Category Archives: Gardens

Mulch at dawn

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At 7.30 this morning there was a hammering on the door. A man with crane truck and bags of mulch had arrived. In my dressing gown and bed-socks (on a frosty morning) I stood on the front path directing operations as he lowered a great bag onto the front lawn. At this point we discovered that there was a misunderstanding about the order – he had been about to deliver three assorted bags – and he had to lift the bag up again. Luckily he had the correct one of loam which he dropped, and I spent the rest of the day distributing loam, creating a bank of earth. It looks quite shallow here but there is a drop of about 3 feet.

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I was still planting as the sun was setting, more tomorrow, but it is beginning to shape up. At this point a car drew up and the man from the mulch company delivered the two small bags of bark that should have been on the lorry that morning – amazing service.

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I am in maple heaven as they all slowly come into leaf. Though yesterday I found blackfly on the barely emerging leaves of a big purple maple (Trompenburg). This seems tough on the maple as the leaves are so tender that it is difficult to remove the bugs without harming the leaves.

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paths and puddings

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We are now joined up. The path to the front door is walkable and complete apart from those pesky shaped sections, which a kind neighbour says ‘his builder’ might be able to help with. I could not see how else to cut them as I have neither the strength, not the tools or skills to make these shapes. I left them with this builder yesterday, when we were out. This morning I woke up to find a bag with the bricks cut to my marks by the path.

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Thanks to this kindness, we were able to spend a happy hour at the nearby nursery gardens choosing some shrubs to fill the hole – or rather what will be the new bank.

I don’t plan to talk about food or cooking, but I think I surpassed myself on the pudding disaster front on Thursday. Our kind guests, after naming my effort ‘Calamity Pudding’, nobly ate it. It was a microwave dark treacle sponge that spilled over the basin and glued itself to the plate on top and then refused to turn out, so had to be served with a tea towel camouflage round the basin. It didn’t taste too bad at all.

Completely mad blackbird

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Couldn’t understand why the ball of purple string with bamboo sticks that I had been using to mark out the brick paths was in a bush, though the wind had been strong this morning. Then a (female) black bird appeared, string in beak, trying to fly off with it and getting pulled up short. She didn’t plan to give up soon. I was laughing too much and shouting at her to think of grabbing a camera, so this is only the aftermath.DSCN3664

Either all our blackbirds are happier in human company, or this is the same one that built a a nest round the corner in the holly bush (I can see this nest and cannot see her on it) by the front window. She and partner are now hard at work in the small upright yew right outside my workroom window.

They were still tugging at the ribbons of string an hour later.

We have removed the string today as it was clearly a persistent source of frustration to them. I will try and find a quiet moment to see what they have actually made their nest out of. The one in the holly bush has a piece of plastic sticking out of it. I had no idea blackbirds were attracted to bright non-natural objects.

Village excitement

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Clearly drives are more universally exciting than I’d imagined. Now the main drive is finished, everyone stops as they walk past to comment. They can tell me how many layers of hardcore, grit and sand have gone down, how good the workmen were and how much they like the bricks we have chosen – very gratifying. The only drawback is that I am struggling to finish the path that joins up the drive with the front door and EG and I are also trying to rebuild the bank that is still a pit of rubble and we keep stopping to talk.

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Of course, it may be that the old concrete slabs were such an eyesore that the village is heaving a vast sigh of relief.

Drive excitement

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You wouldn’t think that the excitement of a new drive was worth waking up at 5.30 am for. Yet, for the last three mornings I have been waking at this hour and been out in the garden working on my bit of path or levelling bricks in the old bit of the drive before the men come to fill in the sand again. I think it is the sense of coming near completion of a project. This is (nearly) the end stage of a very long sequence, of dreams, ideas, design, assessing finance, finding builders, working as they worked (they were very helpful). I don’t think it is that different from writing a book – though rather quicker and a little more under one’s own control in the final stages. When I was working 9 to 5, I used to wake early and write before setting off for work.

They have finished – we have a new drive – but the surrounding chaos is daunting. We will have to barrow large quantities of earth and probably buy some as well. I still have much path work to do, and this includes the path to the front door. We forgot to ask them to move back the wooden half-barrel they had shifted and whose bottom will certainly fall out if we touch it. Still the fun bit is to come, making the surrounding garden beautiful again.

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We’re a little concerned about the birds. The noise and movement right near their feeding areas must have been very disruptive. The mad blackbird is unfazed, but I think is short of some (bird) marbles and doesn’t know it is supposed to be wild.

Mahler and garden ghosts

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White souls have been inhabiting the garden last two mornings. These rather beautiful ghosts are the frost covers that I wrap around vulnerable plants that are just coming into new leaf. And yes, I know I should only grow hardy plants, but sometimes the tender growth on tree peonies gets zapped and one of the great joys of spring is waiting for the oh-so-slow buds to open into fragile cabbage-sized blooms. I am equally soppy about the new growth on my maples. In fact I go a little gaga each spring as I watch the leaves unfolding (and again in autumn as they blaze before dying).

