Elsewhere in the garden we’ve been a little more active: the penstemons are chopped down, and all are showing good new growth from the base. During much of the process I was supervised at close quarters by our resident robin: I hope that the disturbance of dead leaves provided him or her with a spot of lunch. The garden waste bin is in consequence full, which is the way we like it the day before it is emptied, given that we have to pay annually up front for the collection each fortnight at £2 a pop.
It won’t be long before we can plant out the leeks, which have germinated well. I potted them up a few day ago, and they are now nearly big enough to plant. It’s all too tempting, when there are some fine spring days to get stuff out too early, so we shall sit on our hands for another week or two before sowing runner beans (indoors) and carrots (out). The weather is see-sawing between winter and spring, so patience will be repaid.
The pandemic has - in some ways - been a godsend for HM Courts and Tribunals Service. A former colleague who sat for the last time last week reports that both the prosecutor and the clerk appeared by video link, as had been the case on his penultimate sitting. I’m glad I took the decision to stand down when I did a year ago: this is no way to conduct a court, even if it does save money. The delays that have resulted from lockdown risk damaging justice, of course, particularly when it comes to trials, since memory gets progressively less reliable as time goes by. Glad I don’t have to worry about it as a practitioner, but I do worry about justice itself which, if delayed, is largely denied, so the saying goes. I worry also about the proposed extra police powers: Montesquieu must be spinning in his grave.
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