April - oh, be quiet, Eliot!

The landscaping work on the garden is 99% finished, and we’ve started planting.  The bought stuff is in and looking OK, and we’ve planted lots of the cuttings from the cold frame and greenhouse.  I’ve planted a row of box cuttings along the side of the path, which gives me an incentive to live for a few more years! The owners of the house the other side of the now exposed fence have given permission for us to nail on some wires or trellis, so we’ll get on with that when stuff starts growing.  

Back down the slope in the sitooterie, tagetes and rudbeckias have germinated well, as have the leeks, which I potted up yesterday.  The fuchsia cuttings are a bit curate’s egg, but we’ll give them time.  Some of the herbs are germinating: rosemary, tarragon and sage.  Today I have hacked down the holly, pyracantha and laurel up beside the garden bench, and am casting a murderous eye towards the remaining  laurel.  They all grew wild when they could hide among the leylandii: the hedge having gone, they looked pretty straggly.  Well, the pyracantha has taken its revenge: see scalp.

As for other projects, the toon cooncil has ‘validated’ our application to make a habitable room of the small garage, giving itself a target date for decision a month and some days hence.  The builder is keeping a June start date in his diary, so it might be an idea to mark your diaries to avoid the blog for that month.  I get rather intense during building work...

What else?  We’re both now within four weeks of jab2, and are making no travel plans meanwhile.  We have cashed in our loans to the Bank of Cunard, and have more than committed the funds involved to home improvements, and will think about travels only once the situation has improved.  We’re really alarmed by the behaviour of our fellow-citizens, who don’t seem to give a fat fuck whether they acquire or transmit the virus.  Probably a good job that the weather is returning to glacial on Monday.  It is shocking to see how people are gathering in large crowds in parks and on beaches.  The vast amount of litter left behind just reinforces the message that too many of our fellow citizens lack any concept of civic pride or social responsibility.  I blame Thatcher.