Just breathe

So Husband looked at the front bit of garden. "It's too high," he said. "You'll have to rake off all the stones and dig out the earth."

I am just sitting here quietly, taking deep breaths. And massaging my painful swollen finger.

Exercise class this morning, then blueberry muffins made ready for Zac's tonight. We have the Sweet Sorrows with us this evening. They're an Irish/Australian couple who play folksy and traditional music. Always a good night when they come.

* * * * *

A lovely walk with Daughter and Louie yesterday through Ilston valley. I've posted photos before but the height of the trees always amazes me.

Ta-da!

First layer prepared!

I've removed as many of the roots as I can. I even had Elder Son and the grandsons working on them yesterday. Some broke off, some I've lopped off as I was never going to get to the bottom of them. Now I've spread the old stones out fairly evenly. (Although Husband will come home and say it's not level!)

Next it's weed-killer, followed by weed suppressant stuff, followed by new stones, and eventually tubs.

Do you know how long I've been working on this patch? No, nor me, but it's a long time. The fingers on my right hand swell making it difficult to get my gardening gloves off. But I am feeling proud of myself.

In other gardening news, I spotted signs of new life on my eaten dahlia, so I've added coffee grinds to the egg-shells and wool pellets. We'll see if that works.

And here are some blooms from Bring Me Sunshine (I think).

Family came around to swim yesterday and I played cricket with GrandSon3. First game he beat me about 22 -1 but in the second game, thanks to two freak occurrences, I beat him 20-7.

The first freakiness happened when I bowled him out i.e. I threw the ball and it hit what we were using as a wicket, a little plastic thing. Odds must have been 1,000,000-1.

The second freakiness, I caught him out i.e. I caught a ball. Not such huge odds but pretty unlikely nevertheless.

I didn't gloat too much. (No, I did!)

Finally, I learned yesterday that wombats do cube poos. They have circular anuses but still manage to poop out cubes. How amazing is that?

Oh, I forgot to mention Husband has a new barbecue. A snazzy charcoal one. Our last was a gas one but we're going - I was to say back to basics but this new barbecue is anything but basic.

Under attack

You know those cartoons when someone gets hit in the face by a rake? That never happens does it?

Yes, it does. Between the rake and the tree trunk* I was attacked from all sides this afternoon. 

But I'm getting there. I was hoping to have completed the first stage - clearance and flattening - this afternoon but it was a lot harder than I anticipated. When it looked as though I were hitting a coal seam, and I was also worried that I might be undermining our wall, I decided I would have to accept that there were some roots I just would not be able to get to the root of. I had to chop them off instead.

It will be lovely, I tell myself.

And some seeds fell on stony ground . . . and grew anyway.

*I say tree trunk; I mean really thick heather root.

Plants planted in planters

I planned to go to flexercise this morning but ended up planting plants in planters in Zac's instead. 

We're not going to be able to do anything with the demolition site for some time - no money - so I thought it would be nice to prettify it. 

The planters come from Rough Edges and the plants were donated. No idea what most of them are so just stuck them in and will hope for the best. Probably no-one else will notice or care but I will enjoy them.

While I was out my printer arrived, repaired I assume though haven't tested it yet. Good service from Canon.

Husband had his Covid jab yesterday and is very poorly today. 

And that's my life today. Just wondering if it's going to be too cold in the garden to do anything. I was really pathetic yesterday afternoon. Didn't have anything I had to do, it was raining and cold, and I just didn't have the enthusiasm for anything. So it felt like a wasted afternoon. 

Right, pull self together and do something!

How does your garden grow?

I believe the football world cup begins officially today. I hope many boycott it for all sorts of reasons.

I've sent a stroppy email to Sarah Raven complaining about the dahlia fiasco. Sadly my email is not as erudite as the one I composed in the middle of the night. That one contained the word retribution amongst others. They foolishly sent me a 'How did we do? survey too. "* Not very well."

I am sitting at my desk in the study and freezing to death. Slight exaggeration perhaps but jolly cold. Have a yearning to re-read Three Men in a Boat. It's probably here on a shelf somewhere.

It's been wet, wet, wet this morning. No sign yet of it drying up.

Would you like a tour of the garden? It's looking very pretty at the moment. Or it was before the rains began.

Complete with empty compost bag.

My expensive 'daisies'.

The fig tree is gradually taking over.

A quick count and I think I have 5 rambling roses, 5 climbing roses, and 19 shrub roses. No, 20, there's one on the other side too.

Rant ahead

Just remembered the rant I was composing in my head during exercise.

On Sunday evening I went to the third preaching workshop. I did the first, missed the second, but was back for this one. It's in a different church and led by one of their leaders. The first one was excellent. The leader, Brian, is very humble and honest, and encouraging. Sunday night's was focused on aids to preparing: books in particular, although it's mostly online as well now. I came home with a long list of books I wanted to check out.

Brian took the first thirty minutes then he turned it over to Jordan, our pastor, for the next bit about Immersive Bible Study. Immersive? No, wait . . . Inductive. But basically means immersing yourself in the context of the whole book not just a verse. He was excellent.

