IT IS REALLY ME

So it is over a year since the operation on my neck.

So much has happened.

My talented brother Steve died at the age of 85 and we had a wonderful send off for him.

In the garden we are waiting for the paths to be redone, we keep and lose gardeners, R has radically swept away veg beds but has recently been spreading the snowdrops yet more.

We are beyond the start of spring, the thrush and wren are belting it out and the woodpecker is drumming in the trees. We have had ducks on the pond and the heron most days for breakfast.

So to some pics - Fatsia in fine fettle

Camellia by the shed with both pink and white flowers

Clematis armandii loaded with flowers 

the wild daffs by the path in the wood

and one of the hellebores.

The weather has been WET!!! we have yet an other spring coming up in the lawn and everywhere is boggy. As I am limited to movement with a rollator there are areas inaccessible to me.

We are still waiting for hedgehogs to take up residence but have spied some  mice. My grandson Robin says there are newts in the pond.

So what to do, well Damson Press are publishing a pamphlet of my poems - I wonder when the poet laureate is retiring? But he is much younger than I.

Title poem -

THAT WAS THEN

Legs less limber, he walks the fells

In his head, sees things as they were,

Remembers trees now fallen, walls gone.

Where there was a path is bracken,

Chest high and laced with bramble,

Pasture is bog, fields scrub.

He thinks his way down to the beck

And climbs the fence, can almost smell

The sausages baked in the fire

His mother made, taste the cold water.

The brown stones in the river bed 

Are still slippery and hurt his feet.

And he can hear the raven call

As it sheds air from its wings

And falls whirling from a crag.

His collie nuzzles at his hand

And he strokes it’s head,

Takes a deep breath and smiles.

But that was then, and now

He puts the kettle on, makes tea,

Retrieves a biscuit from its tin,

Puts his feet up by the fire,

Gets out his iPad, opens Kindle,

And escapes from reality.

Time for a coffee . . . . 

STILL ALIVE

But not gardening. Watching R weeding and pruning and trimming and planning with help from Sam - yes we have our previous gardener back.

What can I say after a long time? Well I had five discs in my neck trimmed, and the bone - it is a bit like a minor stroke affecting the right side of the body. My grip is dodgy, my balance is poor and I fall over. I still drive but walk using a rollator. Enough of some of my ailments. The garden has been abundant especially fruit - apples, pears, plums, gages and damsons. We lost a branch off the greengage with the weight of fruit. And there are butterflies everywhere.

This is the front and some observations - the box ball on the left is blighted and has been removed. The small maple belongs to my daughter-in-law who is about to present us with a grandson. The buddleia beyond the box has been removed and the dead wisteria in that bed has leaves.

Autumn is already showing its colours in our maple and Euonymus.

This has been a hydrangea summer with the usual Annabelle splendid and here Hydrangea paniculata thriving under the cherry.

What else - more pics - 

And we still have the odd squirrel for R to shout at but rabbits seem to have gone so I wonder if this is a myxomatosis year. The snails and slugs of course slither on.

And so to a photo of the head gardener labouring next to the elephant grass she dislikes.

So not a long blog but at least one done - at the prompting of my daughter.

Now out to lap the house to achieve my number of steps.

BLOSSOMING

Well at least something is blossoming if not I.  So here are loads of cherry, damson etc

Note the missing veg beds - the lady now in charge of the garden has wielded her mighty trowel.

And the rose bed is turning into lawn. The next steps are path improvements.

More blossom 

 Here are Roly and India by the big damson. 

So that is it, having to do this on the iPad as iMac too out of date for Google.

CANNOT GARDEN ON WARD FIVE, TWO, FOUR, SIX, DISCHARGE UNIT AND ACUTE MEDICAL UNIT

 Not allowed plants in my room in hospital. now recovering from my neck surgery for cervical myelopathy.

Garden handed over to R.

Thought I looked a bit like Doc from Back to the Future but wrong - more like Mad Jack from Father Ted and Craggy Island.

Nearly 8 weeks since had five discs operated on in my neck and finally home. Walking with a frame.

Missed a big chunk of spring.

R has seen newts in pond and there were two hares in the garden. The woodpecker is drumming, the chiffchaff chiffchaffing. She is weeding. 

