A Diary Entry: 21 April 2015

Since 2006 I've been in New Zealand during the winter so have I not been here in Eagleton in April. Yesterday and the previous three days have been perfect Lewis days for getting into the garden so I have been doing things about four weeks earlier than I might usually have been doing them. On Saturday morning when I woke my body reminded me in no uncertain terms of the 9 hours hard labour it had been subjected to on Thursday. Since then the physical labour has made me feel more alive and more fit (I did get a gym session in yesterday morning) than ever.

The reason I said this is a diary entry is that I would like a reminder as to when I started in the garden this spring. When I started the blog it was supposed to be part diary and part family communication tool.

These four glorious days have enabled me to fill a large wheelie bin twice with moss etc scarified from the grass (I'd like to call them lawns but that would be stretching it a little more than a tad). This should give the grass a good start this year.

I finished off the wind covers for the raised beds, did a lot of sorting out in the shed and prepared an old slip drum with drainage holes etc for use as a potato barrel in which I planted First Early potatoes. I planted the first rows of beans, peas, beetroot and lettuce and some herbs in the raised beds. I prepared pots of over-wintered begonias etc. It may be too early for all that up here but time will tell.

Then, with the help of a pickaxe to get at the deep roots, I took out a hedge of hebes to give light to the rockery, a better view of the perennials in the other part of the garden and generally open up the garden.

The outdoor chairs have been sanded and painted. In summer they live in front of the kitchen window giving a view over the pond, the front garden, the Bay and The Minch over to the Mainland.

Old slip holding drum with it's new use for potatoes

The back grass area duly scarified and it's first mow (it's had two more sessions since that was taken).

One of the new raised vegetable beds ready for its covers and planting 

The wind covers (which should also protect plants from the pigeons and other birds too)

The garden with the hebe hedge

and without

All ready for morning coffee in the sun (the chairs were a present from the ladies in the Pottery when I sold it 10 years ago).
They are a constant reminder of good company and are very well used.

Thankful Thursday

My brother Scriptor Senex posted the following quote from The Letters Page. on Scriptor's Postcards at ‘A letter is not a system of debt.’

And this editor has noticed, in a recent revival of personal correspondence-by-post, how easily people feel the burden of letter writing. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t replied sooner,’ our letters all seem to begin, in the tone of a muttering student handing in a late assignment. Dear readers and fellow letter-writers, don’t be so burdened! Write, or don’t write, but enjoy it when you do. It’s nice to reply to a letter, but there’s no need to turn it into a chore; after all, if there’s a message that can’t wait, you can always send an email. (Remember email?) One of our editorial board members, the poet and publisher Éireann Lorsung, puts it very well: ‘A letter,’ she tweeted recently, ‘is not a system of debt.’

It rang a really pertinent chord with me. I consider myself extremely fortunate in that I have relatively little real stress in my life at the moment but several things do pray on my mind daily and one of those is keeping in touch with people who are important to me. Often a day passes with so many things happening but letters and emails unanswered and unwritten. So often I put my head on the pillow with the resolve that that letter will be written before I do anything else tomorrow and so often I make the same promise to myself the following night.

Am I alone?

The Old and The New

Last week I came across the Pentland Road from Achmore to Stornoway on Lewis. This was a road that I first travelled across forty years ago when the sheilings were still in use. They were situated out on the common pasture or grazings and the women of the household would move there in the summer with the sheep and cattle and their spinning wheels. They were often near the family's peat banks as well. I didn't actually realise what they were and as many were occupied I came to the conclusion that there was some very extreme poverty on Lewis if these were houses. Of course I was very quickly educated because by the 1970s these were mainly used (and a few still are) for holidays.

Now the moors are increasingly being littered with wind turbines and when driving across the moors sometimes the juxtaposition of the old and the new becomes very apparent.

This last picture gives one an idea of just how massive these structures are. The trees near the base of the crane and turbine are reasonably mature.

"Spring is Sprung"

Ma Bunny said "and now we should get out of bed." For many years I had it in my head that this was a quotation from some other source.  It would appear, however, that it is a figment of my own imagination. That's unusual because imagination is definitely not my strong point.  

Of course there is another poem that my brother and I learned as wee children:

Spring has sprung, the grass is ris, 

I wonder where the boidies is
The boid is on the wing,
But that’s absoid
The wing is on the boid!

Oddly enough when I did a brief Google search I got many and varied results including the easily verifiable statement that it was by Winnie the Pooh although I certainly don't recall it and, as I'm not at home, I can't verify that. One of you, my readers, will know though.

 

I've been in Glasgow - Bishopbriggs to be precise -  for most of the week and today it's been 20ºC.  Perfect for Anna to get into the garden and for me to be helping with a bit of labouring. However as it's Easter Day it's been a family day for Anna and we've enjoyed company instead. Now it's evening and quiet but it's still warm and the sun is thinking of dipping below the horizon.

It does make me feel that it's time to celebrate what feels like the first day of Spring.

If the bee had been less active or I had been more adept I might have got a decent photo of my first bee of the year. 

The camillias in Anna's garden are flowering

in fact some are in full bloom

On the washing there was a Seven Spot Ladybird. I had no idea they could be out so early.

Getting ready for flight