IF ONLY......

...... I can stay abreast of developments in technology, politics, current affairs, fashions and whatever else the modern world throws at me;

...... if only my mental faculties stay sharp(ish) as at present;

...... if only I can stay on top of all physical work required to make life acceptable to me and pleasant;

...... if only my finances last, what with the global economic downturn,

well, then I will never have to grow old and retire from active life.

If only.

Fat Chance.

This bunny has still not been very happy; in fact, I’ve been feeling a bit lost and lonely. At first I welcomed the rain, both the garden and I gave a sigh of relief that the heat relented and gave me a breather and the garden a good drink; after more than a week of on-and-off thunderstorms and showers I am ready to say ‘thanks' but 'no more, thanks’. I should be patient, the rain is still needed, but lack of opportunity to get myself good and dirty and exhausted doesn’t do my mental health any favours.

Hence the opening lines; my recent birthday has given me much to think about. I’m doing a bit better today, having spent the morning carting around watering cans, feeding hydrangeas, clematises, a little olive tree and a couple of lemon trees, the latter three in pots. Indoor ferns have had a good trim and been allowed to come out. Ditto the winter flowerers. They all enjoy a few months out of doors. With me all the while dodging heavy showers, of course. At least the rain is warm.

Paul has forsaken me. He was ailing for about three weeks and the last time I enquired after his progress he emailed to say he was lots better but not coming again. "For personal reasons". No notice or further explanation. Just bang, like that. Fair enough, I have not been very happy with his efforts, but he was a nice chap, nice enough for me to think of keeping him on for the jobs he could do and pairing him with somebody better able to cope with longer hours and heavier work.

However, he has taken the decision for me. Good luck to him.

Since then I have been asking around for recommendations; several friends have mentioned several gardeners, mostly garden labourers without great knowledge but plenty of brawn; I have chosen to interview one chap not so much brawny but wiry and willing and one muscled handsome hunk. If either or both stay the course, one will become WW and the other HH. They will do different jobs. Both are more expensive than old gardener of blessed memory and recent Paul; but I am becoming reconciled to the idea of spending money on the garden, if I want to stay here. Besides, I am planning to reorganise the beds and do away with at least one, maybe two, of the more labour intensive areas. One is to become an area for conifers and junipers instead of herbaceous perennials.

Here’s hoping.

Writing this I have become aware that I am behaving like someone who has endless years of gardening ahead of her. Of course, I don’t. If I had any sense I’d pack up and sell up and go into retirement and withdraw from active life, exactly the opposite to what I am hoping to do above. But while the bullet points above hold true I might as well ignore old age and incipient decrepitude and enjoy what’s left. Like I told my Mum, when she dithered about buying herself a new dress she liked because “I don’t have enough time left to enjoy it”, : "even if it’s a day and no more the new dress gives you pleasure, it’s worth it.”

Getting to know myself during Covid 19

It’s hard to find something to post about when you do nothing but spend time at home. We’ve had glorious weather and I’ve been working like a madwoman in the garden, physically exhausting myself in the process. The more I work the less there is to see, the more dry brown earth emerges. The more I dig the bigger the piles of plastic sacks filled with weeds grow, ditto the piles of brush, shrub prunings and whole uprooted shrubs lying in corners which should, by now, be attractive and tidy areas for sitting and watching the garden grow. I shall be ever so cross if I die before I can replant everything next autumn or spring; all that work for nothing.

There is a good thing about being physically active outdoors: it makes for a cheerful and happy state of mind, so maybe it’s not all for nothing. Paul still comes once a week, but now only for two hours, his energy doesn’t last for longer. I almost exclusively reserve the jobs which are too hard for me to do, nothing routine like weeding, he still has strength, even if his stamina leaves much to be desired. Agewise, I could be his mother yet I work harder than he does. I am glad that he officially stops work after two hours and doesn’t drag out his time with me to three hours, as previously, with a rather long tea break in between. There’s no tea break now and I only pay him for two hours. I like Paul very much, he is a nice chap and knowledgeable about plants and I certainly hope he continues to come.