Blossom everywhere wonderful, especial;y the cherries and the damsons. Hope we do not get frost. It has been a very dry month or so.

What?

Do my exercises - okay.

ALL I WANT

 

is legs that work, brain that works, and some chocolate

I have had to resort to walking with a rollator

in between falling over. I cannot drive my automatic car. My days of golf are over and I am fed up with hospitals. I was banned from climbing the ladder into the loft to get down the Christmas decorations.

At the midwinter solstice and the wind was howling in the trees, rain hammering the windows and dark at four o’clock.

The garden is a mess but underneath the magnolia stellata by the door daffodils and snowdrops have pushed up from the earth.

We have had some snow briefly but it soon went.

The commonest animal we see are delivery men and the postman -  but the heron is back by the pond. So are the pair of mallard. Glad I am not a frog, or newt, or toad.

C has given us a hedgehog house for Christmas. Might move in there soon.

Apparently I have something called cervical myelopathy. After trying Preston NHS treatment was to be in months so my son got me an appointment, albeit privately, in Leeds.

I am now waiting for a neck operation to sort out my prolapsed discs that are pressing on my spinal cord.

Joy!

Not gardening so R has brought in the professionals. For now it is her garden.

Typing is hard work as my arms and hands do not move under my control.

Here are some pics. Next blog - ?when as fingers not working very well.

My revolution is done, now for Rosey.

AUTUMN TAIL END

 What a lovely sunny crisp day down by the bay, cotoneaster berries flourishing and nearby the black bryony hanging in poisonous ropes in the hedge.

But no it is not at home - the tide has gone out and the fog rolled in.

There is still colour in then garden, calendulas and nasturtiums.

However many of the leaves have fallen and are blown away, mainly under shrubs where they can rot down as a mulch.

The big cherry still has a few and the beech hedge is well coloured.

The gardener has removed the last of the buddleia from by the septic tank and R wants miscanthus to replace it - we have some so will need dividing and replanting. At least with the tank and our own borehole we do not have to pay water rates (yet) nor contribute to the pollution of our rivers.

In the main path up the garden a couple of shaggy parasol fungi have erupted. We do not seem to have had as many fungi this year but have no idea why - perhaps the wet year has drowned the lot? It has been exceptionally wet and that is saying something for it always rains a lot here. I have decided to cease mowing although the grass is a bit long as it is so boggy.

Well, that all folks, hard frosts at night, snow forecast but missed us, my knees gone and wobbly so physics and doctors and so on - exercises for strength and balance, out walking, well stumbling along walking stick in hand.

So I will leave you with the fatsia in full bloom and the rose on the shed still in flower.

This weekend twenty to thirty thousand people will descend on our town for the annual Dickensian Festival - locally known as the Dickfest. We pray for good weather but it looks like it might rain as it often does here.

WHAT A GREY DAY

 For sitting by the wood burner and toasting your feet. Under high pressure the weather does not change much. 

R is interested in getting in a garden company to do stuff - which as all I do is fall over and cut a little stuff back might be a good idea.

Still have some lingering photos a bit late but here they are and then I can archive them.

So, the stream (drain) from the field at the back is pouring water into the garden and the leaves from the trees are blocking channels causing overflow etc etc. I wonder how much an acre of paving or concrete would cost. Then it could just be lots off pots?

Just been to Winchester Cathedral and we think we have water problems. Here is the Gormley in the Crypt - flooded.

This is how it feels to walk our lower garden.

So we are now on winter time and all is going dark. We have Bonfire night ahead and this endless US election. Floods in Spain and drones bombing all over the place. There is enough misery in the world without Putin putting his boot in (rhyme). Why cannot everyone be nice to one another? 

So we have had another gale and sticks are everywhere, rooks sit in the tops of the leafless trees and caw loudly.

Oh! For spring.

Just had an email from my cousin in NZ where it is spring. Too old to move out there now. What I need is a lot of money, a private plane and a house in Nelson or on the Coromandel for the winter.

There is not a breath of wind here, it is overcast and chilly and damp. The pheasants seem happy though. Video is a bit gloomy.

Now the iCloud will not recognise my password - Aaaaargh!