Clearing beds, cleaning sheds, sharpening tools and RIP Rachel 😢
Hello Friends. I am hoping that the rodent owners amongst you have had a better week than I. Plenty of positive five-minutery going on behind the scenes though, and I am loving seeing my favourite winter scented shrubs having their moment.
Here are my five minute forays for this week:
Monday
It is gloriously frosty. I remove the last of the sedums (see pic above. Sedum are now called ‘Hylotelephium’ and the one I have is called ‘Autumn Joy’ which is a lie, because the joy is pretty much year-round). I chop everything up to go in the compost. The new buds at the base of the frostbitten stems has me all thrilled and optimistic, and I’m very much hoping that this will set the tone for the week, until my eldest appears late at night, sobbing and holding a pretty much unresponsive gerbil in her hands. It seems, friends, that Joey and Ross have turned on Rachel. The reason is unknown, but over the course of today they have gone from being great friends to worst enemies, and poor Rachel has suffered terrible abuse. There are wounds all over her poor little body. We separate them and go to bed, hoping for the best.
Tuesday
Rachel is stiff and cold. I nurse her all morning, on a hot water bottle, feeding her brandy from a pipette (my mother suggested this; she once brought a dead gerbil back to life with brandy from a pipette). It seems to be working. Rachel is moving. Again, I am optimistic, but when I get to the vet I am told in no uncertain terms that this is very much the end for poor Rachel, and that the kindest thing would be to send her on her way to gerbil heaven. I am distraught (I was here, doing exactly this same thing only a few months ago with the beloved Mr Pug). This is why I have held off having pets for so long. I don’t seem to be able to deal with this sort of thing. I need to go and live on a farm, or in the wild. I am obliterated with guilt because I was IN THE HOUSE while Rachel was being attacked. I have terribly evil thoughts about Joey and Ross. And the worst thing is that I have to be an ADULT about this. The first adult thing I have to do is lie to my daughter, because she has an exam tomorrow and cannot be grief-stricken. I tell her that Rachel is being looked after in hospital and that the doctors are doing everything they can to make her well again. The second thing I have to do is NOT HATE Joey and Ross. This, after all, is nature, and I don’t want my daughter hating the boys either. The third thing I have to do is hide the body. I wrap poor dear little Rachel in an old flannel and put her in a box and hide her in the back of the freezer. She will ‘die’ in hospital after the exam, and we will bury her at the weekend. Oh god, how I LOATHE being a grownup. No gardening.
Wednesday
We travel to Kent for the exam. Thick fog all the way. Eldest goes off to do her exam and I retreat to the pub for good bloody marys with the darlingest friends for wonderful conversation, made even better by the added bonus that I do NOT have to be an adult, or lie to them. It is all enormously reviving and even though it is dark when we get back, I still go out into the garden and do five minutes in the shed; there are a million paper bags (from all my bulbs) to be shredded up and composted, and a floor to find, beneath all of them. I sweep a bit and go to bed with the intention to carry on tomorrow. All this is in preparation for deep cleaning the shed, which I do once a year and is not as heinous as it sounds. I’ll put full details here shortly.
Thursday
I rush back from the school run and straight into the shed with my favourite guilty pleasure podcast - it’s called ‘Redhanded’ and it’s true crime, narrated by two very sweary women and I adore it. This episode is all about Louise Woodward - remember her? FASCINATING, and this is the first time I have thought about that case since having children (and au-pairs). Anyhow, the shed is put to rights. Tools put away (I am terrible at putting my tools away) and some set aside for cleaning and sharpening tomorrow. The shed needs a deep clean, but for now I feel like I am at least on top of things. I unearth a bag of daffodil bulbs (sent to me gratis because I am SUCH a good tulip-bulb customer). I look at them longingly and, admitting defeat, put them outside the front door on the wall with a sign saying ‘PLEASE TAKE ME AND PLANT ME’. They are gone by the time I emerge for the school run in the afternoon.
Friday
Tool cleaning and sharpening - it’s always a joy and one of those ‘chores’ which is never ACTUALLY a chore. There is something about cleaning tools which bestows virtue on a person like nothing else. I wipe any dirt off first, and then I go in with my special cleaning blocks to make the blades shiny and dirt/rust free, and after that I sharpen, using my sharpening stone and after THAT I oil them. There are details of all the things I use in my ‘How I clean my tools’ post.
Next week is full of deadlines, so I’ve decided to go ‘off-line’ - a thing I’ve never done before but there’s a first time for everything no? I have a vague idea that I’ll do a fair bit of de-cluttering with all the time I spend NOT looking at social media, but that remains to be seen. So if there’s no newsletter next week (although I shall still be gardening) please forgive me and hang in there for a thrilling two-week run-down on Feb 8th.
Much love and good things to you all
x Laetitia