Edgy...

It's so terribly exciting when one has - ahem - suddenly found a sorely missed gardening tool. My good edging shears have been hopelessly lost for ages, and I have been looking at the lawn/garden boundaries with dismay. Using scissors would just be too silly, even for me.

 Pretty yellow!
Genista in the Shrubbery

I was out with the dogs taking photographs, wondering if the Genista seedlings which are growing into trees are proper, delicate varieties, or just the species broom - and therefore giant weeds. In the middle of a path to nowhere (more specifically, into the back of the Shrubbery) I tripped, nearly face-planting. Ha!

 Found!
Sharp Edging Shears

Yeay! Could these be my sharp edgers, the ones that actually do the job, the ones I've been mournfully looking for for weeks? Abandoned, left out in the rain - and there's been quite a lot of rain. Oops. Another garden lesson I need to learn - to look after the garden, first look after the gardening tools.

The Moment of Truth

The moment of truth. Have all the bits rusted together? Wiggle, wiggle. No! They seem to open and close. Phew! That's lucky. But have they become disappointingly dull, like the other pairs I've been trying to use? I open the blades tentatively, sidle up to a ragged lawn edge, and give the gentlest of snips. Yippee! They work! They ARE my lost edgers!

Now I prance and dance around all the lawns in a trimming frenzy. Thoughts : A sensible gardener would clean and hang up these good edgers. So what do I do? I lay them safely and lovingly on the dining table.

And now to the 'cutting edge' of interesting things to do when retired. Start up the drum roll. Lights! Action!

 Where I do all my MEFTA research, hee hee.
My Cottage

The Inaugural Meeting of MEFTA

MEFTA (Mind Expansion For The Ages, or Ageless, or possibly Aged, depending on one's state of mind) is a homegrown concept. It runs like a book group, but the participants (me and my friends) choose topics instead. We do research (library books, Mister Google, and so on), then share our terribly interesting findings with the others. This lunchtime me and my MEFTA friends met for the very first time, gave our presentations, giggled and applauded each other, then had a nice cup of tea and sushi. It was fun.

One friend did a rap about the complicated multi-connections in Norse Mythology, and gave us a drawing of Freya riding naked on her boar (arctic nudity, no less) to colour in when we feel stressed. My other friend talked about the Scottish poet William McGonagle, master of doggerel, and a very straightforward man - famous for his Silvery Tay poem Then we all dressed up in furs and balaclavas and acted in my Amunsden and Scott play. As you can see, this has been deeply stimulating stuff!

For my next topic I'm analysing Enid Blyton's Famous Five. This is not proving to be a topic with much substance, though I am finding the odd (definitely odd) academic paper on it. Hmm... Of course the author has been accused of being sexist, classist, agist, racist. And sizist! Apparently there is a modern TV series where the esteemed Fatty (the hero of the Five Find-Outers) is played by a Slimmy. OK. Someone is seriously missing the point. Simple adventure writing with lashings of exclamation marks!!!!!!

But back to the garden. Yesterday I did the Frisbee Lawn edges, and also weeded its narrow border. Today I worked my way around all the house gardens, and then I moved across to the car bridge to access the gardens over the water race. Just doing edges is a delightfully mobile garden task, and I keep seeing new treasures everywhere - roses presenting their first blooms, new rhododendrons in flower, and so on.

Beautiful light, beautiful garden...

Today the light was camera-beautiful - sun over there somewhere and darkish clouds overhead, making the flower colours look really intense. Trimming and clicking, I got as far as the darling coral peonies (which look stunning when left unpicked in the garden). Then the skies boomed rudely with thunder, and down came splodgy rain. Oh well.

 They last much longer if left in the garden. I knew that?
Two Coral Peonies

Now the rain has stopped, so there's time to get those edges finished. Yeay for my sharp edging shears! And my sharp, edgy mind, thanks to MEFTA. For example, you won't believe the number of important things that a boy 'Famous Fiver' will have in his pockets. Oh, anyone can join. You just have to be enjoy finding out about things, be a bit nerdy, and not too boring. See you all in four weeks time, maybe?