The curse of the bookless bath

Now that will teach me. I have taken to the bath each night (blissfully long hot soak) with a crime novel for entertainment.   But last night I finished my second Mark Mills and realised I am short one crime novel this trip.

So without any distractions, I was forced to soak and plot and ponder; and now I have a ridiculous plan: keep weeding the entire soft fruit orchard. Turn it into something spectacular.   This part of the garden is over forty feet long and about fifteen feet wide. It is full of brambles, couch grass, plants and mess.

This will require days and days of serious weeding. Re-landscaping the sloping terrace at the back, building up the bank with all the weeds from the front.   Covering the area with weedproof fabric. Trying to find the time to cover it with a mulch. And then next year I will have the whole area ready for more fruit production.

Do I have time for this? Hardly.   This is too big a garden for a part timer as I am obliged to be.   But once the idea took hold I had visions of how it will look.

So today it was on with the fork work, the weeding, the hoiking of clods onto the back of the huge terrace and planting perennials in between.

Andrew has warned me that his crocosmias are greedy feeders.   So I have removed them from the squished parts of the calabert garden and given them front space in between two black currant bushes.   Around them I have planted all the lily bulbs left over from last year.

Eventually – and I mean next year – I will underplant this entire area with daffodils, tulips and more crocosmia.   But for now just seeing the bare earth after almost four years of weeds is a thrill.

Tonight I promise to retire to the bath with Pride and Prejudice. It’s time for my annual reading of that lovely tome. And it will prevent me from getting any more over ambitious ideas.