Repairing the lawn, weeding the cracks, dyeing the pond and golden afternoons
Hello friends!
What a glorious week, and personally I have been doing as little as possible, (still haunted by the winter just past). The flower beds need much attention, but that is for another time...
Monday:
For around eighteen months now I have had the pleasure of hosting an au-pair. It's like having a really helpful, kind, interesting spouse who doesn't do the "I've had less sleep than YOU" thing, and is there without fail, every morning and afternoon, four days a week, to lend a hand and join you with cries of 'have you got your socks?'. It's all the good things about marriage and none of the annoyances. It is, in short, a Very Good Thing. Today though, my lovely au-pair is on her way home from a very well-deserved weekend on the Amalfi Coast, and I am flying solo. Lots of things happen today, including but not limited to traipsing around Kew Gardens with a toddler who didn't want to be there, taking children to violin lessons and distracting toddlers who didn't want to be there, taking lots of children to an ice cream parlour and hoping they wouldn't be hungry for supper afterwards and returning from choir practice to discover that my actual spouse had eaten the entire contents of my daughter's carefully prepared lunch-box for the following day. No gardening.
Tuesday:
There's a horrid brown patch on my lawn. I know who did it - a sweet visitor many days ago with a gorgeous little dog. I saw it happen but did nothing. That was silly of me. Had I watered it immediately things would have worked out very differently. But now the patch is large, and totally dead and I really don't like it one little bit. I decide to do something rather than just be cross about it, and rake off the dead thatch with a child's three-pronged mini-cultivator thingy. I then water it copiously to disperse any more remnants of wee. If I had had any topsoil I would have finished this job but I don't, so I have to leave things right there.
Wednesday:
I get topsoil, water the bare patch of lawn again and cover it with the lovely brown stuff. It already looks better. I then scatter lawn seed. I have no idea if it is the right type of grass seed - this is the kind of consideration that only matters if you are a lawn nut (but if you are a lawn nut, then you probably don't let dogs pee on it) I am not a lawn nut. I just like grass to lie on, so I don't care if the seed is the wrong one, as long as it's green. Once I have scattered the seed I put more topsoil over it, pat it down and water it again, and then I go and get some old plant supports and stick them around the patch to form a sort of fence. Lots of things will probably happen now. I will probably neglect to water the patch and the seeds won't germinate. The children will gravitate towards the fenced off bit, as moths to a flame. They will fuss over it and mess it around and the seeds won't germinate. Foxes and squirrels will do the same. Possibly all three things will happen at once. All this to say I don't hold out much hope for it, but I like knowing that I tried.
Thursday:
I mow the lawn (around my bald patch) and also begin teasing out the grass which has colonised the gaps between the brickwork on my terrace. I love this job. It's the perfect mindless occupation to engage in whilst listening to podcasts (I like true crime, gardening, and Malcolm Gladwell). I begin, thinking I'll only do a tiny patch, and then get carried away and almost finish the job.
I have been considering treating myself to a blow-torch for a special treat, to tackle really stubborn weeds in cracks. I go inside to find that my pond dye has arrived. This is basically food dye which you put in your pond or pool and which makes it black as the night, without harming any wildlife or children in the process. I don't measure it out - just glug a bit in a watering can with some water and carefully pour it in.
It looks like the first dip of a water-colour-filled brush into clean water - a billowing black cloud, thick and heavy, travelling slowly outwards. I pour it into three separate areas and then mix slowly with my hand. The result turns my murky green, duck-weed infested pool into something properly sexy. I am thrilled. Recommended.
Friday:
The weather is amazing. Properly hot with a breeze. It's the sort of weather you remember from childhood and think doesn't happen any more. But here it is, day after day of glory. There are weeds in the flowerbeds a-plenty, and so much planting to do, but the lawn is mowed and so it all looks just fine. The weeds can wait. I get the hose and spray the children, and at the same time I water everything, including my lawn patch, and call it a day.
I hope you've had a wonderful week
All the good things, always
x Laetitia
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