Hurrah, fully vaccinated and the waiting period over, I was grabbed by my wonderful friend Michelle for a long long overdue shopping trip. After two years of no shopping the state of my underwear drawer was, frankly, tragic and a little disgusting. There wasn’t a strip of elastic in there that wasn’t desiccated, I think the fact my knickers stayed up at all was due to prayer and a large bum.
We had a lovely time, we are both the same type of shopper, list at the ready, get in, get stuff, get out (although we did have a little mooch about in the homeware department, I bought cushions I didn’t need).
We had a dirty burger in McDonalds for lunch (that’s that itch scratched for another 6 months) and were home not long after lunchtime with enough shopping bags to club a whale to death. So that’s over, won’t need to go shopping again for another 6 months until I need big thick socks and thermal underwear.
It was a bit strange being out and about in the City after 2 years of nothing but work and home, but I didn’t feel unsafe (although Shell kept yelling at me for touching doors and handrails). Here’s hoping we can return to something approaching normal soon.
Speaking of work, I’ve a story that makes me smile, I shall never take catnip for granted again.
I work in a garden center, mostly the customers are happy and it’s a nice environment and I basically get paid to talk about plants all day, which in fairness, I’d do for nothing, but it is nonetheless, retail. I’ve been sworn at a few times, which really doesn’t phase me, I’ve a mouth on me like a navvy when the occasion calls for it, and often, when it doesn’t. Swear all you like, I’ll be silently judging you on vocabulary, inventiveness and delivery. Once a chap tried to nail me with a two fingered jab to the shoulder, but, I’ve got a gypsy cob and I dealt with him in exactly the same way I deal with Rosie when she’s being an asshole, I sidestepped his attack, shouted NO at the top of my voice, pointed at him with a shaken finger and accompanied it with the cob death stare “do it again and I will punch you in the snout”. He abandoned his trolly of plants and literally ran away. The one thing I struggle with at work is stupid…. And I’m going to share with you my latest encounter with stupid.
Customer: I’d like some catnip plants
Me: No problem, we’ve got several in stock, I’ll show you where they are
Me: Here we go, Nepeta, also called catnip or catmint
Customer: No, I want catnip
Me: Nepeta is the Latin name for catnip
Customer: I don’t want Latin catnip, I want English catnip
Me: {gazes into the void behind the customers eyeballs realising that any kind of discussion of Latin naming conventions of plants would take 47 years to make a dent in the stupid}
Me: (and I’m not proud of myself, but, needs must….) I’m very sorry, we only have Latin catnip in stock just at the moment
Customer: takes a deep breath to begin rant
God of Retail: I’ve got your back Mrs Casey
My walkie talkie: Hello Becki?
Me to Customer: Apologies, I really must answer this
Me: Power walks to the yard and hides for 10 minutes
My husband, on hearing this, thinks the customer had a valid point, this is what would happen if you go around giving your cat Latin catnip…
Back at Purbeck, it’s weeding and planting season, weed and plant, weed and plant, sometimes for variety I plant and then weed, and I spend a lot of time walking around with a watering can or hosepipe. Sometimes it’s hard to see where work ends and home begins, it’s all very similar, I’m basically owned by plants and ponies. No ponies at work sadly.
I’ve been going on about a new reading garden for ages and ages, it needed deer proof fencing and I thought I’d got everything I needed except the actual skill to put it up. What I needed was someone who wasn’t a hopeless idiot . I needed Mr James.
Although he’s a busy busy man, he agreed to come over and rescue me. Taking a look at the bit’s and pieces I’d bought for the fencing, I didn’t have even half of what I needed so he spent a morning taking me to builders merchants and fencing shops and we got what he actually needed to do the job!
He then cracked on putting in fencing posts, putting up trellis and then the chain link to create a safe space for my plants. It’s perfect, we have trellis at the two ends so I can grow climbers and chain link at the sides so light can still get into the greenhouse and most importantly, the deer can kiss my ass, my plants are not your snacks this time.
Fencing complete, it’s time to play place the plants! I’ve been hoarding this lot for more than a year, begging them from neighbours, fishing them out of skips, bagging the 50p bargains at work and tending to them in the polytunnel. Had a lot of fun moving them about getting the right feel, channelling my inner Titchmarsh.
The rest of the gardens are full of colour and flowers and I wanted something a little different for my little secret garden. This garden is all about foliage, soft grasses and beautiful leaves and the star of the show, the wonderful Cercis tree my darling hub bought me for Christmas. This is such a beauty of a tree, in early spring it flowers on bare wood, tiny but gorgeous pink flowers, then the leaves come in and they are heart shaped. This variety is called forest pansy, over the year, the leaves turn pink and then in the autumn they go a vivid bright purple, then they drop off and it’s a twig for the winter, but I don’t expect to be sitting out here in the winter, so that’s not a problem. It’s spent the last 6 months in the conservatory with me whispering “please don’t die, we’ll get you planted out soon” every time I watered it. Other feature plants are fatsia, bottlebrush bushes, a huge cordyline and lots of heucheras.
It took two days to plant this lot, and that was with Hubby helping, I definitely felt it in my back once it was all done, that was a lot of holes and a lot of digging.
I’m really happy with how it’s turned out, it looks a little contrived at the moment, but once the plants get going, I think this is going to be a really special space.
So reading garden, check, thank you Darren.
MrC has also been doing projects, there was this giant rock (that broke the trolly we tried to move it on, Tim made a new one with the old wheels, it’s a lot more sturdy)
And then he made a frame for my beautiful, but slightly monstrous Monstera plant that had got a bit big for it’s boots and collapsed under it’s own weight.
He also had to sort out the latest tree disaster, I’m not even sure what is going on here, it’s a bit of a mess, but we’ve chopped enough of it off it’s not resting on the floor anymore, I don’t think it’s going to be feasible to save it, but we’ll see.
The Caseys Snr come over every week and mow lawns and pull up weeds with remarkable efficiency, the ponies appreciate their efforts, they often get dried nettles, goosegrass or milk thistle as a treat.
Sadly Penny the duck didn’t make it through last winter, but her daughter flit and her little entourage regularly sit outside the backdoor and quack until someone feeds them, not my ducks, but I love having them about, which is why the boot-room is full of duck food.
The veggie garden is looking awesome, we’re eating new potatoes, broadbeans, cabbage, carrots, onions and all sorts direct from the plot, all delicious, all powered by horsepoo.
Now that I’ve finally planted out my giant plant hoard, the polytunnel and greenhouse have returned to their proper job, growing crops. Tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, chilies, melon and new for this year, loofas, these aren’t for eating but will hopefully help me wash some off the dirt I’m always covered in. I’m quite proud that all of these are planted up in homemade compost.
From this…
To this…
The flower beds are looking amazing, when I think back to what we took on and where we are today, it’s such an astounding difference, I can only thank all the people who’ve helped us and still do, we’ve created something wonderful.
The ponies and cat are both fine, although they all seem to spend most of their life asleep, I kinda envy them, just a little.
countrysideinsanity 