What day of the week is it?
Snoozing!
Mid-summer, and time rattles along like a slow train. The Head Passenger-gardener dozes off, misses a few stations - oops! Where are we? What day of the week is it? Monday? Friday? And does it matter?
Thursday 23rd January
Non-Gardening Partner has been on holiday, so he's been available for me to organise. It's drizzle-rained for four or five days, so the dogs have been bored. They've often been wet and muddy (floors and couch covers have suffered) and we haven't even gone to the DP. The DP? Like toddlers, dogs get terribly excited by certain nouns, and start barking 'Now! Let's go! Now!'
I've become semi-fatally (?) addicted to watching old episodes of The Bill. I think there are over two thousand of these, so the garden could well suffer through my absence.
Even Buster the Cat is Bored!
The rain has been great for the garden. Such differences in temperatures, though - we are insular, stuck in the middle of the raging southern ocean. One day thirty degrees (Celsius), far too hot for me to garden, so I've been watching the tennis on TV with the air-con on. The next day - twelve, raining, with the wood burner going. There's been quite a bit of lolling around inside the house, which the furry animals love. Every time someone wanders into the kitchen - a cat snack! A dog treat!
The Garden?
So what's been happening in the garden? Huge strips of gum bark are littering my finely manicured lawns. Just kidding (about the lawns). The Lychnis is finished, and I need to trim and/or pull out these wonderfully basic summer perennials.
Other happenings - a new piano duet (a transcription of a Schumann trio), and a new Grandbaby, too. Very exciting. Web-wise I've spent hours and hours updating the Moosey Calendars for 2016.
New 2016 Calendar :- Have a peep at my latest 2016 Garden Calendar.
In the real world, old calendars get thrown into the rubbish - maybe the ones with the prettiest pictures turn up at the Charity shop. There's a limit to the number of pictures one can cut out and display. I still haven't successfully worked out how many years go by before a calendar 'fits' again, if you know what I mean.
I'm also setting up a sewing room, and have purchased a beautiful old oak desk from my friend. I am going to sew groovy frocks, legging, and pinafores for the Grandtoddler. It's really easy to convert an adult merino top into toddler tights. And frocks are such fun to construct. Yeay!
The Dog-Park Pack
All this, and the dogs, too. We miss our dog park pack, so this morning we are off to see them all. We will run around, chase the ball, walk, and natter. Looks like the rain has cleared, so when I get home I'll be able to start the great garden clean-up.
White Roses
Later...
Four barrowfuls of trimmings dumped over by the fence. It's become rather hot (for me), so I'm inside for a short break. Everywhere I walk in the garden I can see things that need doing. Everything has gone 'bouff' and flopped in the rain. I'm going to go outside every half-hour to fill the barrow, and take photographs.
Then I can slink back inside to the tennis (Australian Open), the jigsaw (a murky pond in Switzerland), and my book. I have discovered a writing pair (mother and son) called 'Charles Todd' - delicate, interesting detective stories set around 1920 in England, when 'Scotland Yard' was a baby.
Tomorrow I am going hiking in the hills. Can I still do this? Absolutely! I'll take extra water (there'll be no tree cover where we're going, climbing up the Tussocklands Track to the saddle above Lake Coleridge). Don't want any 'Elderly Hiker Succumbs to Heat Exhaustion' news headlines!