Recently I’ve mentioned (moaned about) the state of our garden and our pathetic attempts to tackle the madly growing plants, weeds, shrubs, trees, brambles, grass etc. In the end, I mentioned it in our local social media group, asking if there was anyone who could help us subdue it. I was thinking of someone who does such things professionally, but within a short while of posting, our chums from our quiz team messaged and said they would be delighted to help. When should they come, had we got tools, what should they bring? How very kind of them, very very kind, and our spirits rose and we arranged a date we would all be available – and it was today!
I confess I did spend yesterday tidying so we looked less like Steptoe’s junkyard, and more like people beginning a big tidy-up and chuck-out. So we sprung from our beds early, cups of tea drunk, breakfast eaten and went out to gather our tools and get the big garden rubbish bags ready. We had the side garden gates open and before long two warriors of the weeds, battlers of the brambles, hackers of the hedging strode through armed with their weapons of garden warfare.
The sun beat down, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the birds chirped, the insects buzzed and in between bashing away at the task we chatted – but only intermittently as we were concentrating, cutting, slashing, digging, mowing, pruning, filling the big waste bags ready to take to the town recycling centre. I was amazed at what we achieved – we all worked hard, but our friends, being younger, fitter and more garden-knowledgeable, were almost super-human!
There is still more to do, much more, but as we toil away we will always remember today when our hero friends set to with such vigour and vim!
My featured image is from Benvarden Garden, the most beautiful garden I know,, in Northern Ireland:
Lois Elsden 