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So that is it, having to do this on the iPad as iMac too out of date for Google.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