Hello friends!
I hope you all had a lovely chocolatey eggy Easter! We spent the weekend outside and, because I am constantly looking for the good bits nowadays, I can honestly say that there is a certain joy to be had in being compelled to stay put. We slow down, spend extra time finding pretty bits for the table and generally love each-other more. I hit a bit of a roadblock last Friday though and couldn’t punch through the wall of fatigue to write. Sorry about that. Sometimes telly and bed is the only option. This week has been similarly exhausting but it’s like being a new mother isn’t it…at some point you have to lean in to it all and do ALL the things anyway.
So here are my five minute forays, shambolic or otherwise this week:
Monday
I get downstairs and start breakfast unable to fathom why I feel so utterly downcast. Then I look in my sink. It is a grey-brown colour. It looks like a crack addict’s teeth. I go at it with half a lemon and salt and it becomes bright white again. My world suddenly feels ok again. It’s the little things. It is Easter Monday which means Rotter is a lot more available than he would be on a normal Monday. I send him outside with the shears and a ‘do one thing for me’ expression and he tames the neighbour’s clematis and honeysuckle so that my agapanthus will have a fighting chance of flowering this year. It looks barbaric when He’s finished but hey, he’s bagged up all the rubbish and put it with the bins. It’s the little things. My eldest spends the entire day in her room with music on, completely decluttering it. She does this periodically and I am always impressed. Everything is folded upright, Kon Mari style. The downside is that there are mountains of THINGS that somehow need subsuming within the rest of the house. I spend rather a long time doing this with her, and then I realise that HERE are the eleven rolls of sellotape I’ve been looking for, and THERE is my beloved pencil sharpener and omg HERE are my Wolford luxury opaques god dammit! All the frustration of the pilfered stuff is gone with the joy of finding it again.
The weather is utterly gorgeous. We have lunch in the garden again and I spy some errant tendrils of my neighbour’s jasmine hanging loose from the fence. I grab some string and gently tie them to my pergola (which is sadly naked due to my complete negligence). I long for the shadiness of a covered seating area as summer approaches, and although I have put two pots of sweet peas either side of the first verticals, I don’t have much of a plan for the rest. I had hoped to trawl some garden centres for large-ish specimens of jasmine, but that is of course now a no-no. I must just order them, but feel like using my neighbour’s already vast jasmine is going to grow faster than anything I plant. The tiny amount of greenery tied to the structure makes me stupidly happy. It’s the little things. I consider sowing some cobaea scandens (cup and saucer vine), which would cover it in three seconds flat if I can only get some seed. I think the answer though, is going to be my trusty squash, which I will be sowing soon (here are some instructions). While I am agonising about this I remember that I had decided EXACTLY what to plant up this pergola on my OWN blog a while back. Here is my thing on night-scented stars for the garden, in which I stipulate that the climbers will indeed be jasmine, together with akebia quinata (chocolate vine) and honeysuckle. I need to pay attention to myself a bit more.
Tuesday
I drive to my parents to deliver some vegetables but in all honesty I just want to see them in the flesh. They have devised the most brilliant garden setup, where we sit at one end and they sit at the other, and she places hot cross buns on paper plates on the floor, and then retreats so we can pick them up and eat them. I’m unsure when I’ll be able to hug my parents and it’s really getting to me. I loathe the fear, the thought that we might give them something. We feed the ducks and come home to a baked banana loaf from my eldest. The smallest slices her toe open -goodness knows how- there is blood everywhere. I wrap it up (we have no plasters left…everybody keeps getting injured) and go outside to pull weeds for five minutes. I am continually baffled by the amount of bindweed and alkanet. Here is how I weed…It’s easy, at this time of year to fill a bucket with them in the space of five minutes. It’s all on the boundaries and I momentarily think of blaming my neighbours but then I remember yesterday’s jasmine and shut myself up.
