Pot-washing, podcasts, sprig-picking and JOIE DE NEIGE (or lack thereof) 🤷♀️
Hello Friends!
This week's newsletter is a bit like the snow in London; THIN ON THE GROUND - Tell you what - why don't you all just hit reply and tell me what you've been doing in YOUR gardens? Then I'll put everything together and there'll be a bit more gardening in the newsletter next week...sound like a plan? 🤓
Anyway, I've been beavering (love that word) away at my book so I FEEL like I've been doing lots of gardening, even if I haven't in actual fact, been outside much. Anyway...here we go with my five minute forays this week!
Monday
I walk into the garden, sniff the daphne and the sarcococca and stand there, enjoying it all. Apparently snow is coming, which is hard to believe, but having lived through last winter, anything is possible. I sweep the paths, look around reminding myself that it's okay for things to seem bleak because it's, like, JANUARY, and go inside.
Tuesday
I wash my pots. It's a good time. I'm listening to a podcast called 'Detective' (because true crime is my podcast jam) and am mesmerised by the voice of this ex-cop, speaking of all the horror he encountered daily, in such a matter-of-fact manner. I have my warmest coat on, and some thick rubber gloves, and I fill a bucket with really hot water, laced with some Sal Suds (very concentrated, zero toxin soap). I spend five (or perhaps rather more) glorious minutes dunking my terracotta pots into the bucket and scrubbing them clean. I then brush the shelf where they live, and replace them, in a particularly artful manner (doing it for the gram). I stand back and notice that the small crack in the roof of my lean-to potting shed has turned into a full-on crevice...or should I say CRAVASSE? Every time it rains, water comes in and rots my potting bench and the shelves above. Everything is bowing precariously. It is entirely typical of me that I look at it, thinking I should probably do something about it, and then do precisely nothing. What I need to do is nail a temporary bit of hardboard over the top of it, but the thought of doing this defeats me. I will probably wait until the thing falls down.
Wednesday
I am struck with the notion that my work is going nowhere and my output is boring. This is a common thought that I have, and It's probably true some of the time...I mean we can't all be dynamically productive ALL the time can we? We ebb and flow, surely don't we? This doesn't make the feeling any less uncomfortable though, and I thrash wildly through the day, writing, parenting, cooking, planning, doing a bit of everything not very well; jack of all trades, master of none I think you might call it. It gets to 3pm and I go outside, to get OUT of myself. I kneel down and begin slowly to remove the couch grass that is once again appearing from the base of my hydrangea standards. The roots are inter-twined, and I'm blowed if I know how to get rid of it without using chemicals, or destroying the hydrangea. So I do the slowly slowly thing, removing as much as I can, trying not to think about the fact that it'll be back before I know it.
Thursday
Lots of fussing about today - that's what Thursdays are always about for me. I go out and deadhead the cyclamen and pansies - one of my splashes of colour on the terrace. And I also pick a sprig of daphne for my bedroom (GOTTA BE DONE) and sarcococca for every room, including the new au pair who is an absolute sweetheart. Unfortunately London buses flummox her (SAME, darling) so she's had some interesting times trying to get to places, but I'm pretty sure there's an app for that isn't there? The main thing is that my kids seem to like her...oh, and like my two previous au pairs, she is VERY encouraging about my cooking (kids just look at their plates disdainfully). I am constantly amazed at how resilient these young women are...eighteen years old, coming to the other side of the world, to a huge new city, to live with an unknown family, to look after three little kids who are not related to them in any way. I think it's admirable. But then, I do put a LOT of effort into them, making sure they're happy, treating them like my own...lying in bed at night worrying when they're not home after 2am...I guess it's a case of mutual respect. Of course, there's that thing of feeling as though ones house is not entirely ones own. It is irksome sometimes. You have, slightly to be the best version of yourself...not slob out in front of telly with pizza, not shout at your kids, not murder your husband...usual stuff - and I guess that's all good for me. I mean nobody really wants to experience the wrath of the ACTUAL me...really .... nobody does. There are times, dear friends when I could properly combust with rage. Rotter and I have found, over the years that it's good to have what he calls a 'diffuser wolf' - that one in the pack that stops the fighting...slinks in as tension builds and cheerfully asks how your day was, and you have to simmer down and make polite conversation. Well yes, that's what an au pair does too.
Friday
It snoweth. I am the Grinch of snow. I hate it. Mostly because when my children (NATURALLY) want to go out in it, I desperately don't want to, and I am confronted by what a horribly boring, un-fun parent I must be. I then have to FAKE delight at the snow and get the children suited up to go out in it and the vein on my forehead bulges out as I desperately try to prevent them from slipping over and cracking their heads open (because let's face it guys, in London it's never snow...it's just slush). It's very uncomfortable being reminded that you have in fact, lost your joie de neige ... It makes you compare yourself to other parents who are out there, 'enjoying' the snow with their children. I have a deadline and outside there is freezing rain. No gardening.
All the good things to you dear friends.
x Laetitia
Things you may have missed:
My chainsaw and pole-pruner review (It's ALL about the glamour round these parts)
Daily posts on instagram
You can find my books here and here (Sweet Peas for Summer is a bargain right now at only £2.99!)
Do you Pinterest? Is that even a verb? Anyway, I love it and you can find me here
I'm also on Twitter if you tweet