Chores in high Summer

I do rather prefer the chore of making tomato salad each day and trying to decide which novel to read after la sieste. Good summer chores.

Actually I must confess that the plan of reading a Bernard Minier crime novel on my kindle in the daytime and being a good worthy reader of the Charles de Gaulle biography at night is slipping. My Minier series is much more gripping. But I will return to the venerable biography. What a shame it is such a hefty tome.

My summer chore if I start early enough is to haul out the vetch vines from the banks around the pool and lawn.

It’s a fine fetching (hah, get it) vetch – blue pea like flowers and all self seeded and growing where it wishes.

I should of course be ruthless and rogue them out before they flower. But I do think they add to the spring display.

Let’s see if I have snapped them when they were glorious and not a crispy eyesore.

I donned long shirt, long gloves, long trousers. And just waded in and hauled out the plants.

I barely needed the secateurs. Except for the irksome brambles.

I did one day for the vetch and then girded my loins to work my way up the bank to cut the brambles.

The reward for this really annoying job?

The mirabelles and other plums are ripening nicely.

But you can only access them from the eragrostis bank. Even the deer are thwarted by the bramble jungle.

And then it was a quick (not) prune of the eragrostis grasses along the edge of the deck.

And to finish up another dredge of the duck pond spring.

I swear I have not made any progress. Despite the enormous amount of silt piled up on the side.

And then by 1030am it’s way too hot and one feels like a rotisserie chicken. Basting in one’s own juices.

In for lunch – via the basil and tomatoes in the potager – and then the best bit of summer. The languid afternoon when it’s a week without guests.