Yesterday morning, I considered myself a lucky man. The Priory garden looked perfect; touched with a fine frost, under blue skies and a warming sun.
The west pond. One of two in the grounds
Well no; it didn’t actually. It never looks perfect. Not to my eye anyway. There are always leaves that need raking up, a clutch of weeds slyly emerging in a border, the mulch from a neat bed manically cast out onto the lawn by a blackbird or the realisation that a cherished plant is mush.
Dogwood stems in the morning sunlight
Still. Some things looked damn fine and I did enjoy the overall effect. Generally however, the beauty was in the detail and as I looked at things close up, through my camera lens, I began to feel rather more pleased with myself.
Agapanthus flower heads that survived the winter storms
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Young Betula jacquemontii (gleaming because I wiped them clean with a damp cloth a couple of months ago)
I noticed the first crocuses in flower and the perfection of a winter jasmine flower
and how even unprepossessing hardy geranium leaves were transformed by that frost.
Daffs (February Gold) slowly, oh so slowly emerging.
And hey, today, after officially the longest January on record (?), they are beginning to emerge. I even found myself greeting them. Well – there’s no one else to speak to.
That slight whiff of hubris from my morning inspection must have lingered about me into the afternoon, as I pruned the enormous, top-heavy growth on the rose tunnel. As I snipped through a long, whippy shoot it purposefully (and with malice aforethought) lashed out and sliced open the skin below my nose. Flippin’ painful and with a very, very impressive amount of blood. Pints of the stuff. Amazed I didn’t resemble a wizened prune by the time it stopped. I strode manfully to the greenhouse for an Earl Grey and Starbar solace. As I daubed my wound with a non too clean hanky, I happened to glance at the growing list of “things to do” list. So many jobs. So little time. Where to start? Where to finish? Good grief.Save
