Shiny halo

What a good egg I am.   And a boaster, but I have gone over to the village and spent an hour and a half watering all the hedges and climbing plants.

It takes so long as I have to fill up the watering cans, bottles, and plastic containers from the fountain in the village square and then haul them over to the plants.   The fountain runs all year and is a mighty source of water for people who don’t have their own supply.   You often see people filling up endless buckets and containers and taking them back home.   Not really a twenty first century scene, but there are still parts of this region where mains water is not connected.   And the water tastes great.

I tried to take a picture of the climbing plants that I put against a large ugly building in the south of the village.   And ugly just about summarises it.   It’s a bare wall and the plants are teensy.   Surrounded by rubble.   But they are growing so that’s a thrill.   And in about four years time it will look a dream.   If you can’t wait that long, here’s a horrid shot.

The hedge is fine and thriving.   But so too are some cow parsley and stinging nettles that have popped up in between the plants.   Mighty plants that can drag themselves up through two feet of mulch. I do admire them and admired them more once I had yanked them up and thrown them into a bucket.

I did make one miscalculation. I thought I was pulling up a recalcitrant cow parsley, so took a firm hold and pulled.   But found I was grasping a thick hairy stinging nettle plant instead. Ouch.

Tingling mightily, I drove back home and started in on a watering fest.   We checked the tank this afternoon and found to our amazement that it is full and overflowing. No rain for three weeks and this amazing spring is hail and hearty.   I see some lavish watering ahead.