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Last night was a treat beyond description. We had recorded a performance of Mahler 1, conducted by Simon Rattle with the Berlin Phil, in Singapore. I am a Mahler addict anyway, but this was so beautiful, intense and powerful, that I cannot imagine a more fulfilling experience. I so much prefer to have my heart beating too fast because of a musical crescendo than because a foolish character in fiction or TV drama is blatantly putting themselves in danger and we are invited to watch their downfall.

Shattering, but immensely satisfying day playing with bricks. The brick paving on the drive was washed so all the sand has gone. Over the twenty years they have been there many bricks have sunk and there are bad, wobbly patches. I found I could extract the bad bricks, introduce sharp sand and make them level again. I have also been robbing the bricks from the area that is being redone (THEY START TOMORROW – only a week later than scheduled) and my brick paths can progress at last. The garden is a war zone now, with piles of earth, turfs, pots full of uprooted shrubs and bulbs, bags of rubble and sand.

The birds are unfazed and nesting industriously. The early martins have stayed and settled and are burbling away outside the bedroom window.

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On Thursday I did some serious work on Border Line and managed to post another submission yesterday. I don’t plan to talk about politics in this blog, but the events in Boston and elsewhere have made an uncomfortable backdrop to our domestic and very lucky and privileged lives.

Happy Ending

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Little story. In March 2008 I bought, rather impulsively, a crate of blue azure marble from a small paving company a few miles from where we live. It was for a tiny courtyard in an extension we planned. We soon discovered that the cost of the  courtyard would be out of our league. In November 2008 I emailed the owner of the paving company to ask if he could hold onto the marble for the time being. He said no problem.

In January 2010, I emailed again to ask if he still had our marble, if he would like to deliver it and what did we owe him for storage and delivery. He said he still had it and could deliver it when we needed it. Further emails revealed that although we had plans for the marble, we did not need it immediately and he said he was happy to hang on to it.

On the 9th March 2013 I emailed again to say that I hoped he might still have our marble. No reply. I rang and found the number discontinued. Then we visited the site of the company. It was derelict, the buildings empty, broken crates of stone all over the site. We looked for half an hour but there was no sign of our marble.

I had to accept that I had lost it and it was entirely my fault for failing to arrange delivery. I could hardly blame the owner for selling off anything he could, presuming the paving company had gone bust.

Today I had an email from the owner to say that he had closed the business in 2010. He still had my marble and had just loaded it into his van and was about to deliver it. He had carried what was for him a worthless load to his new address and kept it ready to deliver to us. He allowed us to pay a small sum for delivery, but that was all.

It is good to have a reminder that the world is full of decent human beings. My dream greenhouse may yet come into being one day.

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On the other hand

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I’m damned if I’ll give up yet. After three days of gardening distraction, I am back at my desk working on more submissions. Border Line has had several bites from agents and I should at least persist until the whole MS is asked for again in its revised form.

Feel invigorated since making this decision. In the meantime I have rebuilt the really rough bit of path, put turfs into bare areas, dug all the available granite setts into the edge of the dragon bed, moved a lot of earth on the new bank by the drive-to-be, started cleaning up the area by the knot-garden and had an all out battle with a dark corner of the garden full of cow parsley and Lords and Ladies (arum italicum). So rejection has had a very good outcome for the garden.

Martins were probably passers-by. We haven’t seen any more. Maybe they are the ones who arrive at my brother’s house in the South West about now.

Managed to go Lindy hopping this evening, interesting moves, but way too much talking. Feel pleasantly exhausted now. No piano practice for three days. So tomorrow piano and writing.

Return of the martins

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The martins have returned. They can normally be expected on the 16th May (EG’s birthday), but I saw their characteristic upward jinking flight a few days ago and EG saw one fly into a nest on the front of the house. In past years we have occasionally had brief visits a few weeks early, but we must be some kind of staging post as these martins fly on. Not sure why they have come so early, it can hardly be the warm weather.

Happily the last few days have been much warmer and I have been seeing off my garden-induced sore back and elbows by more of the same. It has worked.

Mad blackbird

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This morning we saw a blackbird with a leaf as large as itself (ivy?) disappear into the holly tree outside our front door. This tree is only about twelve-foot high and brutally pruned each year to a ball shape to stop it taking the light out of the front windows. It’s pretty dense, but I have just looked and there is a nest there on eye level for the post man, or anyone else approaching the front door. This is no doubt the same blackbird (female) that does not bother to move if I cross her path while gardening.

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The heap of earth and turfs growing on the front lawn (ready to fill in the new bank after the drive is remade next week) is probably regarded by the blackbird as a permanent meal table. The state of my back may mean she is right as it will be a while before I can move, shovel and barrow it all into place.

I should be writing while the back recovers. I am – sort of, but without any sense of making progress. With two books in full draft all I can do is tinker, make submissions and try to decide when to make the break and self-publish – and check the clock to see if it is time to put on the kettle.