Losing Things

I wrote two long blogs on the same day, bursting to record things, and blow me if I didn't lose them both. I could mostly remember what I'd said, but couldn't summon up the energy to write it all again. Much of it was about going to four garden centres and buying loads of plants, and then bumping into a friend from Wilby days who I didn't recognise. "Hello Denise!" he called out, and I looked at him, and I looked at the woman with him, and would have sworn on my life I'd never seen either of them before. But it was Nick of Nick and Matthew, with a beard, a grey beard though he's no more than mid 40s. "Look, I've grown a beard and you didn't know me", he laughed, and kissed me on both cheeks. Very soft beard. Woman was a client. Between the four garden centres I bought nearly everything on my list. And at the weekend I planted them. All very satisfying, and parts of the garden looking progressive.

But not the lawn, oh no. That is going to have to come up and be replaced. The thought of all that disruption is horrible, but it must be endured. The treated grass is looking dreadful, and even the prospect of having all my money returned is not enough to persuade me to keep it. The new one won't be laid until the end of the month, so in the meantime I'm preparing the other beds, and trying to work out a new shape for the grass. I definitely want much less, but where can I do without it? Hopefully the next few weeks will give me time to get it right.

I've been gathering blackberries, one of my favourite activities of the year. I thought it was a dismal crop until I  came across the best I've seen in ages just behind Alys's house. Sasha and I had been on a long, long walk last Sunday after bridge with Judy, David and Caroline. It was a bit of a gamble because I had no idea if the circle we made would lead us back home or not. It got tricky when we came to a ditch, but small puppy and stiff old bag leapt it together, and we were on our way back. Early next morning we returned with a tupperware box to reap the harvest. Sasha pottered around me off the lead, every now and then finding her own low crop and scoffing them off the prickly branches. What a funny dog she is, the reincarnation of Snoopy. She has so many of the same characteristics. Anyway, I was woken at 7am by terribly noisy tractors, and to my horror I saw that they were cutting the hedges. Again Sasha and I shot off to rescue the rest of the blackberries before they vanished for good. Farmers: they're never happy with the status quo but always have to go changing things. Shifting sands. You can never be complacent.