I was hale and hearty twenty years ago when we moved into this cottage and determined to have a decent garden...so I set to with a fork and spade and began digging up what was really a small field...
Himself thought I was potty.
But I was going to grow veggies and keep hens as we'd done in the previous cottage and the fact I was beginning with a field full of ruts from tractors and miles of black silage plastic half buried in the earth was simply a bit of a nuisance.
The stuff I unearthed...small pieces of broken china and the handles from iron cooking pots...many, many fragments of clay pipes and once an entire pipe, complete with stem and the bowl. Dark green poison bottles and earthenware pots...and so many old donkey and horse shoes that I stopped counting. There were ancient leather boots and a shoe last...the lids from the cauldrons and perfect china tea-cups...old iron nails without heads and those rough pottery jars which once held marmalade...
I saved everything...nothing was too small or insignificant...
Sometimes I came across big stones that I later used to mark out pathways and we ordered a polytunnel and had two pleasant Germen men put it up properly...
We bought half a dozen Ducks who paddled about happily munching the slugs I unearthed and they lay eggs I sold at the gate...
Then the earth was raked and planted with leeks and carrots and cabbages...someone came by one afternoon and gave us a dozen Plane trees that Himself planted along side the river...and I bought a sack of Daffodil bulbs to plant under the trees...
I planted Lupins and Parsley...bright Scarlet Poppies and Woad...stands of Fennel and Honey-Suckle wherever there was a suitable space...barrowed small stones to make the paths and chose the most scented old Roses to ramble over the fences and the stone built sheds...
It was lovely...there were those odd little Humming Bird Hawk Moths that fly by day and crowds of Peacock butterflies and dozens of tiny appealing Field Mice...
Enough Strawberries and Gooseberries to make jams...Blackcurrants for wine and Red-Currants for sauces...
People used to wander about sniffing and were reluctant to leave...
But then I was admitted to hospital and Doctors sucked their teeth and poked me with needles and x-rayed my chest and they sighed heavily as they held the plates up and prodded me some more.
That was three years ago and my garden began to decline...it's mostly grass now...though the Phlox are still there and so are the stately Elecampanes...the Roses bloom in profusion but we don't have fresh veggies anymore...apart from whatever Himself grows in the tunnel.
Of all I miss the most through this wretched illness, it is the garden. I'd be out there from first light until it grew too dark to see anymore...now I have pots of herbs and flowers that I can reach easily but it isn't quite the same...
The photograph is of the New Dawn rose around the old pig sty door...
Out And About In My New Wheels...
More Huff and Puff continued-
