Off The Edge Gardening

For the last few days I have been visiting the town I used to call home.  Although it isn’t where I was born, it is where I grew up.  It is where I ticked off many milestones on my journey to the place I am today. When I am not there it is a just a memory, albeit it a fine one, but I have little time in my life for yearning.  When I am there, however, it is much more.  Seeped in memories, they ambush me at every turn.  These are mostly happy, but a few are sad.  I am melancholic for things that have been lost, regretting that I didn’t appreciate the privilege of growing up here, sadness at leaving special people who will always be in my heart.  Ghosts lurk at every corner.  Some taunt, some comfort me.

Things have changed over the years.  Of course it is still beautiful; surely no one could sully the fabulous beaches, the jaw-dropping views out to Mrs Woolf’s lighthouse or the coastal moorland of Man’s Head, the stiletto snapping cobbles and of course that famous luminescent light.  Now it is far more affluent and the season is long and unremitting.  The shops of my day are becoming sparse, in their place expensive boutiques, eating establishments and jewellery stores.  I was saddened to see that the chippy where my younger brother worked in his youth had closed.  He would return from his toils perfumed with Essence de Chip Fat.  The cafe which has replaced it looks lovely.  I would imagine that they steam their vegetables.

So we roamed the streets with best of them.  We stayed in a proper grown-up hotel with views across to the harbour.  Nightly the waves crashed against the rocks not 10m below our room, driven by a raging wind, the sound both welcome and soothing.  We gasped at the sight of dolphins and seals close to the shoreline.  We went to the opening of an enchanting pottery exhibition and met some fine earthy folk.   We ate haddock and chips in a relic yet to succumb to the relentless march of healthy eating.  We visited art galleries.  We wandered through an exotically planted sculpture garden ducking into a bougainvillea sheathed shelter when the persistent rain turned up a notch.  We met with old friends and laughed and recollected.    We had a wonderful time.

On the way back I reminisced alone this time, remembering the many times I had sat on this train and cried.  So fresh was the feeling of being wrenched away to another world, far from my power source, that another tear came to my eye.  In my heart there is a ember which is dense as a black hole.  This is where my home town lies.  It takes only a gentle south-westerly to reignite this flame.

When we opened our front door I was pleased to be home.  I was also sad to leave my home.

 

Is she on her way home yet?

Another dowdy day; well dowdy by name but not by nature.  I awoke this morning hoping it was Saturday but knowing that it seldom is.  Rather than a dawn chorus my awakening accompaniment was the dulcet tones of next doors scaffolding being dismantled.  Past the clunks and crashes, chatter and clatter, my bat ears were honed past the lads to work out what the weather was doing.  The results were inconclusive.  The passing cars sounded as if they were driving on wet, the wind was howling but the light was not oppressive enough for a deluge.  Inevitably I had to get out of bed to discover that although it had evidently rained recently, it was dry.  So breakfasted and kitted up I headed off to Max’s for a day of camellia moving, fern destruction and tree debate.  Naturally it rained heavily at random intervals but this was balanced by a sense of belonging, of beginning to understand this wonderful garden.  Of being involved and embraced.  Who cares it wasn’t a Saturday?  They are so over-rated!

We are going away for a few days.  Not far and not for long, but a holiday.  Can’t wait.  See you later alligator.

When all else fails the cheery face of a viola bloom will do the trick.  I will leave you contemplating its beauty.

We arrived home late last night, late for us lightweights at any rate.  The sky was a studded with a neck aching amount of stars proclaiming the promise of plummeting temperature.   After satisfying my compulsion to point out Orion and The Plough (the only constellations I know) to the amazement of no one, we dived into the warm house.  With an uncharacteristic attack of the Sensibles  I rummaged out my thermals and heavy-duty socks before I went to bed.   This was a well spent ten minutes as the weather didn’t disappoint.*   A tentative tug at the bedroom curtain just before dawn revealed the glistening windows of the cars in the street below.  This meant that today I ticked off another winter milestone, the first windscreen scrape of the season.  I am not a lover of smearing sprays and aerosols, just a scraper and elbow grease.   This works for me and is a fine and dandy way to warm up on such a morning.  All cleared, off I headed, keen to see what the day held.

The frost was meagre and short-lived, even in the darkest corners.  It was a wonderful day to be a gardener.  After a couple of weeks when my mind has fleetingly strayed to thoughts of warm offices and cosy shop floors,  I was full steam ahead on the Horticultural Express.  Weeding and tidying, leaving flower heads for the birds whenever possible, emptying compost bins, getting things straight.  It was blissful, is there a more satisfying way to spend the day?  Unfortunately, the thermals became little too effective, the healthy glow emanating from my body speeded up the thaw.  If only you could switch them on and off!

*  Do not expect this victory of sense over laziness to prevail, it was merely a battle and not the war.

At least they were happy.

 

I slipped in the mud whilst pushing a wheelbarrow down a grassy slope.  Luckily I have been genetically modified for these eventualities.

There are no photographs to record my day.  This is an unusual event, I do love a photo opportunity.  It is true that I often abuse my camera, it is tricky not to get a little mud/cake/noxious substances on/in it when taking pictures whilst working in a garden.   Today, however, things were little extreme to attempt it, even for me.  The weather was so dire, with horizontal rain and an ever accelerating storm, that I daren’t remove it from its case, although I was tempted many times.  It did not help that it was safely nestled beneath layers of wool and waterproof and my hands were sheathed in gauntlets of sog.  So you won’t have any pictures of dismal workers rallying forth in the increasingly muddy garden, pruning, removing, dragging boughs like a trio of chain gangers. Instead I will share with you a photo taken on a more clement occasion and we can dream of such days to come.  This periwinkle is poking its head through a prostrate rosemary.  It might confuse the easily led.