August already!

1st August 2018

Wormery or compost bin?

I never thought that might be an option, but my mum is spending another week here and has been pulling up overgrown areas I haven’t touched in the months of our annus horribilus that 2018 became. We now have bags of weeds and they should go somewhere. The leftover wood from the extension has been hidden from the main path.

I really can’t lift anything for six weeks (entire school holidays to most parents) and it’s going to be tough. On a positive note, deadheading those roses has given us double blooms! There are positives in the wizened and dry landscape. And boy do we have bees, I counted ten on the lavender bush yesterday. I got some gardening magazines while in hospital and it’s really inspired me to think the small steps I have taken are part way towards turning the garden into more than a football pitch. We must,however, make it safe, the littlest ended up with a sharp splinter in her foot a couple of days ago but again it’s knowing what to target first.

My hubby has shown an interest in helping me with the tech of my blog, maybe positive change is afoot after all. My surgery has left me tired and uncomfortable but it’s not taken my spirit!

F

Who can stay miserable on a glorious day?

This is inside our shed...

Mid May 2018

And it’s threatening to be hot, hot, hot!

I have finally spent some time in the garden - at my daughter’s school they have great big raised beds for every class, and I helped the kids weed for all of fifteen minutes but I made my daughter very happy. Nothing like that for lifting my melancholic gloom.

I came home and decided that must be what I spend at least an hour doing, but I get home and I get distracted from the task I set out to do. The garden is getting cleared on Tuesday. A helpful company I have discovered through our gate man (yes we have terribly sturdy new gates from a local carpenter, Michael who I also found online at Next Door dot com!) called Love Your Junk is coming to clear the puddle of stuff outside the house. Yay,yay, yay! Life is moving, some of it in the right direction.

We have beautiful acquilegias coming up all over, the bulbs I got last year have been amazing and I need to plant the two trees I got in the supermarket. I can’t be gloomy!

The news is full of Royal Weddings and one wonders what nasties the government is slipping through? It’s difficult to find out when the mainstream press is owned by far flung billionaires with their own oh so money grabbing agendas. People with MS sometimes hit the headlines but often for the wrong reasons. The half? sister of Meghan Markle has MS but she is not coming to Windsor. She has made her own headlines but I haven’t read any of it - it’s not going to be something I am agog about.

I’ve also planted some things today. We got some bulbs at Knebworth and a couple of trees from Morrison’s (well we have lost a horse chestnut so we can grow something quite big.) I’ll probably get queried over my placement of the trees but I am an organic gardener - I grow things where I like!

And after gardening I had lunch with a fellow MS Warrior who has gone through a recent lumpectomy at the same hospital as I attend. We talked for ages and it’s good to have someone watching out for you who has knowledge in common. We are similar but different. Which is what makes for good shared experiences. I almost missed the bus, but all was well chez moi.

Side gate

Alliums were added...

Side gate

Things are still emerging from the earth.

Brambles Sting!

Brambles are mostly finished.

Spot the two robins!
Hauling out bindweed and brambles have left me scratched and sore...

Brambles sting! And we have two Robins...

Chillies

After yesterday's rain, we managed to spend a few hours pulling up some of the rampant brambles and bindweed at the bottom end of the garden and I am scratched and stabbed.

Squeaky, my 6-year-old, took some pics of mum in action, picking brambles and rhubarb, pulling some more apples down, and working hard. Making up for my 'woe is me' post yesterday? I still feel overwhelmed by the work involved in taming our garden but I am being inspired with new things we can do.

Apples from tree have been juiced.

An aside, my hubby and I got a babysitter and went for a rare night out - to a quiz run by North Herts MS Society, which we had much fun doing and hopefully spending money on helping the branch to help others with the Monster. We neither won nor got the booby prize. And it had the bonus of putting me in touch with people who help with Extra Smile, a church group who support local families with house or garden projects.

Last of this years rhubarb.