Marking occasions

Predictably, but at the same time unexpectedly, the entry I wrote earlier in the week has left me feeling more than somewhat restless and unhappy.  The apparent paradox of that is explained by the fact that although on the surface there's no obvious reason why it should've done (I was, after all, reminiscing over what I thought were happy events) it suddenly dawned on me on re-reading it that this year is the 25th anniversary of my mother's death and that, certainly, has disturbed some fairly deep-seated unhappy memories which I fully thought the passage of time would've virtually erased.

I'm not even sure I want to write about it much, save to say that it made me acutely conscious at the time of having been something of the proverbial prodigal son.  I wished more than anything in the world that I could've gone back in time and undone that, but of course I couldn't then and I can't now.  They say it's not a good idea to dwell overmuch on the past - there's after all nothing you can do to alter it.  But that doesn't stop it coming back to haunt you from time to time.  On a slightly more rational level, I suppose I can say that in a lot of respects I've probably succeeded in behaving the way I was brought up to do: certainly both my parents were keen that I should make the best of my abilities and I'm glad they were both eventually able to share the proud moment of their son's graduation ceremony.

As I ponder what to put next to try and explain my rather muddled feelings, I wonder if I'm just being too hard on myself.  The world I've grown up in is a very different one from the one they grew up in, and as I tried to adapt to it some of the decisions I took - wrong though they were with the benefit of hindsight - were ones I thought were right at the time.  I'm sure my mother must've made her share of wrong decisions too over the years and the degree of omniscience and infallibilty which I always assumed (or was taught from my earliest childhood) was innate in a mother was in reality not quite all it seemed!  Maybe in the end she was more forgiving of her errant son than I've perhaps ever realized.

Coincidentally the shops at the moment are full of Mother's Day gifts.  We never used to "celebrate" the occasion: back in those days 'Mothering Sunday' as it was properly called wasn't anywhere near as commercialized as it's now become.  But as I browsed earlier today, I spotted some pots of tulips and suddenly remembered the ones I'd planted in the long flowerbed alongside the garage in our back garden at Kenilworth - and how they always used to flower there despite being in almost permanent shade.  I've never yet succeeded in growing them properly here, so it seemed only fitting that I should buy some and plant them in the rockery.  In the unexpected warmth of an early spring afternoon I found a suitable spot for them, and as I said a short prayer I hoped I'd finally laid a bit of a ghost to rest.          
   

Blown away

What was left of summer now seems to be a receding memory: the recent wind and rain have heralded the rapid onset of autumn, and the prospect of an 'Indian' summer now seems unlikely, to say the least.  I shall probably have one last tidy-round in the garden to get rid of some of the decaying foliage, probably including the tomatoes which didn't grow fast enough this year to form much in the way of fruit, let alone ripe ones.  Perhaps I need to sow the seeds earlier next year, as this is the second year in a row that the "crop" hasn't amounted to much.

The raspberries on the other hand have produced a second burst of fruit which is still going strong - apparently on the new canes which I'm sure have only grown this year: I'd always thought young canes weren't supposed to bear fruit until the following year?  Not only that, some of the canes are enormous, being over eight feet tall. I don't think I'd realized what a relatively easy crop they are to grow and harvest although admittedly it's taken a few years for them to multiply from the half-dozen or so that I started out with.

The strawberries are putting out runners and little plantlets furiously, too.  Their fruiting season was earlier and shorter, but the signs are promising for another good crop next year.  The signs are not so promising for another hard winter, though - but I guess we shall just have to wait and see.....   

Uninvited guests

I woke up this morning and made the unwelcome discovery that we'd had intruder(s) in the garden during the night. The fence at the bottom had a slat broken off, the raspberry canes had been trampled and broken as had a couple of tomato plants, the wire fence separating our garden from next door's had been twisted and partially broken - and their yucca bore signs of someoene having been rash enough to tangle with it.

