Filed under: asperger's syndrome, autism, Gardening, Justice, Scotland, success | Tags: emotions, gardening, weather, weeding
Thursday morning ,with my daisy grubber, I was weeding, in the rain. I was thinking that our weather, too often, keeps me out of the garden. The weeds are romping away with a vengeance, they are growing faster than I am eradicating them. And as I contemplated my misfortunes it dawned on me that the rain doesn’t care. As I spread Round Up Gel on the Horsetail it occurred to me, it’s just doing what it’s always done since the days of the dinosaurs, growing and thriving. There’s no point in my being angry with the Horsetail for doing what it’s always done, besides the Horsetail doesn’t care. The Horsetail doesn’t care, neither do the Creeping Buttercups, the Docks, the Hairy Bittercress nor the Dandelion.
I have found over the years so many reasons to be angry with the world. However inanimate objects do not care, the insentient do not feel. People feel, people care, too often over things that do not matter, illogically, but they feel. I cannot treat people as things, as objects, however they my occur, because they feel.
I will continue to try to understand how people work. The weeds will continue to grow and the rain will continue to fall. I shall do whatever I shall do, but the rain will never care.
Filed under: Gardening, Scotland, social media, success, Writing | Tags: blogging, commitment, gardening, Scotland, social media, writing
After some swithering, I have, at last, decided to bathe. I had thought just to crawl into my welcome bed, but the effort of dragging myself upstairs, awoke me sufficiently to draw my bath. And so now my aching body is soaking in a solution of Arnica salts.
Today has been the only day of this break in which dry weather was assured. Needless to say, I, as so often in such circumstances, attacked my garden with injudicious gusto. I am happy to say this has been a day of accomplishment. I weeded my patio pots and replanted very many bulbs. I have moved those many pots, increased in number, from the lower, to the upper patio. I have swept and pressure washed the lower patio. I have done all this while supervising my granddaughters and their friends. I am, not only tired, but sore.
I had thought today that I had paced myself well. I stopped for my lunch and another short break, I varied my movements to engage different muscles; however, it seems I have merely succeeded in guaranteeing that my efforts have earned a reward of generalised myalgia and of exhaustion. It is a good tiredness, I wear it as a badge of honour.
I could have slept, I could have bathed and slept, but no. I have committed myself, for this year, to post to my blog every day, thus even had the warm water was doing its work, I was typing on my phone. I had good reason not to post, perhaps even, valid reason, but commitment is unreasonable. Commitment is a force that has us do that which we might, hitherto, have believed impossible, because we have spoken, or, in my case written. I have said every day I will post, so every day I shall. And now I go, at last, to my sleep, wrapped in a warm blanket of accomplishment…okay, yes it does look a lot like a cloak of unbearable smugness, but I assure you it’s no more than well earned satisfaction. Does that sound smug? Oh, I do hope not, actually I think I’m beyond caring. Good night
Filed under: Gardening, Scotland, Writing | Tags: Dock Weed, gardening, NaPoWriMo, weeds
One must respect the Dock
Weed, with it’s long tap root
And its fierce resistance
To my every effort
To remove and uproot
It, but it will perchance
Eventually give up.
Subject to a flame lance
Or, as one might have thought,
To weedkiller that I shot
Last year, but now I ought
To accept there is a chance
It’s tougher than I thought,
And, despite my onslaught,
Will persist, and in short,
Lead me a merry dance.
Filed under: asperger's syndrome, autism, disability, Gardening, Scotland | Tags: depression, gardening, mood swings, summer., weather
I have sailed through most of this summer on a pink, fluffy, metaphorical cloud of exuberance unafflicted by my usual summer downswing. My good mood has held against weeks of little sun and daily rain, but for the first time in weeks I have begun to suspect that all is not well.
I looked up at the switchroom monitors and saw the weather forecast, Scotland was once more hidden beneath a sheet of blue, indicating rain. I checked the five day forecast, and yet again we are predicted to have cloud and rain every day. Suddenly I felt a darkness gathering and it occurred to me, for the first time in weeks that my happiness may not last forever.
There are so many jobs undone in my garden: grass uncut, weeds untreated for lack of dry days, fences unpainted, cut branches not shredded, beds uncleared, and little prospect of the dry weather
needed to catch up, let alone enjoy the garden. The chimnea remains covered, the barbecue, bought last year, remains unused, and it occurred to me that this year I may not get a complete week of useable summer.
Today there is a difference of ten degrees between here and the south of England, they are predicted to have yet more dry weather, but their gardening magazines have the cheek to moan about their bad summer, they have not experienced a bad summer; or rather they have at least had some sort of summer. I remarked to my cousin that I’d like a hosepipe ban, she responded that
I wouldn’t, but I really would like just once to have the experience! It occurs to me that in a few weeks we will be entering winter without ever had a summer.
I am grateful for the few scattered days of dry weather we have had, but the prospect of facing another winter, without having had the opportunity to prepare for it by a healthy summer in the garden, is beginning to prey on my mind. The days are growing shorter, and it occurs to me that I will have to face the dark weeks of winter without having had enough light to fortify my constitution.
Not long ago I thought my good mood would last if not forever, at least for a substantial period, now I find myself facing winter with a growing sense of foreboding. Still as they say, “Things could be worse”, whoever “they” may be, they obviously have little comprehension of reality. Things could indeed be worse, and I suspect they will be.
Filed under: Gardening | Tags: Amateur Gardening, Gardener's Question Time, Gardener's World, gardening, horticulture, House of Lords, Parliament, Peter Seabrook, RHS, Royal Horticultural Society
I saw the physiotherapist today and I should be able to get back to doing some light gardening very soon. In the meantime I continue to look at gardening magazines and contemplate the work I have to do. In Amateur Gardening this week I read that Peter Seabrook is celebrating his Seventy-Fifth birthday. He was a professional gardener before I was even born and – apart from while he was on National Service – has been ever since. He presented Gardeners’ World amongst other programs on radio and Television, he has the Victoria Medal of Honour from the Royal Horticultural Society and every week I get to read his column in Amateur Gardening.
The one thing that puzzles me is that he is reported as having been awarded the MBE in 2005 for services to horticulture. Why am I puzzled? He richly deserves the acknowledgement he has been given but I have to ask why only an MBE? Pop singers like Mick Jagger get knighthoods so do actors and civil-servants, businessmen like Alan Sugar get knighthoods or even ennobled to the House of Lords. I have to ask, why is horticulture valued so low compared to other activities? It is true that there are very few horticulturists who earn millions but while they may earn less for themselves can anyone say that their contribution to Britain is any the less! The contribution of people like Peter Seabrook can be seen in gardens the length and breadth of these islands in the knowledge and inspiration they give to millions of ordinary men and women who make this country a more beautiful place to live. Personally I feel to only have honoured Peter Seabrook with an MBE is very shortsighted, surely we need people like him in the House of Lords. Horticulture is central to who we are as a nation and the millions of Britons who practice it should have a voice in parliament to fight against garden grabbing, disappearing allotments and for the many other economic and environmental concerns we share. We have enough self-serving millionaires in both Houses what we need is people who truly represent us – even if his politics are a little conservative – it’s time to give us Lord Seabrook! So There!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: clay, drought-resistant plants, gardeners, gardening, rain, Scotland, weather
I am fed up with English gardeners complaining in all the gardening magazines about the dry weather. I am fed up with adverts for “drought-resistant” plants I need plants that can survive in a puddle on clay soil for 10 months of the year and be baked for two.
