Weeding, school photographs, rough towels, and being cuddled by one's mother.
Hello friends!
Half term has been, ummm, SURVIVED. I am still alive, it seems. I took the children to the Isle of Wight…alone. And it’s the first time I’ve ever done that. Rotter had to work, so it was either stay in London or go somewhere. I took the decision to up-sticks mid-week in order to keep things fresh and a bit more magical, because believe me, there is only so much walking in the park/crafting/baking/swimming/organising ‘playdates’/watching telly you can do in a week, and I don’t do museums or London ‘outings’ during the holidays because well, let’s just say I know my limits.
So off we sped to the ferry, and then into the loveliest beach-side rental, and it was moody and grey and we messed around and walked a lot and did a fair bit of petting animals at the local farm. Our cheeks got pink and overall I feel like we did ok, although WHY I am so constantly blindsided by half terms remains a mystery. I can only liken it to the feeling of disbelief when you take your first baby home, and that thing where you baulk because surely, SURELY there will be a MOMENT at some point when you can do other things, or sleep, or ANYTHING other than attend to this baby…how is it possible that here we are, at 6pm and I am still in my pyjamas and I haven’t even brushed my teeth? Half term feels like that. It does. Every. Single. Time.
So obviously there was no newsletter last week, but here are my gardening forays for this one!
Monday
I drop the children off at school, listen to the silence for a full 30 minutes and then write four articles one after the other that were meant to be filed last week. By the time I’ve finished it’s pickup time and I laugh at myself as I cross out ‘make lasagne’ from my list and go and buy a ready meal for supper.
No gardening
Tuesday
A glorious hour weeding in the sunshine. God I love gardening. It heals me. Of course before I ventured outside I didn’t want to go at ALL. But as soon as I knelt down and started faffing about with the trowel, removing small new bindweed shoots just emerging, and spidery tendrils of couch grass, (more on how to remove couch grass here) and chopping out all the brown bits from the Japanese anemones I just couldn’t stop. It honestly becomes a case of everything else can just wait. People stare at me in disbelief when I tell them that weeding is my favourite thing to do in the garden. There’s something about the mindlessness of it that soothes me. I believe some people feel the same way about vacuuming, or ironing. The thing is though, that vacuuming and ironing don’t fill your nose with good smells or your ears with good sounds.
Wednesday
I am rather crazed this morning because I wake up convinced that my children are having their individual and sibling school photographs today. To be fair to me, the number of emails about this, changing the dates, getting it wrong and then changing them again, has been VERY confusing. There is a stupid crazy flurry of hair brushing and making sure uniforms are clean, and covering up the pimple on the end of my daughter’s nose. And then I get a message saying that the photos are, in fact, tomorrow, so everyone has to change into their PE kits. Everyone hates me. Including myself. Eldest daughter (the one with the spot) also guilts me into planting up two willow sticks which we have been rooting in water, because they are doing a-sexual reproduction in her class. So I’m out in the garden planting things too. It’s exhausting and wrong, and I need to do better.
The weather is still glorious. I buy a few more bags of topsoil because yesterday’s weeding has uncovered the need for more mulching. Then I set to work on some couch grass that I’ve been slowly but surely eradicating from one small flowerbed. The problem with this area is that the grass is completely enmeshed with the roots of a hydrangea paniculata. If it were a smaller plant I’d probably uproot it and remove the grass once and for all, but it’s not, so instead I’ve been going at it regularly as and when I see the spears of grass emerging, carefully teasing it out and trying not to damage the roots of the hydrangea. I dump a bag of topsoil over it when I’ve finished and feel ridiculously pleased with myself.
Thursday
Today is the day of the ACTUAL school photographs and none of my children have brushed hair and my daughter STILL has a massive great angry red spot at the end of her nose poor darling (although she doesn’t seem to care very much). It is almost snowing when I drop them off at school. I’m not sure why rain is welcomed in my book but snow is not, but there we are. I watch it forlornly, and also the MASSIVE admin pile that mocks me from the dining table. I put it there on purpose, because I swore to myself that I’d deal with it today, but I just can’t. Admin is boring. How dare it make me feel horrid. Go AWAY.
I flounce outside in disgust and start tying in my climbing hydrangea. Friends, I am so annoyed with my climbing hydrangea. Every other climbing hydrangea I have ever seen is self-clinging; (it has these clever little adventitious roots on the stems which attach it to walls, a bit like ivy)…every single one except MINE. My four plants seem to dislike my trellis and are not clinging to it. Ugh. I find some string in my pockets and tie in the loose stems, tight against the trellis, as if to impress upon the stupid thing that it needs to ATTACH itself, pronto. I also swiftly plant five little foxglove plants that a sweet friend has given me. And then suddenly the rain begins.
Tonight we are meeting new neighbours at the pub (yes friends, we have a STREET whatsapp). I love my neighbours. I really, really love them. If you’re not new here you will have read how marvellous they were about letting me use their washing machines and how interesting it was to discover who used softener and who didn’t. We drink a lot of wine and the group is divided between those who like towels which feel like cardboard (me) and those who like soft fluffy ones (not me). Rough towels remind me of my childhood, and that is why I love them. When I dry myself with a rough towel it’s like being cuddled by my mother. Simple. But that aside, we also chat a lot about how we should all make our front gardens more wildlife, and people-friendly…there is much chat about benches…why do we not have seating in the front, so that in the summer we could sort of open our front gardens up to one another a bit more? What none of them know is that I’m about to make them all take part in a FRONT GARDEN FESTIVAL, along with three other local gardening friends. The idea is that we will persuade all the houses in our respective roads to pimp up their front gardens for the birds and bees, and then have a little carnival of sorts in the summer, with lemonade stands and seed swaps, run by children. I go to bed very drunk and very smug about my stealthy recruitment.
Friday
I wake to many messages about front garden benches, and freezing rain, the sort with really enormous fat drops…really WET rain. If you’ve been a friend for a while you’ll know how much I love the rain, mostly for its sound, which I find soothing, but also because it makes the garden look glossy. I’m not very good with cold though, and I curse myself for not ordering the alpine strawberry seed that I would have LOVED to stay indoors and sow today…wet cold days are the very best sowing days. I will be doing it next week though, and will try to story the whole thing on Instagram. Todays five minutes really is just that. Ski jacket on, woolly hat, and take my secateurs to the rest of the Japanese anemone. I love these plants – some people think they are thuggish but I’m fine with anything that will spread and look pretty. I have the white ‘Honorine Jobert’ and the pink ‘September Charm’. Both of these are single flowered varieties (that means they have just one layer of petals). I cut out all of the old stems and remove any brown leaves. My hood slips down and a massive blob of rain hits my neck and runs down my back. I get up, go indoors and call it a day.
X Laetitia
ps You may have missed:
My review of The Modern Country Gardener
Mulch de-mystified: how to mulch, when to mulch and what to much with