We live in a cul-de-sac, and our garden gives access via the bottom fence and a block of garages with a flat roof to a close leading out onto the main road, which makes a convenient getaway route for your friendly neighbourhood burglar. With this in mind, I rang up The Bill. I wasn't altogether surprised that the guy who took the call didn't seem too enthused with interest with my piece of crime-solving intelligence, but he did check to see whether anything with a possible connection had been reported. Apparently there were some dodgy goings-on involving a car and the house at the far end of the street at around 2.30am, but it didn't amount to anything - or so he told me. I asked him to make a note anyway in case anything else came to light later, so he took my name and phone number.

Later in the morning, I mentioned what had happened to my other next-door neighbour in case their garden had been entered, but she said not. Feeling rather unnecessarily over-suspicious, I checked all round ours, in the bushes, and in the wheelie bins, in case anything had been dumped in a hurry. I noted in passing that the garden tools which I'd developed the very bad habit of leaving out all night, were still there, so I made a note to be more careful from now on!

About 5pm, the doorbell rang. It was the woman from the end house, together with my neighbours' son, who had evidently heard the story of what had gone on. There had indeed been some sort of a disturbance during the night as a result of which she'd had her bag taken with her keys in. I took them to see the damage, but predictably enough there was no sign of either bag or keys. I don't suppose I shall hear any more about it. The offender(s) in the unlikely event of being caught would only get some meaningless community work sentence. Perhaps repairing the fence and planting some new raspberry canes for me would be a suitable reparation?



Oh - I nearly forgot. Raggs must've been disturbed, because she barked in the middle of it all, but only three or four times before going back to sleep, having I imagine concluded she'd done her job as the fierce guard dog and scared them all off. Silly mutt!

Short shorts Sex on legs!

Another scorching hot day today, with still more to come, hopefully! I did a bit of weeding, watering and tidying in the garden and put all the cacti from the windowsills out on the balcony in the fresh air. Nothing too energetic, but quite relaxing and enjoyable.

I've worn pretty much nothing but shorts this summer - usually my Adidas popper ones, which are quite a thick material and unlined, or my Umbro ones which are a thinner cotton, lined, and somewhat cooler. But today I came across a pair of light Adidas running shorts which I'd totally forgotten I'd got. With a split leg, they're really short, and only just fit me. I'm not sure I'm quite brave enough to wear them to the supermarket, but for the garden they are "the business" as they say. Voila!

Bumper crop

I went out into the garden early this morning and picked some fruit. The strawberries are still very prolific: several hot dry days (with more to come) have ripened them fast without the slugs and snails coming out to do much damage, and so I filled a couple of empty flowerpots with them. The raspberries have grown and flowered profusely this year, but it's a bit early for much fruit yet - though I did get half a pot-full. Finally, I pulled some rhubarb. This is the second lot I've had so far, and while it's doing quite well, the dry spell isn't suiting it quite as well as it does the soft fruit, so I got the watering can out afterwards and gave it a good soaking. A lot more to come yet, all being well!

Rhubarb, rhubarb

A spell of long-ish showers today prompted me to go and harvest some of the rhubarb in the garden. It didn't do very well last year: it got a bit straggly-looking and went partly to seed at one point, but in the early spring I earthed up its bed well and it's now produced a mass of really thick stalks. I put on my wellies and cut upwards of a dozen or so, which still leaves masses: you can hardly notice any difference. I've no idea how expensive it is to buy in the shops, but it's nice to get free home-grown produce, of course!

I couldn't be bothered to make a crumble or a pie, so I just boiled it up in a saucepan with what I thought was plenty of sugar. It wasn't - when I filled a couple of basins with the results about 15 minutes later and took a spoonful to taste, it was sour as anything. A nice flavour otherwise, though, and should be good with some ice-cream as a dessert!

Some like it hot

It's been a glorious sunny weekend, with clear blue skies today and not a cloud in sight. I took the dog for a walk this morning: I'd got a couple of things to deliver, so rather than walk along the road, we took a detour through the park. I could see the stream running through it and correctly guessed there would be a point where the bank was shallow enough to let us go down to the water's edge. Raggs loved it - she paddled along a few yards and lay down in the shallow water, drinking from it. It looked a bit muddy, but at least it wasn't stagnant. After a few moments' rest and refreshment she emerged, shaking the excess drops all over me.