The mouse in our house has become so brazen that it doesn’t even bother to run any more…just sort of SAUNTERS past. My children have named it Regina (no idea) and they are in love with it. I fully realise that its presence is a direct consequence of my slovenly housekeeping. I walk inside and see Regina, bold as brass, nibbling on an old banana cake crumb under the table. This is quite enough. I take to my bed and throw a massive hissy fit when asked ‘What’s for supper’. There IS no supper. YOU’RE ON YOUR OWN!
Wednesday
My bright white shiny sink is still giving me joy. I receive my order of compost and seaweed feed that I made last week at a local nursery. I asked for jasmine and have been sent trachelospermum jasminoides (which I guess is LONDON for jasmine). Nothing against it, I love it very much; I’ve got it growing around my front door, but I was really was after actual proper jasmine - all messy and delicious, to supplement the neighbour’s plant, and mitigate any mishaps should she suddenly decide to be rid of it on her side. Still, I plant the thing and realise that something is better than nothing. I also start pruning my out-of-control rose, putting the prunings in an old compost bag as I go. This is a good trick if you’re doing a big pruning job as it removes the hell of the CLEAR-UP from proceedings.
Thanks to my lovely neighbour I have discovered that Deliveroo is delivering from a nearby M&S garage and it has made me ENTIRELY less anxious on the food stakes. It means that Rotter doesn’t have to leave the house when we desperately need something any more, dodging other people who don’t care about passing on this horrible virus. Perhaps I am overly hectic about it. Don’t care. We’re staying at home.
Spurred on by my shiny sink (and the sunny day), I strip the big bed and wash the sheets. Eldest helps me to hang out the washing and put more in. The basement, where my washing machines are, is in total disarray, because, along with an inability to be quiet at any time of day or in ANY SORT OF WAY, my Rotter, who I love dearly and makes me laugh and is funny and kind and knows how to make the wifi work, is also unable to PUT ANYTHING AWAY WHERE IT BELONGS. “In the end”, I tell my ten year old, “In the end, it’s the small things that’ll break you; it’s the un-replaced cap on the toothpaste, toolbox contents, rummaged through and not put back…it’s the cereal bowl, placed ATOP the open, beckoning dishwasher rather than INSIDE it. All these small things. They will break you”, I say. To which she simply answers: “But mummy that can’t be ALL that marriage is about?” and I realise that I had entirely mistaken her for a friend, rather than my daughter. I hug her tight, say “of course not!” and resolve to zoom my friends more.
Thursday
I go out early for a walk OUTSIDE. I’ve done this once before (last week) and it was lovely and awful in equal measure. Lovely to get OUT, awful because, even early in the morning, one is dodging joggers and just so many PEOPLE. Nervously navigating the middle of the road to avoid others, crossing multiple times, loitering in driveways to let people pass, wondering if their spittle still hangs in the air. I get back and decide that despite the lovely buzz my body is getting, it’s not worth it. We need an exercise bike. Fast.
Not sure what I was expecting but I return to find the house exactly as I had left it (i.e in utter disarray, dishwasher still full etc). Will nobody partake in the dishwasher dance with me? It’s a really simple one and involves two steps: You put stuff in, and then when it’s washed, you PUT STUFF AWAY. Two steps. Simple. But no, I dance it alone, despite asking for a partner multiple times a day. Fury and rage. I pull out a tray and place four different coloured cups upon it. I parade the tray around, saying “This is your cup, and this is your cup, and here, this is YOUR cup. If you want a drink, you use your cup. Then you rinse it and put it back on the tray see? And then at the end of the day you can put it in the dishwasher!” My very sensible children take no notice of me so I put my headphones on and start chopping off the brown bits of fern from the space beneath my apple tree. This is planted up with ferns, aquilegia and peonies. The ferns are evergreen but every so often I like to remove last year’s fronds which can look a bit tatty. Frogs jumping around as I work make me leave rather more than I would otherwise. I look up and see that my wonderful eldest has made lunch for the other two and they are having a picnic on the lawn. Soaring heart of joy. I go and join them and all is well with the world.
