Category: Gardening
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The joy of dreams
In a previous blog post, I waxed enthusiastic at the prospect of minimal building work over this coming year. I felt delighted that we might contemplate settling in and living, rather than preparing for the lifestyle we’d hoped for. I forgot how much fun it is to plan and to anticipate the renovations, and then…
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Joys of the unexpected
In mid-October, after a bout of heavy frost, so heavy there was thick morning ice on the windscreen of the little Fiat Panda, I’d have thought the bees would be safely ensconced in their hives for the duration. Not a bit of it: come the warm mid-day sun, and the Mahonia, rampant in our front…
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Intensity, and passion
I’ve been doing a small, daily gesture for our neighbour, which involves opening a dodgy greenhouse door in the morning as the sun begins to heat the air inside, and then closing it again, with gentle care, as the cool of late afternoon returns. One plant in full blossom, must be an azalea, has been…
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On a clear day . . . you can see
Forever is a long way, but early yesterday afternoon we stood on the western seashore of mainland Scotland and looked across the Irish Sea, beyond the granite island of Ailsa Craig where all good curling stones come from, to see Northern Ireland beyond on its left, and the Mull of Kintyre a bit closer behind…
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With tidiness comes a sense that a disciplined work-life balance might be achievable
In bright sunshine, our cat lurks beside the table that we’ve strewn with breadcrumbs for the cheeky robin or two that indulge our offerings if laid out on a surface. The garden nook took a fair bit of tidying, but today our lovely neighbour has brought us over two purple pots of chives that we’ll…
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An opportunistic dawn
So I was out in my dressing gown at 7am yesterday morning, dropping a tray of cat litter into the bin before the dustmen arrived, and therefore I managed to catch a glorious sunrise which did indeed presage a brilliantly sunshiny day. But I’d not have seen it if it weren’t for the cat. How…
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A musing on a silhouetted vignette
We sat together, my beloved and me, in our warm upstairs room, looking up over the hills behind the house, as the cat, bemused, looked back at us from its perch on the windowsill. The setting sun fired the sky through the dark clouds, and we thought, this is our life here, here in our…
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Getting the winter out . . .
Yesterday I exercised a while, enough to run out of puff, before I had to run off on a small variety of errands. I trimmed the errant and rampant mahonia back, at the side, so that I can get to the new little garden shed without. slashing my face to shreds. And I raked out…
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The harbingers of hope
Snowdrops, when they appear, are such a delight, but nowhere more so than when they’re in one’s own garden, as the dreich of January flushes itself out. And with these harbingers of hope, we’re finding that work we’d been planning is finally beginning, as if the world around us has suddenly woken up and has…
Roads to Joy 