The weather is finally getting warmer. Not baking hot, but enough to be comfy in a long sleeved T-shirt and jeans, which is pretty much my favourite sort of weather and clothes. This means that my focus shifts from the sewing room to the garden and I can glory in being able to work outdoors, both at writing, although it always seems odd to call that work when most of it is the best fun ever, and in the garden.
So, yesterday I cleaned the patio with the hose and a stiff brush and lots and lots of pent up frustration at the way that so many basic things don’t work properly. You know, the usual stuff. Orders that don’t arrive, or arrive with things missing, or get delivered to someone else in the road. ‘Help’ functions that are nothing of the sort, as in ‘couldn’t you just go and ask around your neighbours to see if we delivered it to any of them? And maybe in the next road over too?’ Navigating your way through online systems to book appointments and answering daft questions. Or is it just me who’s very tempted to become a Jedi who doesn’t know her race or gender? I only want to book an eye test for pity's sake!
Still, now I am amazed by how well the patio has come up. There's more to do, because there always is, but my cunning plan to move away from bedding plants that only last one summer and seem to feed the slugs and snails to tough as anything shrubs that I just need to trim back at the appropriate time and deadhead seems to be working. I've got a succession of flowers and I can waft around the garden with my secateurs and my sun hat and my little trug over my arm rather than doing heavy work.
The little bit of the garden outside the back door where I’m sitting as I type this looks good too. Very green and luxuriant, and any nasty person who says that you need a machete to get through it is… probably right! But I always think that one more little plant won’t hurt and then forget that they don’t stay little if I get it right. And getting it right for me means picking the tough plants that really want to grow and flower, like my black elderflower currently is. Pretty pink flowers against dark almost black foliage and all I do is cut it down to six inches each autumn as the leaves begin to fall. Then, by midsummer, it’s four foot tall again and flowering and looks like a maple but can take anything the weather throws at it.
This time, I’m spending some of my birthday money on camellia’s, viburnums and sweet scented box so I can extend the flowering season because we get butterflies and insects most of the year down on our soft Dorset coast because of the microclimate of the harbour. We also get bees coming over from a local apiarist and buy his honey, so I like to watch them feeding, knowing they’re also feeding me.
Work-wise, I’m hoping to finish the first revision of a new Lucy Williams this week and then start another one in that series as people have asked for them. It’s been fun looking at her life because being a former spy gives her a useful skillset and living under another identity complicates things. But really, don’t we all have to have multiple identities? Good mother, good wife, good employee, good carer, good all sorts of things so it’s no wonder that when live gets crazy busy it’s easy to forget that somewhere underneath that is the person who used to… well, you're so tired that you can’t quite remember but you do know that you want to be more and do less for other people. You also know how selfish that sounds and that wanting an adventure when you’re over a certain age is probably silly.
Let me tell you, it isn’t! My adventure was my writing and fighting back through pain to be able to walk long distances again. Yes, it has to be flat now rather than my beloved hills, but the flat walk takes me along Harbourside and down to the Fisherman’s haven, then along past the yacht haven and then turning right to explore the little shops. There is cake. Occasionally, there are gorgeous sweeties and there are pubs and restaurants with fascinating menus outside, and they use the same catering butchers and suppliers I get deliveries from so anything they can do, I can copy so much more cheaply.
So please, this week, have a little adventure, just for you. Maybe you could start small and try a new book to read curled up somewhere?.
If you’re interested, these books are on offer this week;-
There’s the first book in my Harbourside series - Picking up the Pieces. The next one is out on the first Thursday in July so this almost looks as if I’m organised, doesn’t it? Anyway, it’s about a little apartment block down by the sea that’s designed for the independent older person and the people who live and work there and whose lives intertwine. It’s not romantic in the sense of everything being wrapped up and to happy ever after, but you’ll watch relationships and friendships develop and see some of the characters from Lavender House popping in and out.
Then there are two books from my Christian’s Cross series of cosy vampire mysteries. They’re Nature Strikes Back and No greater love. I enjoyed writing both of them for very different reasons. In Nature Strikes Back, one of the heroes is cursed with techknowledgy by an old god who wants to be worshipped again so everything turns against him. I don’t think that’s ever happened to me but I’ve had my moments with tech, and duvets too… No greater love is linked to World War Two Dorset and a past that won’t stay buried and has elements of mysticism with a White Deer. Now, Dorset has a surprising number of those, and I’ve seen them, often when I’ve needed to make a decision. There again, when don’t we need to make a decision?
So have a great week, and today’s picture is of where I sat and sewed for a little while yesterday and thought hopefully creative thoughts and got all life’s little niggles back into proportion.
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