under another sun

A  'jam Sunday' where L and I allow ourselves an extra toast with jam, today it was my homemade plum jam. I am boastful about the jam.  Then L and I surged out into the garden. Lorraine busy with lots of bits above my pay grade such as pruning raspberries, and re-seeding our trug with salad vegetables.  I attended to what's left of the raised veggie beds after the relentless heatwaves.The beans did really well, partially because the wretched snails have had to hide.  I picked a few more to have with our dinner (beans not snails), plus a few leaves of spinach which have recovered after laying their leaves on the ground like limp rags. The celeriacs have not balled up at all, a few leeks have survived, but are thin and small. Perhaps they will all plump up now that there is lots of rain in the forecast.    I deadheaded roses in the front garden, wondering if we should make rose hip syrup, like Mum did once or twice. Under Lorraine's supervision I also took cu...

A relaxed breakfast, kippers today, watching a video of Enzo playing enthusiastically with his wonderful new toys sent by Romy and Toby. It is perfect for where he is developmentally, with balls, and little spiral tracks, and flippy two-way doors and so on. Debbie contacted me saying she could teach me the grouting technique she uses on her stained glass, which removes the need for lead.  I spent an hour writing, and Lorraine did some piano practice, then we, with Lorraine at the Vanguard, turned into an unstoppable gardening machines.  Hefting sacs of compost, and sweltering in the green house potting up tomatoes, planting cucumbers into their summer beds, stringing canes, repotting cacti, and chillies and all kinds of things. Having to scatter snail pellets as the cucumber seedlings in the greenhouse have been slaughtered by them Later planting out celeriac, leeks and so on. I repaired briefly to the gym. Lorraine still working steadily on my return, so I joined in with more...

Up early and after breakfast completed a substack post, about J.H. Prynne.   I then surged into the garden and given that it was the year's hottest day, Lorraine and I worked hard moving stones and planting plants near the wildlife pond, where Lorraine saw mature tadpoles a day or so again. At this point Lorraine attempted to murder me. I'd patted in some heuchera plants, and popped away. Lorraine put the hose on the area. When I stepped back to finish the job, but the ground had become of quicksand, and I sank at least eight or nine inches and fell over, losing my garden shoe and becoming covered in mud. Lorraine seemed sorry I hadn't fallen into the pond too.  Lunch in the garden. Delores still in bed recovering upstairs, after being ill on Friday and coming to ours to recover. Enzo brought round by Beth, and a good deal of time playing with him. I got a few good chuckles out of him, winking at him absolutely delighted him. I went out to collect a prescription for Delor...

A day at home...  I did a bit more editing of the short story.  Lorraine surged purposefully outside to do gardening, I cleaned the pond filter and thinned the pond weed. Only two goldfish remain now, as the unknown predator has been at work again. These two survivors look chubby and healthy though. Later in the afternoon, studio time. Me trying and failing to come up with visual art ideas, but spending a lot of time thinking happily about them, and Lorraine playing with clay, making small clay fish. I made one too. All highly enjoyable. Thank God Lorraine and I have a new TV obsession: Babylon 5. The first episode was risibly bad, so we almost stopped watching it there and then. But I looked up some old reviews of it, and it is well thought of. Now we are enjoying its ever more complex plot, and dated visuals and attitudes. Spoke to the Tobster this evening, and discussing his visit over in the summer. And after talking with him about the Guardian's list of the best 100 novel...

Outdoorsy healthy day. We surged purposefully into the garden, for weeding vegetable beds and while Lorraine planted,  I pruned hard an ancient rosemary bush and a leggy lemon verbena bush. The copious clippings went into the garden bin. I rarely suck in lungfuls of aromatic bin air, but I did today.  From here a walk down towards Tide Mills and looped back to the beach and home. Baby Enzo here for a sleepover tonight. Cheery little lovely boy he is. His sleep patterns were a bit messed up so he was over tired, and Lorraine couldn't get him to sleep. At about 9pm, Beth and James came to collect him. He went straight to sleep in the short car ride home. Below I like the small 'wild' part of the garden that Lorraine have sown with native plants. Meanwhile the shallow end of the little wildlife pond we put in here has dried out with only one downpour since March. The weather has predominantly been coming from the north east, so there are cool nights and dry sunny days with no ...

