Here Comes The Sun

Happy Saint David's Day one and all!  Happily March is here at long last; the sun is shining, the sky is blue (and a bit cloudy too), it's still half-term and it's not raining!  What more could I ask for? Happiness is called Spring and it's here at last.

It is still a tad chilly, I must admit, but I will live with that because the sun is shining and I can get washing out on the line and when I bring it in later on, it is actually dry!  Oh joy.  The smell of fresh bedding that has been wafting in a cool breeze all day is the best ever and we all sleep so much better on cool, garden scented cotton sheets.  This half-term has been lovely.  The children broke up from school a week ago during a very wet and windy February and somehow in the last week the weather has improved, it is lighter at each end of the day and everything suddenly feels brighter, fresher and full of promise.  Or is that just me?  The delight I have found in getting back to gardening after a four year enforced break has been unmeasurable.  Pea has got the gardening bug too, which in turn gives me even more pleasure in the activity.

Pea and I escaped the house, dogs and boys for an afternoon of garden-centre-excitement recently.  We did ask the boys if they wanted to come with us, but the withering looks they shot us made me question my reasoning in asking in the first place.  'Why?' their expressions asked, but politeness intervened and they just said 'Um, no thank you mam.' and so we left them, heads bent over games, curled up on the settee with the dogs.  Seeing them thus settled, I could relax and enjoy my time with my daughter.  Needless to say, garden centre plants are pretty expensive, hence the reason I grow most of my plants from seed, but we did splash out on some small pots of herbs and a scraggy looking Dianthus that was on sale on account of it looking half dead.  I am a sucker for sad, pathetic things so of course I bought it and took it home.  I re potted it the next day and it looked better already.  It is snuggled up in the poly tunnel at the moment until it has recovered enough to be planted outside.

On waking to a promisingly pleasant morning, we all drifted into the garden to engage in various activities; the boys basically ran about finding hiding places and dragged Puppy along in the guise of sniffer dog to hunt out criminals and other unsavoury (thankfully imaginary) things in the garden.  Puppy seemed to relish his new role in life and threw himself into it with delighted abandonment.  Middle Aged Labrador spent an hour rooting about in the newly dug kitchen garden like a truffle pig, and dug up lots of tiny potatoes that she proceeded to eat.  A bit later I found her being sick next to a clump of cheerful Crocuses.  Potatoes do not agree with her, evidently.

Pea skillfully persuaded me to buy a pot of Muscari the other day.  We had gone out to buy some netting and a few poles to create a make-shift fence to keep the dogs off the cultivated part and came home clutching a little pot of blue flowers as well.  I love Muscari and it is one of the few bulbs not already in the garden, so it was lovely to plant the very first things in the soil that put our mark on the place.  As we dug over the soil, I discovered a brick path and on further investigation we found it edges the tatty bit of grass that mascaraedes as a lawn.  We dug out the grass and revealed a horse-shoe shape that neatly defines the lawn and actually makes it look like it has a purpose in life.

Look!  A little path!  I think you would have to be a pixie to actually walk on it as it's only one brick wide, but it looks good and will make cutting the lawn so much easier.  Of course with all the digging, the dogs wandering about and the boys walking here and there, there were a few minor casualties.

I rescued them before they got trampled into the mud and put them in a tea cup of water on the mantelpiece.  H2 said he spent all morning carefully stepping around a huge clump of flowers only for me to tell him he needn't have bothered as they are weeds.  It seems he didn't bother trying to avoid the daffodils and trod on them instead.  Great.

 So things are starting to take shape and it's only the beginning of March.  I have high hopes for the next seven months!  Soon I will be taking on the role of volunteer befriender with a local charity that supports older people who need some help with various aspects of life, such as getting out and about after being poorly or maybe they have lost confidence and would like some support and a friendly face while they re-build their lives.  Hopefully I will be of use to them and in turn, enhance my own life skills and experiences.  I will have gone some way to justifying my place on Planet Earth and can enjoy my garden and home knowing I have earned the right to be happy.

Have a lovely weekend and thank you for reading. xxx