There’s a chill wind today, I’ve allowed myself a day off. Once or twice, during the hot and sunny days, friends have come to call, by invitation, one or two at a time, and we’ve sat in the garden in late afternoon, at a distance of no less than 2 m and enjoyed a glass of wine over a natter. We are all very sensible and do not meet in each other’s houses yet, as per government directive. The incidence of Covid 19 in Valley’s End is minimal, less than a handful of cases and no deaths. Many of us are of retirement age and therefore vulnerable. There is one dog walking acquaintance who turns up once a week or so, who explains her uninvited presence by saying that her dog has wriggled through the bars of one of my gates and insists on raiding my garden. So, naturally, she has to follow him, scoop him up, apologise for her invasion by blaming the dog and look longingly at the chairs on the terrace. I must ask her to come on a specific day, she is obviously lonely.

Which brings me to a question I’ve been puzzling over. Ever since I’ve understood the meaning of the terms introvert and extrovert years ago I’ve thought of myself as an extrovert. I am not shy in company, I face meeting new people with equanimity, I am lively and chatty at parties, I talk to people before they talk to me. At the same time I can take or leave people and find solitude nothing to be afraid of. Sometimes, I am lonely because I lost my soulmate but, otherwise, my own company is sufficient for my needs most of the time. I even talk to myself.

But that is surely not how an extrovert reacts to the present lockdown? I am always reading about people who are terribly unhappy and longing for hugs and face to face conversations, whose loneliness cries out for human contact and who are in danger of becoming mentally ill. These people have all my sympathy, so many are old and alone, feel abandoned and shut out, but I simply do not feel that way myself. What is wrong with me?  When I read these sad stories I question my capacity to empathise, I have no idea what it feels like to be in their shoes. Solitude to me is something good, something to be welcomed. Does that mean I am an introvert after all? Or even more fortunate, I am an introvert/extrovert whenever either state suits me?

Considering that I’ve had nothing to post about I have used an awful lot of words to post it. That’s what Covid does, it makes wafflers of all of us.

On the Home Front

Valley’s End is flooded for the third time in just a few weeks; storm Dennis was worse than last weekend’s Ciara. In my twenty years here I have not seen the bottom field, where I regularly walked my dogs,  as deep under water as this morning. The rain has been incessant and there’s more to come  next week. I am so sorry for my neighbours who live along the river bank and whose cottages and houses are inundated with muddy brown river water from further up the valley in the Welsh hills.

I have stopped slavishly following the news, I just can’t bear it anymore. There is never anything good on offer, just the same endlessly miserable, spiteful, nasty, mean reports and opinion pieces, full of doom and gloom. It is all too depressing. Instead I watch the birds busily devouring everything I put out for them from my kitchen window. I have been wondering: all those tiny creatures like siskins, blue tits, gold finches, nuthatches, what happens to them during storms?
Are they blown off course? Or do they shelter in the hedges during
the worst of the weather? I have whole families of gold finches
(middle picture) landing on my feeders, would they be the same
birds as the ones before the storms? They love sunflower hearts, perhaps they fight for the right to return? As soon as I fill the container the gold finches are back. The others are all happy with peanuts, fat balls and mixed seeds. As their name implies, nuthatches love peanuts best. (the bird with the go-faster eye stripe)














The previous week we had one good day and Paul and I worked in the garden, the first time this year. It was still very cold and the wind had already started, but there was a bit of sunshine and we managed a decent three hours.

I’ve told you about Paul before, he isn’t a patch on old gardener, but I’ve got used to him. He actually volunteered a comment or two while we were having our tea break. Last autumn he was still deep in the clutches of depression, barely able to function. Sometimes he seemed to be falling asleep on his feet. I can’t just turn him off while he is so poorly, I’d feel mean and unkind; I think he is glad that I am still employing him and perhaps that’s why he seemed brighter this year. It is also possible that he has recovered a bit, he has treatments and sees somebody regularly.

