Day 3 was a joyous experience: that combination of
revisiting the past but bringing with it the eyes of the present produced a
feeling of real pleasure that has been absent for many weeks. However, it has to be admitted part of the ‘pleasure’
was alcohol powered, and rather more than my safe allowance of alcohol units
was consumed on Day 3. Therefore Day 4
was always going to be a quiet one, but didn’t actually turn out that way. My glorious nephew arrived for a gossip around
lunch time and we drank tea and laughed, my aunt phoned from Ireland in the
afternoon and I heard her latest woes with the weather and the difficulties of
a 21st century existence in rural south west Ireland, then an old
friend appeared for more tea and gossip.
In addition the weather was soft
and kind, so we could sit outside and look at the garden.
Timehop is an interesting app, sometimes excruciatingly embarrassing,
sometimes not, just allowing you to revisit times when things were
different. Recently it threw up a post
from several years ago when I confessed to being content in the garden. This might not sound much, but as my rather
longwinded post described, the thought of having my own little garden was a
great comfort in the early days following the break-up of my marriage when all
I knew is I was to lose my home, and I didn’t know where I was to go. As it happens I have been happier here than I
was in my last home, learning to be and not to strive or envy, and part of this has been the creation of the garden. I indulged myself and had almost all the
fabric of the existing garden removed. I
had paths laid and beds dug. I had a
plan and largely I stuck to that plan.
However, the arrival of rats in my garden 2 or 3 years ago froze me out
of the place, for I am borderline phobic about rats. They are gone now, but the garden lost its appeal and became another
burden. The Last Man helped me, cutting the
grass with silent efficiency, loading his van with stuff for the dump and
putting the tool racks up in the shed, as I had promised myself but had failed
to do. We pruned and worked, bringing
some order back to the mess, but still the garden had lost its magic for me, it
was just plants and weeds. But this year
it was different. Many, many months ago,
before the end was signalled, I set to and pruned the roses properly. These roses, chosen with such care from the catalogue,
had been all but abandoned and grew leggy and choked. Then as I had more inexplicable weekends on
my own, I managed to find time to do a bit in the garden. One day all I did was
to remove all the blue flowered weeds I loathe, their deep roots a challenge, but
a challenge I rose to with gusto, the brown garden waste bin was soon filled to
the top with the corpses of my adversaries.
A few weeks ago I spent several hours in the garden, and realised with a
guilty pang that I was content by myself there, working quietly listening to my
ipod, not even missing the Last Man.
I’d forgotten I’d planted irises, and when I saw the blades
emerge from the earth in mid spring, it was a pleasing moment, a tiny breath of
familiarity, but I couldn’t remember what colour they were. I, who had chosen each plant with care, had
forgotten my plan. Then they bloomed
this week, exquisite dark purple, stunning against the backdrop of the evergreen
honeysuckle that climbs the wall behind it.
Those flowers will be gone in a matter of days, but just today as I sat
chatting in the garden, I looked at them and smiled.
No comments:
Post a Comment