annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary
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Garden and that
Swimming again, two days in a row and another booked for tomorrow. It was glorious today, the sea so blue, so flat, so full of people there for the monthly Mental Health Swim. I wished I had a pen and some paper to make notes but as I hadn't I looked closely all around me, determined to remember, but I only remember that action, not what the details were that I wanted to record. I had awful trouble parking - sometimes I can't work out how to manoeuvre a car backwards into a space - I kept getting too close to a post so I wouldn't have been able to get out, again and again. In the end I left the fucking thing at a shocking angle and as I was looking for the sign with the location code to pay for my time, I realised I was in a residents only bay, but too late, I wasn't getting back in that car till I'd had my swim, and if I got a parking penalty ticket, so be it, but I didn't. I was late, but got in the sea in the end and fucking loved it.
Gardening. Planted bulbs, mostly months too late, but some might survive. Top-dressed all the scented-leaf pelargoniums, and repotted my two juvenile trees - a red-leaved sycamore I grew from a seed I picked up in the park, and a tiny oak tree that had germinated a couple of inches away from the wall of Daughter's flat. Supervised Bloke setting up the poles for the runner beans (which is all I'm saying about that). I made myself do it all, because I'm fed up with not doing it - I used to love it, creating beautiful places where there had only been ugliness, but I haven't been able to find any pleasure in it since Sammie almost died before enjoying the scented bower I was building for her. I never finished it and lost interest completely, after four decades and six transformed gardens. But I can't say I enjoyed doing it today. Maybe I will, if I keep at it. That's one of those depression recovery things, isn't it? Do the things you enjoy, even while you don't enjoy them, until the pleasure returns. Or something like that. But the garden has good enough bones to be a lovely place, so long as you like scruffy.
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Today I am grateful for: my little dog, on the sofa next to me, diligently cleaning between her toes; living by the sea; some interesting programmes about Australians who moved to England, Germaine Greer, Barry Humphries, Clive James and Bob someone who I missed at the time, who wrote and made documentaries about art
11:50 p.m. - 28.05.23
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