A bright cheery morning, and after breakfast Lorraine and I surged out into the garden for a few hours gardening. I weeded several raised beds and planted some garlic. The garlic came in a packet of two cloves, one of which was made up of only two sections. Meanwhile Lorraine planting all kinds of seeds and repotting industriously in the glasshouse while listening to Classic FM. I peered into the pond, but I but I saw no tadpoles. Quite nice to sip tea outside like a horny handed man of the soil. Quite meditative really, and I resisted listening to a podcast. Thinking how the poem coming out shortly in the Irish magazine Channel, is called Gardening with my wife. Gardening with Lorraine from time to time, feels very fundamental. Chatted to Mum who had met Robert in the pub for lunch.  The rest of the day on Kenny farm spent companionably with Lorraine doing little. Did a bit more of my CBT stuff. Chelsea lost again disgracefully today, so went to bed early to read more of  The...

A relaxed Sunday. I did some early recording with Robin, and some editing later. Then Lorraine and I did some work in the garden. Our gardener Gerard bad been recently, and so surging outside was not accompanied by the usual feeling of being overwhelmed by all the things to be done. Lorraine was in her happy place. I joined in by clearing stuff out of the greenhouse, hacking through the ropey tomato and cucumber vines and emptied all the tomato pots into the compost, and encountered invertebrates such as an overly large spider and leopard slugs. Also the last handfuls of tomatoes. Not bad given that it is almost Christmas. I went for a walk in the afternoon. Leaving Lorraine happily doing things. Just as I was returning, Lorraine called to say she was zooming around to Beth and James's place, as Enzo was unwell. Poor baby was vomiting and going floppy, which was very worrying. Beth and Enzo were blue lighted to the Royal Sussex at Brighton, and stayed overnight. It seemed to be eit...

Toby flew back to the New World. I spoke to Mum this afternoon, and we were sad he'd gone.  However, sunshine drew Lorraine and I out into the garden. I moved the garden furniture back to the patio, and we even had some lunch outside. I had lots of things I should be getting on with, but preferred to be outside. I even caught the sun a bit on my neck. Especially as Amanda was decorating and I'm easily distracted. She started painting some taupe today. I haven't often been excited by taupe, but I am now.  Arranged to interview a Faber poet in a couple of weeks. I paused at one point to snap this daffodil. I had to fight off the urge to drink a cold beer in the sun, I need to lose more weight before I can put it back on again.

Did some good writing first thing, but then decided I needed to get  away from my desk, and cut a hedge, ands trimmed the edges of the lawn and so on for a while. Lorraine happily joining me. At least a couple of hours of this sort of thing. Very calming and nice, and Lorraine doing all kinds of wonders clearing out the caterpillar farm of a raised bed. The luxury of a short doze, before Beth and James around for supper to see Pat and Maureen. Hopefully this will be the first of many. Maureen on fine form this evening and telling funny stories. Beth telling us about rehearsing Vagabond Skies. All exciting stuff. Spoke to Mum, who had been to the W&H at lunchtime with Ben. He had been trapped in his house and unable to get his van out for work due to the resurfacing work. Mum, who had cunningly parked around the corner outside her friends' house, drove them off for lunch. Waleed at the W&H asked her how many boyfriends she has. Some of our plums, from the sapling we planted ...

A lovely sunny day, and after getting up for breakfast and calling both mums, we plunged into the garden and spent the next eight hours outside. I mowed and strimmed the lawn edges, and with a spade and shears, cut back the overlapping grass back to the path, cut the big hedge, finished building bits of the pond, tidied up the fish pond, we moved one of the big plants  hefting sacks of earth around, and generally tidied and made good. Lorraine replanting, hefting rocks, digging up a suffering acer and re potting it, and wobbling precariously on the island rockery thing getting into the difficult nooks and crannies and doing a hundred other jobs in the greenhouse, clearing paths and so on. We broke for lunch. Lorraine brought some food out, and I was just finishing cutting a path through long grass and Lorraine popped in to get her drink, when Robert made off with the lump of cheese from my plate. Thieving wretch. Despite this, lunch was lovely, and we continued working till almost ...