I feed all my houseplants with seaweed extract because my phone has told me it’s time. I also fed all my shrubs and anything in a container last week because my phone was bossy. It’s a very good way of keeping on top of things, setting a remind on ones phone. I recommend it. Here are all my favourite fertlisers in one post.
And then we clap for the NHS and cry a bit.
Friday
I’m getting itchy for some rain. I need it to rain, hard and long. We had a smattering yesterday and I’m hoping that today will bring a downpour, but I water anyway, after our morning workout. Eldest daughter comes out to join me and we turn the hose on one another, squawking like demented crows and chasing each other around. I come indoors, get dry and sow some basil for baby leaves (I find it easier to grow basil like this, sowing a pot every three weeks or so for a continual supply). Here’s a little tutorial on sowing basil from seed. If you’re lucky enough to get a supermarket delivery though, here’s the ubiquitous hack for turning a pot of basil into something that will last and last.
I’m becoming increasingly concerned about how I’m going to cope next week, when the children are supposed to be ‘learning’ (and not just how to clean a loo or mow a lawn) I wrote a blog with some suggestions of what to do with your kids in the garden now that the seed-sowing lark has lost its novelty - it’s here. Things need to be moved around and organised and I need somehow to muster some energy for all of it. But I guess we’re all in this together aren’t we, so that’s something. My children will catch up at school. Top priority is remaining sane and making sure that we’re all kind to one another.
Any suggestions on how to do life in lockdown gratefully received! You can either comment here or get in touch via my Instagram (@laetitiamaklouf).
And one more thing - this excellent blog by Andrew O’Brien all about the peat industry is worth a read.
x Laetitia
oh dear, it does sound tricky over there, I think you are doing brilliantly and helping others at the same time, don't ever forget that! feeling very protected here in NZ. both my brothers are in the UK, one in London, one in a village near Cambridge, just sent my sister i n law near Cambridge your book to cheer her up, she was delighted. My children are older, so different challenges, one home from first year uni, and so disappointed, was so loving his first few weeks of independence and new friends, the other last year of school and finding this distance learning a challenge. I really really honestly think the younger ones will catch up, and that what they learn from being home with parents will still be learning, just different, and resilience in spades. Can they have two nights a week where they have to plan and do dinner (your oldest sounds very capable!!) from the online shop to making it - could be very simple (would obviously have to be!) and involve some supervision to be safe, Jamie Oliver might have some child friendly options? they would feel so proud, would learn science and might give you a wee break? google Nadia Lim, a NZ cook who is very sensible (is also a nutritionist) also. Maybe fried rice, can be pre-cooked rice, mainly frozen vege like corn and peas.... kids movie night with pop corn and ice cream and make it a special treat, an every dress up for dinner night. a kids early to bed night so you and the rotter can have a date night (might have to bribe them with the movie night first!), a garden treasure hunt for natural things in the garden - for the little two - your oldest could make it eg an acorn, a yellow flower (obviously you might not have those, but just examples), with some questions to answer as well, like how many x's are there in the garden, what side of the house is the letterbox on - age appropriate, your oldest sounds like she would do an amazing job of that - might even give you a few precious minutes to your self!) . Make homemade ice blocks from healthy stuff like yoghurt and fruit - again google them, Nadia Lim has some delicious ones. Get them to make banana ice cream - just frozen banana and frozen berries - if you can get them delivered, great for a picnic in the garden......good luck and I hope one suggestion helpful and if not good luck anyway and be kind to yourself, you are amazing!!!!!!!
Love your newsletter, Laetitia. It helps make me feel I am not alone! Do you think I can grow cobea in a pot? I have some seeds left from last year and am hoping I might get some flowers on it this time. Last year it disappeared in to a huge overgrown jasmine. I’d send a cutting if I could! X