A giant leap for mankind

Well, a few hours in the garden does make one gush. Especially when it is so sunny and calm and gorgeous. A distant sound of a woodpecker working away, clouds of birds racing through the trees, no hunters firing broadsides on distant mountains. Heaven.

And I had a job to do.

But we had quite a frost first thing this morning, so there was no chance I’d be able to get a spade into the soil.  So I had to find something to warm me up and get me fired up.

Carrying logs. These are the beauties we cut down two weeks ago and were just sitting on the lower terraces waiting to be transported up to the garden.  And by transport that means hauling and trudging.  But it warmed me up nicely.

A good hundred and something metres all uphill.

I didn’t bring them all up, as I noticed the frost had melted and I was itching to get started.  I had to re-measure the beds so they the two of the quadrants worked when you look down on the garden.

That’s the annoying thing about terraces; you have to keep looking at the effect from above.  so some of the paths have been tweaked.

But I can’t say I’m thrilled with the finished result. It has a feel of an abandoned railway siding. And there is the problem of the future mole attacks.  I just know that these weedproof fabric sides are going to collapse. What I need to do is build the sides of the raised ‘beds’ with planks. But the sides are over two feet high, so I’ll need to get some good wide timber.  And that is something I do not have.

So despite an early afternoon swear fest and crisis, I’ll keep going and finish the digging and then come up with a plan B for the edges.

And for those of you who follow the antics of Artur, he is aloof. Annoyingly aloof. He has decided that cuddling and affection are not needed in his life. So he is happy to sit about ten feet from me all morning (in blazing sunshine) but ignore all my attempts at affection and chats. Irksome. But he is a challenge. And that’s better than slavish devotion.  Isn’t it?  Actually a purring cat on one’s lap would be welcome.  What a shame he is so ornery.