Deliverance

Of all the things that came today this one is the best.   Plants. My huge order to Filippi plant nurseries has arrived.   I had a vision of the fuel tanker (topping up our central heating stores) getting stuck just at the moment the courier truck for the plants came up the drive and neither would be able to turn or get out.

But luckily they came half an hour apart. The courier arrived in a monstrous 13 tonne truck.   And naturally took one look at our private road and said he was going to discharge the load at the letter box.   Never have I sprinted so fast back up the hill and into the car to stop the driver leaving me stranded.   No way was I going to haul 108 kgs of plants from a stack beside the road and into the car on my own.

He was quite chirpy and obliged by handing me crates and crates of the beautiful plants all the while discussing how he was actually going to get off our mountain and back down the valley.   In the end he did a very professional 9 point turn and didn’t even get bogged.

And here I am with my load.

Campsis, lonicera, trachelosperumum jasminoides, agapanthus, ballota, caryopteris, cistus (galore), elaegnus, goniolimon, lavenders (in myriad forms), perovska, phlomis, santolina, teucrium, viburnum, rosemary, centranthus, choisya, origanum, pistacia, scabiosa, bupleurum, globularia, delosperma, geraniums and last but not least dicliptera.

The last ones are the only risk: they are hardy to minus 12C. But the rest will happily plunge to minus 15C and beyond. And cope with summer drought.

Naturally I dithered about what to do with them. I have the planting plans and the spacings, but needed a whole uninterrupted day to get started.   So I have watered them, stacked them in the courtyard, covered them with fleece and will do something about them tomorrow.

Instead I did a bit of very Heath Robinson carpentry. I need wide benches for all the plants in the studio (or do I just call it a potting shed. I’m getting nervous about the pretensions of calling it a studio), and no more funds.   So I have gone down to the stables and hauled out all the thin bits of wood that once held up our living room ceiling.

Bug free – there are no nasty red poultry mite parasites down in the stables – so I am going to try and join them together and make benches.   Not having a drill made things a bit playful.   I have hammered in horizontal supports to keep them together. But will leave it for Friday for a professional carpenter to tidy them up.   And help me lift them.   Today has not been a stellar one for the chronically sciatic.   But regrets? None at all. I have my longed for plants.

And just to eke out the last of the light, I actually did a bit of lawn raking at dusk.   Luckily there are no trees near the big lawn, but the bit of lawn at the top end of the pool is shaded by a huge beech tree.   And naturally it does its thing in winter and I need to get the leaves off the lawn.   Most satisfying result. And made the crawl up to house and the thought of a hot bath all the more satisfying.