In fact the 'detour' turned out to be a shortcut, as I spotted a bridge a little further along which led out onto a path towards the road where we wanted to be. We came back the same way, enjoying the sunshine among the other dog walkers and footie players. It's still warm and sunny this evening, so I've just been out watering the tomato plants in the garden. They're still not much more than seedlings, but are slowly starting to grow. The strawberries are a mass of flowers, and are putting out runners quite freely, much to the envy of my neighbour, whose plants aren't doing at all well and have nearly all died off for some reason!

Working on the land

There's been quite an unseasonable chill in the air this week, especially during the evening and at night - not much like May at all. However, for the most part the daytime has been reasonably dry and pleasant, so I've been out in the garden quite a bit making the most of it. Tuesday I donned my old 14-hole Doc Martens and did some weeding and tidying amongst the tomato plants. They're still only seedlings, and unless we get some warmer weather pretty soon - which they need to put on a spurt of growth - I have doubts as to whether they're going to amount to much.

In contrast, the raspberries, which I worked on today, are doing much better with some good strong canes and masses of small flower buds already. In my 10-hole DM boots and my 3/4 Reebok trackies, I hacked away at the weeds and filled the wheelbarrow with all the assorted unwanted foliage. I didn't bother last year and the raspberries went on to produce their best-ever crop, so although it looks better tidy it may not actually have mattered that much. It didn't take all that long, anyway and was quite good exercise I suspect: I've lost about half a stone in the last three weeks or so! Yippee!

Dodging the showers

After a prolonged dry spell since Easter, the weather has turned much more like the normal seasonal British Bank Holiday weekend - wet with the promise of more to come! At least it was pleasantly warm this morning in a spot of brief sunshine, so I took the opportunity to mow the lawn. I'd in fact already begun to wish I'd done it sooner while the grass was still dry, but fortunately it hadn't grown too long and slippery, so wearing my trusty wellies I soon got it licked into shape with the mower, and snipped the long straggly bits down the side with the shears. Sorted!

Heatwave!

Not really, but with afternoon temperatures climbing to the mid-sxties, it certainly feels very warm and pleasant in the unbroken sunshine this week, so I've been making the most of it. The tomato seeds I'd sown earlier germinated quickly, and I've been hardening them off outdoors every day, though they're still quite small seedlings as yet. I just hope I can get them planted early enough to mature and produce some fruit this year. I've almost finished digging a bed over ready for them: it was somewhat choked with nettles and assorted other weeds which made it a bit of a back-breaking task, but it hasn't rained now since Easter so the ground was dry enough at least. I'll probably try and finish that off tomorrow.

And I found a place to get my shears sharpened after all! I took them in on Tuesday (and they were supposed to have rung me when they were ready, but didn't) but I was able to collect them this morning - £5 + VAT. The guy said he'd had to bend the blades back a bit to make them align properly which must be why I'd been ripping everything out with them instead of cutting it. Yay... life is good!

Rocks in my head?

With the return of some really nice warm weather today, I went and cleared out the rockery this afternoon. Like most of the rest of the garden it had become very overgrown, but underneath it all were the daffodils and hyacinths I'd planted I think three years ago from bulbs I'd bought from the supermarket as the indoor house variety. They've nearly all flowered, unlike the tulips of which only about three have sprouted foliage and mainly in the form of a solitary sad-looking leaf at that.

The real triumph is the succulent, which was a single small clump originally a few years back, and seems to just get bigger each year. I had some other bulbs and alpines in there as well at one time but none have survived and I don't honestly think it's very worthwhile trying to put something in to replace them but I may do if I come across something that takes my fancy.

Definitely shorts weather though - and it's funny but since I first wrote last week about how I never tend to wear them in public, I've taken to wearing them all the time now whenever I can! I feel a good deal less self-conscious about it, too, which I reckon is a good thing. So here I am: blue striped Adidas popper shorts, the black Converse boots I bought off eBay last week, and the spindly legs I've had forever!