Finished off the bathroom with Lorraine. Then I did a bit of touching up with a very fine brush listening to more H.P. Lovecraft based podcasting. Then I joined Lorraine who had been getting excitable in the garden with a strimmer. I mowed the lawn with our newly-fixed lawnmower. Otherwise a peaceful day. I spoke to Mum in the evening, and Lorraine and I ate fish pie.

A day of action. After Lorraine and I plotted the job out on paper, raging with testosterone I used deeply masculine tools such as circular saws and drills and spanners and power screwdrivers , to drive coach screws into the sleeper I cut s to make the base of a cold frame that Lorraine wanted as a halfway house between the glasshouse and the outside world. Lorraine meanwhile did everything else, but without making so much of a fuss of it. Beth and James popped by this afternoon, the first time they had left home for a while, having had the lurgy.  Had a nice chat with James. They are being fairly philosophical despite having had a bit of a wretched week with the house falling through for various reasons, and both having a covid-like bug and working too.   Enjoyed just being at home with Lorraine tonight, and feeling quite a bit better than I have done for a while.  Here is a picture of a few of today's tomatoes and a harvest of green chillies and Padrón peppers and also ...

Spoke to Mum this morning before Lorraine and I began our epic Easter garden mission. Taking Sarah's advice I took out lots of oxygenating elodea from the fishpond, as it was so abundant it crowded out the fish. Then building the first of the big beds. Lorraine held things steady and I drilling in the guide holes, then putting in the bit that fit the end of long thick coach bolts and twisting those in with the drill. Some of them went in sweetly, others had to be twisted in manually while grunting and cursing. An unusual sense of accomplishment at having finishing the first raised bed at the end of the day.  In the afternoon Dawn and Paul called by, and we sat in the sun (on our new garden furniture) living the dream, sipping tea and eating fruit cake that Dawn had made. Also later we sat in the summer house -- a first with guests. Paul is recovering from a health scare but is now cautiously optimistic that everything will be fine. Dawn and Paul are getting married later this year....

A day of industry and sunshine. Lorraine and I hard at work in the garden again today. We had taken delivery of a cast aluminium garden table and six chairs. We had to bolt the legs on and so on. Very sturdy and nice, and the chairs are very comfortable. Sat there having cups of tea in the sun, and ate lunch on it too. Then in the afternoon we did a bit of rearranging of rocks in our rocky bit. Then we deployed the circular saw Lorraine ordered recently, and working together I sawed lots of sleepers in half to make the short ends of the beds. I enjoyed doing it too, which is weird. If on my own, I am not sure I would have felt confident enough to do a job like that. But one of the excellent things about Lorraine, who was busy measuring and using the set square to draw lines, and hefting sleepers with me, is that she makes it all possible somehow. Finished late afternoon, just as the rain came again. As a footnote to the joyful garden, there is creature, a wood pigeons perhaps, or s...

A rest from brainwork today. Instead, an intense day on Kenny Farm. Zoomed off to Morrisons round the corner in the car as they were selling multipurpose compost at a snip, and got six bags of this some of which was put into the raised bed, along with topsoil and a layer of John Innes no. 2. Into this Lorraine planted her hardy winter salad leaves.   Meanwhile I set about digging a trench, through a layer of stones, and a membrane layer quite deep. This was filled with with manure and soil, into which two raspberry canes and a goji berry plant were planted. We had lunch outside in the sunshine and after a few hours, felt that we had done a good day's work. Lorraine really happy when we are working together in the garden -- and I am finding it satisfying, and cheaper than the gym. So the tally of things we have introduced...  Pears, apples, plums, raspberries, strawberries, goji berries, blueberries, rhubarb, hardy winter salad leaves, and Lorraine has planted seeds for chillie...

