10 June 2017

It was nearly seven when I finally woke up. I don’t like sleeping late on weekends – it feels like I miss half my weekend when I do. The mornings are lovely and quiet, I listen to the birds waking up which takes me back to my childhood in a small village, when I’d sneak up into the garden on the rare occasion I woke before sunrise. I’d wrap myself in a blanket or my duvet and sit on the garden bench listening to the birds waking up one species at a time. I’d hear a cuckoo nearby, then one farther away and another answering from even farther and so it would go until all cuckoo’s had greeted each other and they’d quiet down. Then the woodpeckers would start one after the other, some near, some far. I don’t remember the sequence anymore, nor could I ever identify all species by their call. But I do remember the cocks crowed last. Sometimes it was too cold outside, and I would just listen from my bedroom window. I must have been around twelve, thirteen. Fourteen at most. We were living in a small village surrounded by forest at that time. That’s one advantage of moving so much – I can pinpoint the time of certain memories simply by location.

Well, it’s gone past eight, I should have been halfway done with shopping already. I better get going.

As I stepped outside I was surprised how warm it was. It’s cold inside and overcast outside, so I did not expect mild temperatures outside. With the shopping done, I’ll go into the garden while it’s such mild weather. It looks like it might rain later on – good for the garden, but not so good for gardening. A few weeks ago I made the mistake of getting all chores done before rewarding myself with garden time – only to find it was too cold and windy by then. So now I garden whenever the weather permits – and do my laundry, vacuuming, etc either when it’s dark or early Sunday morning. Coming back from the shopping I also noticed the ‘garden service’ engaged by my landlord was here on Friday and damaged my flower ‘bed’. Not impressed. 

They chipped every single corner all the way round – yet they didn’t go near the clay pot and left the grass in front of that for me to cut! They are not much of a service, as they are engaged solely to cut the grass, and since there isn’t much grass left – the weeds have been left to take over almost completely. So they spend no more than 10 mins every two weeks walking once up and then back to the front, swinging a weed eater. I don’t know what my landlord pays them, but for 20 mins (40 man-minutes) per month – no matter what they are paid, it’s too much! I could give a full rant about landlords, but I don’t know whether I’ll be able to stop – so I better not get started.

I descended into the garden around eleven and only came back inside, for good, once it was too dark – around half past five. I started with a photo-round taking pictures of everything and anything that caught my eye. I seem to have a new garden-mate – we (my neighbour and I) call him Long John Silver for his predatory and lonely habits as well as the silvery sheen of his fur. He has taken to eating (he catches birds) and sleeping behind my vegetable patch, where I found him again today. He sat up and watched me photograph the garden – and him – and then lay back down to sleep while I gardened.

I finished preparing the bed across the path for seeds, which involves sifting through the loose earth removing all roots, shoots and other signs of weeds attempting to re-establish their foothold. I finished that around one in the afternoon – still too hot and sunny to sow seeds and water the ground. So I moved over to the vegetable patch which put me on such a guilt trip! So much was drooping and wilting! I’ve been lazy about watering for a while now – better get back into the habit at least every second day! But it’s so hard on my back carrying that full watering can around – and the beds take 3-4 cans of water by now! It would be so much easier with the hosepipe – but that’s against the law while we’re in a drought. Well, I reaped two handfuls of radishes, which opened up a lot of space – which I promptly used to plant beans. I gave one handful to my neighbour, who enjoys them as much as I do. Then I took the spring onions out of the bed and put them back into a pot, where I could attend to them all round. Planting them at the far end of the bed, near the fence, was not a smart move! Especially when the cosmos was in full bloom – I could barely reach them! They’ve also picked up some sort of rusty infection, so I can’t eat them until I figured out how to clear that. By the time I finished there it was four o’clock – which would have been a good time to sow my new flowerbed, except the wind had picked up. A lot! So I turned to weeding the patch of grass between the path and my beds. Afterwards I went upstairs for another break and stayed quite a while. By about quarter past five I realized the wind had died down and I could sow my seeds after all, so I went back down and noticed the tomatoes need more tying and treatment – they’ve been infected by this powdery mildew that’s been growing in the ground of the hedge. I’ve googled and found that spraying with bicarbonate soda and water helps, so I’ve been doing that every chance I get. Having tended to my tomato plants, I sowed my flower seeds and topped it off with compost – then watered. That’s the one thing I wanted to get done this weekend.

I was too lazy to cook dinner, so I had two rolls with cold meat – delicious meat, brought from Germany! Apart from chocolate, that’s pretty much all I ate today. And since I’m not hungry anymore, it’ll do. My back is sore, though! I don’t bend much in the garden – basically I just plonk myself on the ground and work within reach; but my back is still very painful every night after gardening. Some time in a hot bath helps, but I think I need to start daily exercises to strengthen my lower back. Growing old is not for sissies! That’s not a complaint, though, since so many are denied the privilege!