Waking up yesterday and looking out of the bedroom window the view was slightly changed from six months ago: now skeletal, ethereal and distinctly chilly, then expansive, fragrant and warm.
There’s no denying that shorter days and inclement weather tends to put the brakes on jobs that need doing outside. That’s certainly true of The Long House garden, particularly when inside there’s cricket to watch on the box, mince pies to finish up and the lure of a snug log-fire. Nonetheless despite our reluctance to venture into the dreary outdoors we have achieved a few things in the last few weeks. Most urgent was the need to replace the timber trellis that supported Rambling Rector, New Dawn, a couple of clematis and a honeysuckle: the wood posts had rotted after just five years in the ground (don’t get me started on why tanalising has had to give way to pressure treating…I’d bore you to death and blow a gasket in the process). So we decided to go for a galvanised metal structure to subtilely echo the design of the new wrought-iron work around Raymond’s Retreat. Tom at Glynde Forge did the easy bit and supplied and erected the metal work leaving Rosie and me to painfully and painstakingly hack back the roses before and prune and tie them in afterwards.
No sooner had that task been completed than the apple trees needed their bi-annual haircut. Not a job to be done in a hurry but because it spanned several days it was a perfect opportunity to plug in my iPod and listen to the Ring Cycle from start to finish. Six days later, and as Brünnhilde leapt onto the pyre for the second time, I theatrically snipped the final branch and nearly fell out of the tree in my fervour. Still, unlike her, I survived and now there’s another tedious job ahead: shifting the Puckamuck compost onto the flowerbeds. It should take no more than ten days…time enough to contemplate something I read recently: that the meaning of life is not 42 but gratitude. Gratitude at what is, might never have been, and one day will not be. So perhaps let’s start by being grateful that spring is almost on its way again.
