Flaming June

Beds 4 and 5, and greenhouses: 1st June 2019

Veg Patch - 1st June 2019. Getting there!

Bed No. 3 - 1st June 2019

New shelving created by Paul; for my aubergines, sweet peppers, cucumbers....

'Flags' appeared out of the blue by lunchtime 1st June 2019.

The first of June -  and amazed at how the garden is coming together! 
Every morning I take a cup of tea and ‘open up’ the greenhouses and inspect the flower-beds and veg patch to see what has happened overnight (being reminded of that pesky mouse!).  And as soon as I get home from work, I’m up there again, and particularly at this time of the year, to be astounded that the peas and beans seem to have grown four inches in the space of eight hours, and there are new colourful flowers happily nodding in the breeze.  However, in proper liability-mode, I’m not terribly good at identifying any of the new flora that is emerging.  Paul will often ask what the latest specimen is called, and my response is generally along the lines of… “well, it’s...umm….. white…..and ummm…. quite tall”, and then pull out all the box of labels and empty seed packets that I have kept over the past year or so to try and identify it.  Obviously, I have great plans to systematically work it all out, catalogue and display, and even have a number of sketches of where some plants have been placed but, of course, that doesn’t necessarily capture those that may have self-seeded, or the ones I completely forgot about…. so this plan is also another work-in-progress!
 
The last few days have been beautifully warm and sunny, but earlier in the week my legs and feet got so cold I made up a hot-water bottle.  In May!!  However, it could be that I’m generally a bit ‘off’…. and I’m sick and tired of sounding like a miserable old fart, but I have been totally exhausted again.  Last night I was in bed and asleep by 8.45pm; and as it is light here until about 9.30pm, that’s even more weird!  However, I have also been waking up very early, with the birds at 4.30am when the sun is coming up , and sometimes I don’t get back to sleep properly.  We have a garden-full of birds - robins, thrushes, sparrows, blackbirds, a few swallows and big, fat pigeons - and they must be the noisiest band of reprobates in the county!  It is lovely to hear the birdsong most of the time, but not when I need more kip!!  ALSO, the weekly diabetic injection dosage has been increased and that has had some effect, adversely in some ways.  Cheryl, my diabetic nurse, is phoning me once or twice a week to check how I’m getting on (such a good service from the NHS ‘eh?) and we have decided to go with the increased medication for another couple of weeks as then I will have been taking the drug for two months and I should have adapted to it by then.  If not, well, then the dosage will be reduced again.  I think it’s slowly sorting itself out, but it can be a bit depressing to be honest.  I’m not used to feeling so tired and lack lustre.  However, it could also be a combination of that, getting over the trapped nerve / disc thing (incidentally MUCH, MUCH better) and the fact that is has continued to be absolutely FULL-ON at work!  Yes, that sounds like a stuck record too doesn’t it? It is half-term this week and I did think there might be some respite, but that has been a joke!  Maybe I’m just a bit over-it all at the moment?  Maybe it’s because I know that in less than two weeks Paul and I are going away for four nights to Cornwall, and then at the end of the month we will be jetting off to Verona? It’s that light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel that is drawing me along stumbling and feeling my way!?  As long as I don’t emerge confused and blinking myopically like a mole, then that will be fine!
 
There has been A LOT going on work but I won’t bore you with it here but suffice to say it continues to be busy-busy-busy.  Paul has had short periods of work and then periods of being at No.6 – but he has got on top of quite a few smaller projects at home too, so that is a great outcome.  As I type this, he is operating a show at the Everyman (a studio show).  He is also in the main house tomorrow a four-hour get-in, which is good money, which means doing the ‘out’ next weekend.  He was also in London earlier in the week for two nights doing some event set-up for JP Morgan.  He was meant to go to Glasgow too but they cancelled that last minute (less than a week’s notice), and then yesterday asked if he could go to Gleneagles tomorrow…!  Really!?!   Ordinarily he would have gone but obviously will be at the Everyman, and wouldn’t mess them around at such a late stage.  It can be very frustrating when the event company can be a bit vague at times!
 
What else?  This week I also attended two committee meetings outside of work.  The one was for Friends of St Peter’s / Parochial Church Council (PCC) by way of introduction, as I will be the main contact for the 2020 Open Gardens [OG] event.  And, the other meeting was the last Open Gardens meeting before it goes ahead next weekend - Sunday 9th June.  The meetings couldn’t be more different - the first was held in the Friends / Church administration building, with the ubiquitous faintly musty smell of public spaces, mis-matched chairs and dated decor, and institutional cups and saucers, and a wide range of slightly stained mugs. There was a probably a tea-urn, but I wasn't there long enough to find out, and wasn't offered a cup of tea (how un-British!).  And, the second meeting was held in the local pub - The Corner Cupboard!  So poles apart!! At the PCC meeting I was also the youngest by about twenty years (apart from my OG colleague who is probably in his mid-fifties), but the Chair was a pretty steely woman, probably in her eighties.  She was a force to be reckoned with, so goodness knows what she was like when younger?! However, there was a tendency for the others to chip-in and go off track … remarking on local residents and who-said-what, and when, and recalling incidents from the annals of time.  Actually, I don’t think that is restricted to PCC meetings, as plenty of the ones I have attended at school go off on random tangents!!  Anyway, fortunately, I didn’t have to stay for the whole meeting as was really only there to show my face, and to be introduced.  Obviously, I will be expected to attend future meetings - and that will be interesting as the vast majority of the members are retired and schedule meetings during the working-day because they have a great more flexibility, and nowhere else to be necessarily.  Oh well.
 
Considering the ups and downs of the past few months, I can’t wait to be in that position!!!