More of summer, please
Sunny Pokers
More of summer, please. What's the story about all the cold rain - and the hail that's forecast? This will not do! I have a garden to weed.
Wednesday 4th January
Anyway, at the moment it's raining, and I'm just home from the Op shop with 'new' sheets (alarmingly purple), and two blue floral apres-gardening shirts. One can never have too many apres-gardening shirts.
I have also bought a mattress for the new bedroom, which Non-Gardening Partner can pick up when the weather clears. Now I just need some bedtime guests to all arrive at once, hee hee. Or start a Gardenstay B'n'B? But then I'd have to vacuum the house all the time...
Winnie the Dog
Thursday 5th January
Right. I'm planning to have a big day. We are back from the vet with Winnie - she has a wee skin infection on her back - not ringworm, luckily. She has some ointment, some special shampoo, and a head bucket. Oh dear!
OK. It's sunny, and the wind is fresh. And now - some weeding! Yeay!
Four Hours Later...
Well, I've weeded and weeded and weeded some more. I've dead-headed the Iceberg roses, and dear Gertrude Jekyll (who bloomed so well earlier this summer). I've trimmed the edges and replaced missing edging river stones. But it's all been on such a small scale - I stand back to admire my work and can hardly see any difference! Eek!
The garden by Willow Bridge is clear - no, I mean clearer - as is the new area in the Stumpy (AKA Willow Tree) Garden. The rugosas seem to be settling in well here, though it's been their first season and they haven't been over floriferous.
Bucket-Head!
Winnie is a bucket-head while her skin clears up, and it's been slightly tricky for her to catch the tennis ball. But great news regarding her diet. I thought it must have been working - I've watched her scavenging for crumbs out of the (empty) cats' bowls. She's actually lost one kilogram. Dear little dog.
Stumpy Garden
Have been blundering (sight-reading) through Brahms on the piano, having discovering that NGP and I only play the first movement of Violin Sonata No.2. I will try and persuade him to play the other movements later, after I've had a glass of Merlot. Hopefully I won't get in too much of a panic and mix up my D-flats and D-sharps...
Love You Winnie
Friday 6th January
Winnie seems much, much better - not at all distracted by the bald patch at the base of her tail. Yippee for the magic ointment! Should be able to remove her bucket tonight.
Bucket-head dogs can't hear, or follow scents properly - she's just been zooming around the garden in a mild dog-panic trying to find me (I've been taking photographs while the light is overcast).
Photographs - the results of yesterday's efforts look really, really great today! Wouldn't life be grand if that happened everyday, hee hee. Last night I flicked through a book called 'Private Gardens of the Cotswolds'. Some of the flowery borders looked amazing in the book's photographs, much better than mine. But I guess that in carefully designed perennial borders everything peaks at the same time. That's my excuse, anyway.
Today's plan is to take heart! But first, to rake and clear gum debris and weeds from the driveways and the gardens around the garage. Ho hum stuff, but such little details are so pleasing on the eye.
Later...
I've collected and dumped six barrowfuls of mess, weeded behind the Stables by the mural, dead-headed roses, shifted firewood logs, put the concrete cricketers back out on their pitch, and cleaned up the back lawn. That's pretty much it, but I've been pottering away for five hours.
Play Has Resumed...
Funny how it doesn't look at all like five hours' work.