Small things...
Gunnera Spikes
I've been thinking. So 'Small things please small minds', do they? Well, someone who can be inspired and excited by something tiny and relatively insignificant is the luckiest, I reckon! Who needs the big stuff? Big stuff usually involves big money. anyway...
Tuesday 2nd July
I love the small things in my life, and I reckon my mind is quite big - sometimes too big for my gardening boots! Today I'm terribly excited to have bought a Biggles book for fifty cents, evening reading material for the cottage. This will fit in very nicely with my 'Enjoy Reverting to Childhood before Going Seriously Senile' regime (for example, reading Enid Blyton). I am promised daring adventures (ooh goodie) though I expect they might be a bit 'boysie'.
I've got squillions of balls of thick merino wool (oh so cheap, and beautifully purple) from the Charity Shop - I'm going to crochet an oval rug while I TV-couch-cycle le Tour de France. I'm in Corsica at the moment, loving the fact that it's an island (I live on an island), looking at the scary little houses perched right on the very edge of the cliff tops and wondering if I could live there.
Trimming the Giant Gunnera
Good gardeners will always be extremely pleased with small accomplishments, like spending half an hour on next-to-nothing, picking out the tiniest, nastiest weeds. But today, to restore size balance, I've gardened for four hours trimming back the giant Gunnera by Middle Bridge.
Little Mac the Cat, Big Gunnera
Gunnera is one of the oddest perennial plants I grow. Maybe in the grand scheme of things I haven't done much at all, but the stalks are rough and spiky, some as tall as me, and the leaves are enormous - Mr Kim Dotcom could easily hide behind one! Yet it can all be cut down with the kitchen scissors...
Dead Gunnera Leaves
Alas, my older-lady balance was not to be trusted, so rather than perch on the giant roots and lean precariously out I eventually had to stand in the rushing, running, icy water. Aargh! Snow-melt is fairly alarming for the feet. In mid-winter I can only last about ten minutes.
Cat News
Non-Gardening Partner has sent a notice around his work regarding the black cat needing a home. At this stage I'm neutral regarding whether he comes here or not. If he has to, then I'll do my very best. Of course I will make room in my heart for another cat.
Winter Cat in the Willow Stump
And Lilli-Puss has turned up again, limping - what has she been up to? I've poked and stroked the limpy leg and I can't feel or find anything. She does tend to leap down from high places...
Thursday 4th July
Aha! Independence Day! Another day cutting back more giant Gunnera leaves and dreaming about going trekking in Corsica - the mountains look beautiful, with rock-needles, rock-blobs, and rock-cliffs (as seen from le Tour de France's helicopter cameras). I have fun looking for routes up through cracks in the rough terrain.
Tiromoana Walkway :- This is an account of my very first trip on the Tiromoana Walkway.
Yesterday was a day off from the garden - a lovely winter walk over farm hills down to a deserted beach. There's simple happiness in stretching out the legs and plodding as the hours dribble away. There are three of us hikers, and so (in the spirit of Enid Blyton's Secret Seven) we have formed a club. We are the Triplodocus Tramping Club (that is, three old plodding dinosaurs). No password or clubhouse as yet, but such fun! Small things again? Hee hee...
Biggles Book!
Enjoying Biggles...
My hiking friend reckons I will enjoy Biggles, so I'm saving him for bed tonight. But I didn't realise he was a proper man - oops, that all sounds a little risque! I'd better get gardening before I say something totally disgraceful!
Five Hours Later...
Apart from a delightful interlude playing chamber music, I've been busy cutting down the Gunnera. I have finished all the clumps along the water race. My removal plan has been organised, too. The leaves are in their own piles - they'll dry quickly and will go on the bonfire sooner. The stalks are very watery, and will take a lot longer to dry out and be burnable. So their piles are separate.
I've been in the water twice, and now my feet are tingling in warm, dry socks! I'm off to feed Lilli-Puss and check her paw. And then - yippee! I have the hugest crochet hook in the world and I'm going to simultaneously start my purple rug and finish my cycling tour of Corsica. What a pretty island!