Digging without drama

The young lady who comes to do the garden now comes on Tuesdays - she is a great asset as she has enough initiative to get on with it and enough sense to ask me first when necessary. She took some of the spinach her predecessor left as I don't like it (the slugs do!!). I now no longer have an apple tree that touches the ground (but buckets of apples - and no room in the freezer!!) and no longer get a faceful of buddleia when I go down the path (not pleasant if the buddleia is wet and potentially dangerous if there are bees on it). I didn't want to cut it back while there were still flowers on it for the bees and butterflies to enjoy: I was delighted to see both a week or so back. Now the balance has shifted to mostly brown decay - the downside of both it and lilac.

There is still plenty to be done in the garden but gradually it is getting tidier. So much of what I had intended to do this year remains undone, in part the result of my best mate having had cancer and therefore having been out of action for most of the year so far (and most of the rest too, I suspect) and also in part due to the miserable weather (my get up and go is so much more there when it's sunny, and I can make a pleasant day out of going to see bathroom fittings or whatever). I wouldn't be at all surprised to see GPs inundated not only with swine flu but also with depression - three non-summers on the trot must have affected others as well as me. Getting back to study will help.