Yesterday evening Jackie produced two photographs from along the Shady Path and Dragon Bed beneath the strong evening light,
and later of the strawberry moon claiming the sky from the sun.
On a much duller morning she recorded the current progress of her replanting in the Pond Bed.
For more than a week now, the Head Gardener has been slowly emptying and sifting the contents of our centre compost bin. This process is made more time consuming because a full wheelbarrow is too heavy for her to shift to where she wants the material.
Now she has nearly finished I decided to lend a hand and
filled a barrow to capacity and wheeled it over to the Oval Bed which, like all the others, will require extensive weeding before its soil can be topped up. Once again I was performing the role of “The Head Gardener’s Hod Carrier”.
This afternoon we lifted the New Dawn rose that had been dropped by the recent storms, retied it, and placed the white aluminium bench in its corner.
Are your dreams worth waiting to bring to fruition at the expense of a more pleasurable earlier life? This is the essential question behind Anton Chekhov’s story ‘Gooseberries’. I was impressed with what translator Elisaveta Fen describes as the ‘evocation of the Russian countryside on a rainy day and the feelings of relaxation, cleanliness and comfort, experienced by the men after hours of exertion ….. conveyed with Chekhov’s characteristic directness and subtle power’. The author’s simple descriptive skill is so evident in this narrative.
For ‘Nikolai ate the gooseberries greedily’ Nigel Lambourne has depicted this man’s happiness which is questioned by the narrator.
This evening we dined on oven fish and chips, garden peas, cornichons with chillis, and pickled onions, with which we both drank Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2020.