August 2013 was coming to a close and, while Commando ran off into the drizzly rain for his second eighteen miles I spent a lazy morning messing about in the garden planting seeds. It had the makings of an idyllic and relaxed day but, as usual, things didn’t go as planned…
On Friday night I harvested the seeds from the allium in the front garden and I’m hopeful of getting some little ones going over winter in the mini greenhouse. The idea of a sizeable clump of those beautiful spiky purple balls swaying in the breeze is quite appealing and I’m going to be disappointed if it all comes to nothing. There was also a free packet of black cornflower seeds in one of the magazines for the ship so I planted those too. Cornflowers seem to do quite well in my garden so I’m quite hopeful for them and black cornflowers will certainly be unusual.
Probably I should have gone for a walk but Commando had decided to do a city run, the garden was calling and besides, I hate walking in the rain. Even after he left I procrastinated, cleaning the kitchen, sorting washing, fixing a pair of trousers anything to avoid the rain. What I could really do with is a real greenhouse, one I can go inside and stay dry but, then, it might be difficult to get me back out again.
Recently I’ve gathered a few seed pods from various places, some of which I probably shouldn’t have been gathering seeds in but they’re only seeds eh? No harm done. There were some field poppy seeds from the roadside, some oriental poppy heads from…well I’m not saying about those and some tremezia seed heads, you know about those but keep quiet ok? Whether any of them will actually grow remains to be seen but I’m keeping my fingers crossed, especially about the tremezia. Everything is now all planted up in Little pots and labeled so I know what they are if and when they sprout.
As I was in seed planting mode I went through my stash of seed packets in the cupboard and also planted up some little pots for the tiny kitchen windowsill. The plan is to have herbs to cut in the winter but lack of light could be a problem. There was already basil, some week looking chives, parsley and coriander (both well past their best now) and a small pot I put a piece of ginger root in last week. Apparently you can grow ginger from the root (or to be more precise, rhizome) indoors and the one I bought from the supermarket had a couple of likely looking eyes, or growth buds. Now a little row of pots has joined them all. There’s orange thyme, oregano, marjoram and lemon grass. Will any of it grow? Who knows but I guess it’s worth a try and the thought of fresh herbs right there in the kitchen in the winter is enticing.
The one thing I didn’t plant was the elephant garlic seeds. They’re not properly dried out yet so they will have to wait until another day. I did give the pots on the patio a bit of a revamp though, took out some of the welsh poppies that have taken over a bit and replanted them in the garden, planted the pansies I picked up in Sainsbury’s and sprinkled a few left over seeds for good measure.
Yesterday Commando and I talked about moving the shed. Right now it’s down at the bottom of the garden by the veg plot and it’s beginning to fall apart. Our back garden is triangular and, behind the shed there’s a bit of garden we can’t get to, not a very big bit but still, it’s going to waste right now. Commando has been thinking about getting a new shed and putting it where the mini greenhouse is now, at the side of the gym. Of course that would free up the end of the garden. Maybe we could expand the veg plot!
Talking about veg, there are two more yellow courgettes growing in the tubs and one big yellow flower half hidden by the giant silvery leaves. Who knew courgette flowers were so lovely? In the little blue pot right next to the tub another lovely yellow flower has come out. This one is calendula, from some seeds I planted a while ago. There were just a few left in a packet from last year and I scattered them in the pot just on the off chance they came to something. To be honest I’d more or less forgotten about them until I saw the flower.
Commando came back from his eighteen miles just as I was finishing up. For someone who’d just run eighteen miles he looked pretty good, hot, sweaty but not totally exhausted. He did it in under three hours which was his target time, didn’t get lost and wasn’t troubled by his toe blister. The sun did come out when he was about five miles from home but, other than that, it was perfect running weather.
The only real problem he had was aching shoulders. That may sound like a strange place to get an ache but I remember having the same problem when I first started walking the long miles. It’s all about the arm swinging you see. Believe it or not, holding your arms in the correct position and swinging them when you’re power walking or running is actually very important. Ok so it may look a bit odd but it helps with speed. Really, if you don’t believe me try walking without moving your arms. Anyway I gave him a shoulder massage with peppermint body butter and he said he felt a lot better.
After he’d recovered we went up the Big Hill in the car to get the food shopping, including a bag of ice cubes and some bags of frozen raspberries for smoothie making. Yes I know paying 99p for ice cubes is an extravagance when my freezer has an ice making compartment but the rate of smoothie consumption is greater than the speed of ice cube production so every so often I buy a bag to top up supplies.
When we got home I grabbed a couple of bags from the car boot, Commando grabbed the rest and we walked round to the French windows of the gym to go inside. “You’ll have to open the door because I haven’t got my keys,” Commando said. This was not what I wanted to hear, I was pretty sure my keys were in my coat pocket where I’d shoved them when I came in yesterday. The problem was my coat was inside the house. I never normally leave the house without my keys but I thought Commando had his, obviously he thought I had mine in my bag too. Oops!
There was some turning out of my handbag onto the decking just in case. This was more in desperation than expectation. Lip balms, receipts, a couple of odd bits of chewing gum, some sea shells, some loose coins, purse, Filofax, port security card, name badge and several unidentified bits of fluffy stuff that might once have been sweets or more chewing gum but no keys. Bugger!
When we left, CJ was at home so there was still hope. We hammered on the door. We waited. Nothing happened. Then Commando noticed the lack of scruffy trainers on the mat by the door, he’d obviously gone out! This was bad news, very bad. I put my bags of shopping down on the decking, the ones with the ice cubes and raspberries in, and fished out my phone. The battery was low, close to running out, could things get any worse?
The phone went to voicemail when I rang CJ. Even so, I tried again about six times just in case. Funny the things you do when you’re desperate. There was some swearing and some accusations were made. Commando was cross with me for going out without my keys and, frankly, I was pretty cross with him for going out without his. Before my phone completely died I had one final shot in the dark and rang Bard, just in case CJ had gone round there. He does spend a lot of time at his brother’s flat.
Bard sounded like he’d just woken up which didn’t exactly fill me with hope. “No I haven’t seen him,” he said when I’d explained the situation. “What are you going to do?”
“Stand in the garden and argue with Dad I guess,” I said, “while watching the shopping defrost.”
“Shit!”
“Exactly.”
So we sat on the loungers glaring at each other. Then my phone rang. It was CJ, “why have I got six missed calls from you?” he asked.
“We’ve locked ourselves out, where are you?”
“Just walking over the Big Bridge, I’ll be about ten minutes.”
“Have you got your key?” I had my fingers crossed when I asked.
“Of course I have, what idiot would go out without a key?”
Coming from the lad who has spent two nights sleeping on the sun loungers in the garden because he’s locked out that was a bit rich I thought. I’ll remind him of that the next time he locks himself out for sure.
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