In the garden

The weather down here on the Fylde Coast is incredible! I know it's hot everywhere, but this is almost unbearable - even for me. It is so wonderful to feel the heat through to your bones, to feel the sun on your skin, blue cloudless skies and the tarmac melting, but when it feels as if you are being grilled alive, it becomes difficult to actually DO anything!

My mother has a lifelong habit of buying just what she needs for that day, rather than shopping a week at a time, so every morning she gives me a list and I head for the shops. Normally this is fine, a break from the confines of the house, a chance for a good bracing trek to and from the shops with the wheeled trolley. But, not in this heat, please, not every day, sometimes twice, for three bananas, a litre of milk and other small sundries, please, no!

Still, when I get back I can head into the garden and weed to my heart's content, plant out bedding plants, cut back overgrown shrubs and pull out dead daffodil leaves. Today Dad, who is sadly unable to do most of the things that he used to, suggested that I might like to tackle the dead ceanothus tree! The question "what, in this heat?" did cross my mind, but I love a challenge! Unfortunately, over the years, as he has become less able to do physical tasks, Dad has given away a lot of his vast arsenal of tools, including most of his saws! Armed with a pruning saw I attacked the dead tree, shedding several pints of sweat in the process!

It was well worth cutting down, and great to see the result. The bed is now in full sun and ready to be planted up with whatever takes their fancy. A trip to the garden centre is already pencilled in for later in the week, before I head home! There does however remain the problem of dealing with several feet of trunk and half a dozen branches, currently behind the garden shed . . . . My mother suggested I cut it up and put it in the recycling bin . . . .

Where's the gin . . . . ?!