This person, who is a kind of health visitor, also helps him in practical ways. Paul has no other income than the money he makes from gardening
and a few artistic things like designing and
creating greetings cards, bird boxes, trugs,
and other woodworkings, large and small.
He is a creative soul and when he feels well
enough he spends time in his workshop.
He lives on an amount that wouldn’t cover my utilities bills, much less food and drink and treats. For years I and another employer have tried to push him into applying for benefit payments but he always insisted that he didn’t want to do this. This health visitor has persuaded him and helped with filling in the relevant forms and I am very hopeful that he will at least receive some financial assistance. I know people who are so good at milking the system that they are doing very nicely, and have done for years, yet someone like Paul, who certainly deserves help, goes without.

As you can see from the picture snowdrops will soon be over but the hellebores are only just coming into their own. Roll on spring.

All Is Only Transitory

I was looking for a quote to express what I want to say today; there are many, of many words, whole passages, to say just this one thing: nothing lasts for ever. So I gave Goethe pride of place, for he expressed my thoughts in just these four words.

For days on end I have been out in the garden, morning and late afternoon, whenever the temperature allowed. In the middle afternoon I had siesta, sitting reading or snoozing indoors. So gardening is much on my mind. Particularly one aspect of it made me turn philosophical. I don’t know what made me think that gardening is a pursuit which follows the same lines forever, you’d think I should know by now, after close on thirty years of it. Having more or less ignored my garden for the past three years I was greatly surprised when I noticed that many of my special shrubs and whole hosts of perennials look much the worse for wear this year. A bit worn, a bit elderly, a bit tired. Indeed, some look like they need urgent resuscitation.

Of course they do. Highly bred creatures never last as long as your ordinary mongrel, in plant language: your weeds and common versions. Species remain true to themselves, anything bred from them, sub-species and fancy varieties, give up after a few years. So my surprise is rather surprising.

What I need to do now is ruthlessly expel all shrubs past their best, perennials ditto, particularly the kind that flop all over the place and need careful (and boring) staking or those that have turned into congested clumps which barely flower now. A bit of redesigning is in order.

That might be fun. Costly fun even. It would need purchasing new plants and shrubs and involve quite a bit of digging and rearranging.

Which brings me to Paul. We seem to have settled into a relaxed working relationship. When he came yesterday I asked after his well-being, as I always do. He asks after mine too, by the way.

“Not so good today”, he said, “I’m a bit unwell”. He rubbed his chest although I don’t think that was where the source of his discomfort lay.

I made suitable noises and suggested he might want to leave after two hours’ work, before it got hot. “We’ll see”, he said. “I didn’t want to let you down, so I thought I’d better come”.

Two hours in and I asked him if he wanted to continue. “Oh yes”, he said, “work takes your mind off things”.

Later we sat on the bench in Beloved’s memorial patch and had tea, it’s the only really shady spot in the garden any time of day. (How cross Beloved would be, he loved the sun above everything and sat in it for hours, whereas I avoid it when I can. So I win.)

Paul and I got to talking about work. “I don’t really have a choice,” he said, "I need to keep my income up which is stretched perilously thin anyway”. He told me he has only four regulars and a few now and then-ners but he couldn’t really do much more because of his health problems. At the moment he gives me a regular slot on Mondays and an additional slot on another day if he has a gap.

"Thank you”, I said, “but then I’m not such a bad employer?” He turned his head as if I had surprised him and looked me full in the face, not something he does often. “Oh I think we rub along tolerably well.” he said.

For now it’s all good but I’d better not count my chickens just yet.

I added the picture of the phormium in bloom because I still can’t quite believe that is has flowered. Positively pre-historic!