Lorraine and I up fairly early doing more in the garden. Every day more progress, and it feels like a kind of excellent therapy -- every day seeing a bit of progress.  I dug a hole and we planted the third acer, in what we call the island, and decided the other side should be rocks. And also we managed to rebuild the wooden trug we brought with us from Brighton, ready to take strawberry plants. It involved quite a lot of work, and fiddling with rusted bolts me having to employ things like WD40 and a chisel. This gardening malarky may turn me into a hairy chested man of action yet. Lorraine off to see Rebecca, one of her former colleagues, at her mother's house this afternoon. Her mother lives in Seaford and Lorraine was a kind of school mum to her, so it was a sort of mum summit.  I tried to work on poems but I seem to bring muddiness and indecision to everything, when I need the exact opposite.  Had did a bit of job admin. Having to chase information about the job I was ...

A bit more recording this morning with Robin and a bit of writing.  Today mostly a day of gardening. We are loving being out there.  The evil buddleia all but vanquished now. Lots of moving things around in the garden too. I piled bricks and tiles into the little brick shed. It is only about five foot five high, and has a corrugated low roof dense with spider webs. I used my head as a duster a dozen times, and felt like I was alive with spiders. I saw some beefy ones today. Lorraine bringing order to the workhouse too, after lots of sterling work in the garden. Mum called to say she reversed her car into a wall in the car park of the Jolly Badger yesterday, and the car is to be written off. Luckily she and Mas were completely unharmed, and the Jolly Badger folks very kind, and gave them coffee and a taxi ride home. Mum seemed okay about it but it must have been a shaking experience. Fish pie tonight. Lorraine and I feeling the effects of working physically for hours. No need f...

Feeling distinctly perkier -- walking around in a non-wheezy way. I worked in the garden for a while too. Definitely -- after two weeks -- feeling suddenly lots better.    L andI went to Paradise Park, home to large model velociraptors a dinosaur experience, and a garden centre. Walking around not feeling out of breath and weird is great. We have not been to the dinosaur experience so far, although we could hear what sounds like a model train or something, beeping continuously driving around on the other side of the garden centre wall, which sounded minimally exciting. Lots of browsing, and we came away with shrubs and strawberry, raspberry and goji berry plants as part of the dense agricultural business that will be our back garden.  I'm beginning to look at tropical fish again. There were some at the garden centre, and also at Pets at Home in Newhaven. I have a vision of a tank that is lushly planted but sparsely populated with just a two species of tetras in small shoa...

Saturday -- and a gorgeous sunny day here in Brighton. Lorraine and I got up fairly late, not having to open the door to anyone today. I popped around the corner to collect my sliced chewy brown, and bumped into Rick. The glassmates had gone to the pub yesterday lunchtime.  In other news Prince Phillip was buried today. I am not a royalist, but the sight of the Queen on alone on a pew was rather touching and sad.  After I'd made breakfast, Lorraine and I then went outside. I took advantage of the scaffolding for a few rooftop capers, washing my study window from the outside, and climbing onto my flat roof. I scooped out a third of a bucketload of gravel and dusty soil, rusty screws and bits of peanut shells from the gutter. Meanwhile Lorraine busy planting and potting. I scooped earth out of the bottom of the composter. There is something quietly miraculous about the rich dark soil that emerges from all the peelings and bits and pieces you sling in. Teabags leave frail ghost b...

Rain again. Off to a couple of garden centres, L and I off to buy some perennials. Unfortunately the first centre had already had most of their perennial stock scavenged. The second and larger one had more, though you had to take your life in your hands, with face-masked mobs being funnelled through xmas sections and so on. The plant sections outdoor and fine. We bought several plants and then planted them in the back garden between deluges, and cut down the big stalky remains of the helianthus. Inside tonight, eating roast chicken and Lorraine having some wine, an essential Sunday night fortification for the school week. Lockdown 2 starts officially on Thursday, but teachers must continue of course.