In spring, an old man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of....

.... gardening.  The leeks have started to germinate, as have seed harvested from last year’s rudbeckias.  The potatoes are slowly chitting in an egg tray in the garage, and we’re enjoying an increasing display of spring flowers.  Martyn has moved some rocks around to fill space created by landscapers Ben and Duncan, so we shall be looking to improve the soil a bit and transplant some alpines.  My next job is to chop down the cornus.  They have provided welcome winter colour, but now that they’re shooting vigorously it’s time to hack them down.  I’ve already given the hydrangea its annual haircut, and shall get the penstemon chopped down next month.  Once the soil is warmer, we can start to think about planting up all the new garden we’ve gained.  I moved some roses up to the raised bed the other day, but am not optimistic.  The soil is awful.

The moving of the rocks proved to be the last straw for our old wheelbarrow.  It has had an interesting career: the original mild steel pan rusted out after a few years, and I replaced it with a plastic one.  In that, we transported a ton of rockery rocks from the front apron to the back garden, and then again up to the rockery.  It has also schlepped countless heavy bags of compost, grit and muck from the car boot to the back garden, so it has served us well.  We found pan N°3 on line, and I have fitted it to the frame today.  The frame is looking rather tired now too, so I’ll maybe take a wire brush to the rust and see if we can get another few years out of it.  The pan comes with replacement bolts, but you have to drill the holes to meet the holes on the frame - six of them.  It took me until hole six to realise that the drill was still set on ‘unscrew’ for the marathon model railway dismantling up aloft.  I wondered why it was making such heavy weather of the job!  Well, all’s well that ends well, to quote another poet, so we have a serviceable brouette once again.

.... and to planning bureaucracy.  I’d mentioned that we were aiming to cut the fleet to one vehicle and convert the smaller garage into a study/bedroom.  Although the latest planning regulations appear to allow such conversions under the Permitted Development rules, the toon cooncil is insisting that we submit a planning application, having already taken a fee for the preliminary opinion, which it delivered after double the stated period for a reply.  Martyn has spent days assembling the dossier, and we spent a while this afternoon filling in the form, which asks the same questions whether you’re replacing a garage door with a window or building a bloody great housing estate.  Some hundreds of pounds later, we have filed the application, and await the supplementary questions.  Deep Sigh.