Looks Like Spring

Sunday 11th April.

The weather is warming up at last, and with it, the need for watering. I have six water butts hidden about my garden, which is necessary in this dry part of the country. But even so, watering takes time. It wouldn’t be so bad if I were up to date with the things I need to do, but I’m not. I’m still rescuing my garden from the last few years’ neglect. One thing I should have done last year was replace the felt on my wendyshed roof (by wendyshed, I mean a wendyhouse which functions as a shed), but someone told me I should use bitumen… two people actually, so it became one of those jobs I meant to get round to and never did, because the cold weather and illness caught up with me. Never mind that it lasted 10 years without bitumen last time. The problem now is that the planks have curled slightly, which makes sharp edges… not good under felt. As I have plans for that bed beside the wendyshed, I have decided to try a different approach. I’ll maybe show some photos when I’ve done it. The big problem is dong it without Hubby noticing and nay-saying, as he often does with my more eccentric ideas. But since he’s barely stepped into the garden recently, I don’t really care (He works away from home a lot, and is an indoor boy, except when it comes to playing trains… but that’s another article, I hope.)

Monday 12th April.

Having said that, Hubby spent some time in the garden yesterday sorting out his track-laying on the new bit of the railway. (another potential article.) We had a bicker over the track bed which I had laid last year. Suddenly there are two sets of points required in a certain extension, which makes the layout trickier as points are straight and that affects the curve. The curves need a 4’ 6” radius or 4’ at an absolute minimum, and in our garden this is a problem becase of lack of space. Last year, when I was working from the plans, I made 4’ 6” radius guides which I could lay out to get the curve, I made a 4’ 6” jig which I could peg into the ground to ensure this radius was followed on every curve, and I laid extra breeze blocks either side of where the plans said the track was to go, to give some flexibility as to exactly where the track went down.

Well, yesterday, the engineer told me that he’s decided he’ll only make do with one set of points—sniff—and not have the siding, because—sniff—it just won’t fit in the way I’ve built it. I was perplexed because on my plans there were no sidings. I was told, rather haughtily, that the sidings have been on the plans for quite a long time. I told my dear engineer that they were not on the plans he gave me, and I would find the plans to show him. He didn’t believe me, but guess what…I have just found the plans, and guess what… no signs of sidings or double points. So he can’t blame the navigator.

I have had to move an aquilegia thanks to this change in plans, just as it was about to flower. It was a huge old wild type, and I’m sure it’s going to suffer or die as a result. However, I have lots of seedlings, and it’s just toooo bad. But I am somewhat vexed.

I’m very glad I didn’t throw the plans away. And I shall be glad when he’s laid the track. I told him that it was his fault anyway. The logic goes like this: Any job which goes wrong, which ought to be his job but which I have to do because he won’t get round to it, is all his fault because he should have done the job in the first place. So any wonky shelves which I put up are his fault, etc. And that includes laying of track bed. It’s his railway after all.

Back to the jobs which need doing. The question is what to do first… and the problem then becomes so huge I don’t want to do any of it. The wendyshed is urgent. My neighbours are getting snotty about my plum tree overhanging their garden, so I need to cut some large branches off while the sap is rising to reduce the risk of silver-leaf disease. It’s a lovely tree and it seems a shame to maim it like this. It wasn’t the Victoria Plum as stated on the label when we moved here though. It’s a huge tree, and the plums, now it’s finally producing, are rather nice, but not, definitely not, Victoria plums.

There’s a lot of stuff in my garden that is junk, but saved because junk is valuable. Some of that needs throwing… there’s a limit to the number of pots I need, surely?

I have decided to move the tropical part of the garden to next to the wendyshed, because the banana roots are in danger of undermining the railway, and that would be a disaster. But that’s where I dumped some of the rubble from the greenhouse bed-building. So that needs moving first.

I need to tidy up the vegetable beds because things are going to need to go out soon.

I need to rearrange some things in the greenhouse because I want to get the membrane down and some things planted in the greenhouse bed.

Aaaagghhh. I sometimes wonder why I do this.