choose to embrace.

A lesson to be learned, all the way from the 18th Century. Tending one’s garden (whichever way you read that) is the only way to live.

I have said before that in these uncertain times I turn to either non fiction or novelists who amuse me. Nora Ephron is one such, she can cheer me up during the darkest days. In Heartburn she has a paragraph which seems to be written for 2020:

What I love about cooking is that after a hard day, there is something comforting about the fact that if you melt butter and add flour and then hot stock, it will get thick! It’s a sure thing! It’s a sure thing in a world where nothing is sure; it has a mathematical certainty in a world where those of us who long for some kind of certainty are forced to settle for crossword puzzles.

Tired of Covid, tired of this Vale of Tears we find ourselves in, I will turn my attention to happier thoughts. Will you?

Living through the Pandemic

Everything arrives at my front door, heavies like sacks of bird feed, garden supplies like grit, potting compost, horticultural sand, fertilisers; not so heavies like groceries for me and friends who cannot get their own delivery service going, small parcels, large parcels, desperately needed parcels as well as a few - a very few - treats. None of the delivery men/women ring the door bell, apart from the groceries everything is left either on the doorstep or on the bench in the ever open shed door.

No problem, as the front door is totally secure; the only time I get cross is when there are parcels of plants left withering in the sun. They are usually baby seedlings, hardly able to survive without instant attention.

Deliveries have taken off in a huge way, this business is one of the few profitable ones. I always say a heartfelt thank you when I catch the drivers, for making my life easier. All those essential services I didn’t even think about before the pandemic, suddenly assume giant proportions.

In spite of existing restrictions I am still relatively contented. I am not even keen on going back to the local café; a friend rang to invite me to meet there but I turned her down. The German Conversation group has invited itself to a meeting at my house; I have insisted that we can only meet in the garden, not indoors. If it rains, well, then I hope they bring brollies! Or have the sense not to turn up. The more I read about the long term after-effects of Covid-19, not to mention the severity of the illness for oldies with pre-existing health issues, the less I feel tempted to socialise on any but the smallest scale. Just think how much wiping and disinfecting I’d have to do before and after the event!

Having said that, I do go and see, or welcome, a friend or two at a time. Yesterday we had coffee in Wendy’s garden, three of us sitting and nattering for two hours solid. Politics, gardening, music, the meagre repeat fare available on TV, gossip about all the silly people who ignore Covid19 rules - we had a lovely time, hardly wanting to stop.

I am more careful about restrictions than is laid down at the moment. We are governed by such an incompetent bunch of liars and morons it is as well to make up one's own mind about staying safe. The science says that a second wave of infections is more than likely during the coming winter, at the same time as the flu season arrives.

My son came for two days earlier in the week, “for a working visit”. And work he did. I was amazed at how he got through the tasks, never imagining that he would indeed see off such jobs as taking eight huge builders’ bags of green waste, several heavy windows, half the junk in the garage, a broken down bird table on legs and a dozen or more large plastic bags of weeds, collected over the whole of the spring, to the dump. It took six separate trips! I had spent weeks worrying how I was going to get rid of the stuff. A very useful chap to have around, I am glad to say.

Gardening is still my main occupation, WW and HH have both come up trumps and, although they certainly don’t give their services for free, they are getting through all those long neglected jobs, allowing me to realise that I am catching up with myself. I have almost reached the stage where I can finally relax and think about replanting.

More of that anon. Paul has done me a favour by dumping me.