The final thirty minutes was given over to another man, who used to be a leader, and was also a teacher at my children's senior school. He was supposed to be talking about enjoying the process but I'm not sure that what was he did. Let's call him S.

When the children were in school I was part of a prayer group. We met to pray for the children and the school, and, sometimes, teachers joined us. One time I'd taken a group of young people who were volunteering for a year with the church, to do evangelism, especially with youngsters. 

I was suggesting that the team be allowed into the school to take some assemblies or RS classes. S said no. "We can't have youngsters with piercings out the front. What kind of example would that set to our pupils?"

I was (quietly) livid. The bible tells us to judge by hearts not appearance yet here was this 'godly' man doing the opposite. So I might have had a bit of a grudge against him even before he started speaking on Sunday evening.

First of all he said that if we wanted to ask someone to read a scripture before we preached, we should make sure we told the person in advance so they could familiarise themselves and practise it. "They should know where to put the emphasis. You have to have good readers."

I was tempted to tell him how we do it in Zac's. On the evening we ask for volunteers to read. Quite often the reader will struggle or forget about punctuation or be barely comprehensible in the case of our favourite alcoholic. But we don't care. What's important is that people volunteer, they want to be part of the evening, and we want them to. If necessary we can read a section again as part of our talk about it but that's all part of Zac's. 

I admit I can see that probably wouldn't be acceptable in a big church meeting, or a carefully choreographed one, but speakers have to be adaptable to their surroundings.

Anyway, after that he told us to talk around our tables about what Jesus was really like. He gave us a list of questions based on verses. Things like, "How did Jesus treat women?", "How did Jesus treat foreigners?", "How did Jesus treat the poorest in society?"

When he came to our table and said, "How's it going? Is this helpful?" and I sort of hesitated, he said, "You can say no."

"Okay, no."

There was no need to discuss the subject; the answer was obvious.

And now I've just had an email from Sarah Raven offering dahlias at a bargain price! After they told me they had no dahlia tubers left! What they meant was they didn't want to send me the bigger more expensive ones instead. 

Off to do some gardening now to work out my crossness.

Bounding back from the dark

It seems ages since I blogged but it's only two days. What's happened?

Yesterday it was back to exercise class, the tough one with circuits. Then to writing group in the afternoon. It had been suggested that we tried found poetry so I took books, paper, glue, and others brought magazines, and we had a fun afternoon.

Here's mine based on a quote from a music magazine: I'm a creature of light who got caught in the dark.

Then it was off to Zac's where we celebrated Amar's birthday.

This morning I've been to Rebound exercise. I have a trampoline in the garden. It would make more sense for me to exercise on that - but I know I wouldn't without the stimulus of going to a class. I am thinking it is a little bit easy though - now I'm getting used to it. It's supposed to be very good for your whole body system though. 

I'm also doing lots of gardening. Spent much of Monday afternoon fighting and shouting at heather trunks and roots, but the clearing of the front bit of garden is progressing, albeit slowly.

And I'm trying some eggshells, as suggested by Acorn Hollow, around my almost-deceased dahlia in the hope it will survive. The company finally got back to me - after I complained two weeks ago that two of the four tubers I'd bought were dead - saying they've run out of dahlias so they're refunding me. Won't be buying from them again.

Nearly 21

It occurred to me that this blog must be approaching its 20th birthday so I checked: it was last year.

Nearly twenty-one years of blogging, through lots of ups and downs, and reasonably consistently, only really taking breaks when on holiday. For someone who was told by her careers/maths teacher that she had no persistence, that's pretty good.

Hearing the news that a well-known actor had died aged 72 made me consider my own mortality. I am much too young to die. And I'm not a famous author yet. So death can wait for a bit.

GrandSon3 has got into his first choice football academy. Actually all four academies wanted him but Briton Ferry is the best in the region so all his hard work and dedication has paid off. And he does work hard, setting himself targets, and routines to practise every day, as well as running his socks off on the pitch. So we're all very happy for him.

Lovely walk with Daughter and Louie this morning.

When is a good idea not?

You know when you get a good idea? And a little while later you're wondering if it really was such a good idea?

The heather bushes at the front of our garden have never been especially pretty and latterly they've developed a number of dead-looking branches. I started pruning but then thought, "Perhaps I'll get rid of them altogether. Then I can plant some hydrangeas or azaleas here instead. Or maybe just pots."

I began yesterday and continued this afternoon.

I think the biggest problem is going to be the network of roots issuing from the low light green ground cover plants. That and the ivy roots. And the surprisingly thick trunks on the heather. And what to do with all the cuttings when I've finished. You can't see the heap very clearly in that photo but take my word for it, it's big.

But, I tell myself, it will be lovely when it's finished. Going to treat myself now and sit down and watch Remarkably Bright Creatures.

In the meantime some of the more established roses that I picked to save from the rain.

Oh, and I nearly forgot:

So much for the 'slugs don't like to walk over our wool pellets' boast.