Mowing, weeding and RAIN!!!
Hello friends!
If you're new here, WELCOME! I love doing my newsletter and I'm so happy you've decided to give it a scan. This one is what my English teacher would perhaps describe as 'A bit thin on the ground' and I have the urge to begin with the words 'Okay so...'
I've done a grand total of ten minutes of garden stuff this week (and that includes mowing my lawn)...
There won't be much here, and for some reason I feel like I want to preface that with an apology.
MAIS NON!
No half-apologetic 'This is short and I want you to know that I KNOW it's short, so I'll start with some sort of superfluous bilge' bilge.
Instead, here are my gardening forays this week.
We begin mid week.
Wednesday: I go out into the garden to inspect, fearing the worst from this relentless heatwave and I'm blown away by the loveliness of the lushness of it all. It's been kindly watered (slightly over-watered I suspect) by my wonderful neighbour. The grass is damp and long, and the borders, if you don't inspect them too closely, could actually pass as 'full' (ish). I am thrilled. I am also slightly panicked by the mess. I'm in no way a tidy freak, but I will admit that when things are orderly and neat I feel healthier in my head (anyone else?) The difference between the short part of my lawn and its shaggy counterpart is almost indistinguishable and I need to fix that. I raise the mower to almost its highest, and do the edges and it is miraculous. INSTANT calm!
Never mind the bindweed invading the borders! I still need to shake sand from luggage and do mountains of washing, oh, and take care of three children, so this is perfect and wonderful and enough for me right now. Tackling bindweed needs a certain headspace, a good podcast and a steely determination. I resolve to go to bed early and acquire just such a mentality.
Thursday: Fail miserably at girding myself for bindweed massacre. I stayed up far too late watching a thing called 'Succession' on the tellybox which was so unbelievably gripping that I lost out on much needed sleep. I wake up in a NOT TOGETHER kind of mood, and feel like I've only just got my head above water all day. Then, two miraculous things happen. Firstly, it rains - not a measly, teasing drip like we've had a few times before. No, it has rained most of the night and now it's raining properly hard and fast and LONG! We dance around jubilantly and I want to cry with happiness (I hadn't realised how much the dry spell had affected me). I have totally got my mojo back but it is literally pouring with rain, which makes it difficult (not impossible, but difficult) to do bindweed removal. Firstly, you have to be sort of bum-in-the-air to get it out, which means that in the rain, you get wet FROM THE BOTTOM UP, and secondly, vision is impaired by hood, or wet hair, or just rain in ones eyes. But then the doorbell rings. It is a parcel from the company I bought my moth traps, and inside there are lots of little tiny weeny gorgeous two-spotted ladybirds! The two-spotter is native to the UK and in decline. When the rain stops I place the paper bag on my climbing rose and they all come out, sniffing the fresh air, and that is my gardening for the day. Of course, I didn't take any photos of my babies. Oh dear.
Friday: Still raining! So happy! I put on my mack and go out with my widger and get going on the bindweed, and I relish doing it, despite the fact that I cannot see anything and that I am wet through. The whole thing is pretty slapdash. Some of the bindweed breaks off before I can get to its roots, because I am blind and wet, but slapdash is better than NOTHING, and the pile after five minutes is impressive.
I'll continue doing this every day now, until I have control again, which won't take long.
And that's it!
I have a full week at my disposal next week, and I have plans (although I'm cautious to reveal them, as it's school holidays and NOTHING I want to do ever really comes to fruition during them...
All the good things to you all
x Laetitia