Stake-out

Following on from my efforts in the strawberry bed last week, today I tackled the raspberries. I'd left them pretty much to their own devices last year and to my great surprise they produced masses of fruit, but the weight of the canes bending over did mean that some of it got spoiled. So I cleared out their bed, got rid of the brambles that were encroaching over the back fence from the small strip of waste ground beyond, and made some little staked enclosures for them.

The fruit canes themselves I'd bought several years ago, and planted there in a patch where I'd scattered the ashes of our two cats when they'd been cremated: I thought it would make a nice little tribute for them. I found out afterwards that far from acting as a fertlizer, ashes have the reverse effect and tend to act as more of a poison for anything that's planted there. I suppose that over the couse of the years, nature has taken its course and restored the fertility or something: either way, it's turned into something of a nice memorial after all.

Fruit farm

The weather kept its promise, with warm sunshine and unbroken cloud, giving me the chance to finish off the strawberry bed. It's seemed like a long cold winter this year and although it's only April and the nights still have a distinct chill in the air, the days almost seem like summer. Armed with a new stainless steel fork and trowel set that I'd bought a couple of years ago but never used, I hacked away at the undergrowth to reveal the plants buried beneath. I'd originally brought some plants with me from when I moved out of my parents' home some 35 years ago, and apart from one year when I had to buy a few more to "top them up" they're the same ones which produce runners freely every year. The bed is a bit bigger now: our neighbours had the fence replaced recently and the honeysuckle which covered the old one used to encroach substantially despite efforts on my part to hack it back every so often.

Oh, and I wore my shorts to the supermarket this morning, despite what I wrote yesterday! I did feel a bit self-conscious to be honest, but it was really pleasant and sunny out, and I noticed I wasn't the only one - although I must admit I don't normally take in what the other customers are wearing unless it's something really outlandish.

Short shorts!

Another nice warm spring day today, so I felt inspired to go out in the garden and do some weeding in the strawberry bed. I think I've already written about how I used to grow strawberries when I was little, and they've always been my favourite fruit. They're easy to grow and some years I've had some really good crops, though last year the wet weather got to them a bit and - to my surprise - the raspberries did much better.

I put my shorts on anyway, and got stuck in. I'm not entirely a huge fan of shorts - at least not in public - though I do wear them for knocking around the house in. I don't really have the legs for widespread public exposure, having what I believe is commonly termed "chicken legs"! On the other hand, I've always found that of the few benefits of having a greasy complexion is that I tan very easily and years ago before I became fully aware of the risk of skin cancer, I'd spend hours during a hot summer building up a really deep golden brown under the largely mistaken impression it was a sign of a very healthy body.

The fresh air did me good anyway, and the weather looks set for a settled fine spell, which is probably just as well as there's lots more to do out there to get it into some sort of decent shape.

Rising sap

Some nice spring sunshine today, albeit despite a stiff breeze which denotes the last traces of what's seemed like a long cold winter. I dug out the propagator this morning and sowed a packet of tomato seeds. I did the same thing last year, but since I don't have a greenhouse I had to wait for a suitable spell of warm-ish weather to plant them outdoors, and to cut a long story short they didn't have a long enough growing season to produce anything much in the way of fruit before a cold wet autumn killed them all off. But I have had notable success in previous years gowing tomatoes, so it won't hurt to give it another go: they are one of the easier crops to look after once they've got big enough not to get demolished by slugs and snails.

Looking back on it, I've always found gardening very therapeutic: I think it must date from the days when we lived in a village in the country and as a small boy I had my very own strawberry bed in the enormous garden there. I can't remember whether it ever produced any fruit or not, though!

As a teenager, I think I did most of the gardening at home: we lived in a big detached house in Kenilworth, and I remember how neglected it had got when we moved in. The bottom of the back garden was waist-deep in nettles and it took a couple of seasons before it was licked into shape. My parents bought some fruit bushes - gooseberries and blackcurrants, I think - and we grew vegetables, too, having notable success with runner beans, but not with peas which I could never see much point in growing since frozen ones were cheap, plentiful and there wasn't any real difference in taste. It was fun picking the other crops, though, and savouring the taste of real home-grown vegetables!