As anyone who reads this blog will have gathered the weather has been brilliant over the last couple of weeks and I, therefore, have not been blogging. Blogging is a rainy day thing or, as is the case today, a 'too damn cold by half' day thing. Even I, dedicated to the beautification of the holding, draw the line at standing in an ice cold stream with frozen fingers, trying to build a dry stone wall and thus prevent 3/4 of my land from slipping into the stream and wending its watery way to Exmouth. Added to which the top of the bank is at head height, thus allowing the dogs to prance about on the edge, frightening me to death and showering clods of soil into my overalls with their little hairy paws. Thus you find me cowering by the rayburn with endless mugs of hot tea and updating the old blog.
This is, of course, displacement activity. Having spent every hour of daylight out on the land, or in the stream and, once, back on the goatshed roof over the last couple of weeks I have done absolutely nothing in the house beyond washing up a mug when I have used every clean one in the cupboard and throwing the odd load of washing into the machine. This state of affairs needs to be rectified post haste since I have a course running next weekend and the place looks like a bubonic palgue pit. What I really need is a JCB and a skip, but they are not easy to come by at short notice and thus I am reduced to hoover, broom and dust pan and brush. This morning I attacked the kitchen with what turned out to be excessive force, resulting in a two foot square area of soggy plaster dropping off the wall onto the kitchen floor. I am now faced with a round trip to B&Q and a major repair job to be completed within the week. Why does no-one believe me when I say that housework, like sport, is an unnecessary and high risk occupation? Needless to say, my immediate reaction was to make another cup of tea and turn to the laptop for comfort.
Do I have any good news, yes, I do! After several fruitless attempts during which the only thing I managed to set fire to was my fringe I finally got a bonfire going and have disposed of all the prunings, brambles, nettles and other vegetative detritus with which the holding was littered. Hoorah! I have also added a few more square feet of wall to the river bank and made progress on the 'sipping garden'. That's to say that I have spread all the well rotted manure across the designated area and have started to level off what is, optismistcally speaking, going to be the lawn. Since my land slopes both north to south and east to west achieving a level area is more than a little challenging, but I fervently believe my objective will have been achieved by the time the grass seed is due to go down in March. You gotta have a dream........
The only truly exciting thing (I live a quiet life) to have occurred since I last blogged are the dahlias. Other people may have spent St. Valentines days eating M&S meals for two and gazing into the eyes of their loved ones but I spent it sowing seeds, of the botanical variety. The sun lounge and every window sill in the house are now filled with seed trays covered in plastic bags and and most of them have got labels on them. Yesterday I noticed little green thingies pushing up through the Morrisons logo and low and behold, dahlias doing their thing! I immediately rushed round the house investigating everything else and was amazed at the amount of unbroken brown compost. completely devoid of any signs of life with which I was presented. Hey ho - if you learn anything in gardening it is patience, but it comes hard.....
And now we have snow...................................
No comments:
Post a Comment