Today is a hot day, at least by this summer’s standards. They’re talking about 26 or 27c, and as I type this I’m sitting in the garden and occasionally glancing up at a blue sky with fluffy white clouds that signal settled weather. I’m in the shade, well-covered with sunscreen, with the very last of a glass of home made strawberry lemonade by my side.
I’ve been working on refreshing the garden all week, so now I’m starting to see results and today’s dump trip (ooh, isn’t my life exciting!) will see a big step forward. All the broken pots and bits and bobs that have been at the bottom of the garden for ages will be gone. I’ve also moved things around to create a bit for my pots and seed trays in a dry shady area where nothing much grows.
That freed up an area where things do grow, and I’ve got lots and lots and lots of ferns and a daughter who’s writing and illustrating children’s books about dinosaurs for her Creative Arts degree. She’s always loved dinosaurs and didn’t want to send the big ones she played with when other little girls played with dolls to the charity shop so they’ve been in the garden for the last few years. Steven Spielberg had Jurassic Park. I don’t have his budget so I have what we’re calling the Jurassic Zone, with ferns and dinosaurs under the trees.
I have also realised yet again that I shall almost certainly never go to heaven, but it wasn’t really my fault. I was looking for cat ornaments on eBay to go down there when the ‘if you like that, then you’ll like this’ came up with dinosaurs capturing garden gnomes. I’m not sure how their algorithm worked out that that was actually what I wanted, but I couldn’t resist having a look and a pair are on their way because they’re so daft that they’ll make all of us smile when we see them. Most people won’t see them because they’re going to live opposite the bins, which is an area that rarely gets mentioned on the garden makeover programmes that I have a mild addiction to. Or if they are, then they build them little houses that you have to pull the bins out of to put rubbish in, which is far too much faff for me. That’s why my bins now have faces on them. There’s a happy one, one that’s winking and a puzzled looking one and it means I can easily spot them when I’ve put them out to be collected.
One thing I’ve learned is how important it is to do things that make you smile in what can often seem to be a very dark world. As I grow into myself I’ve stopped worrying so much about what other people might think and started thinking ‘is this right for me, for now.’ Another thing I’ve learned is that things always change, whether they’re good or bad, so I need to make the most of the good times.
Which brings me back round to sitting in the shade on a glorious day in a garden that I’m pleased with and can see how I can make better. In a minute, I’ll move a few more pots round, but for now I shall sit and think, or maybe not think. Maybe I’ll just enjoy the fountain burbling and the wind on my face and in my hair and the butterflies that remind me of my late and much missed mum who promised my daughter that she’d be watching her whenever she saw butterflies. We have a lot of butterflies in this garden, and I’m sure that’s got nothing to do with careful planting and loads and loads of those caterpillar-hatching kits you can buy. Some of my eucalyptus leaves are curled round cocooned caterpillars and brushing against my arm as I type, which means there’ll be more butterflies and moths along soon.
Away from my little haven, the world feels scary. Here though, is peace and quiet and I hope you can find the same thing, today and always. That meant that there was only one possible choice of picture. Catling, Queen of the Night, has commandeered the chair where I was planning to sit. It is the most comfortable spot so, obviously, it belongs to her!
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