I have discovered a new passion. Gardening. Bye bye painting. Today (a gorgeous day), I spent more time gardening than I did painting. Planted some rhubarb; dug compost out from the bottom of the compost-bin; went to the garden centre for some ericaceous compost (just listen to me!) to pot the blueberry bushes my mum gave me and ended up buying six little pots of alpine plants to go in the rockery – which then needed planting – which entailed rearranging the rockery and tearing out a big spikey thing and lots of creepery stuff… and so on. Later, I planted a clematis. Then everything needs watering. I’m getting a bit obsessive and it needs to stop! (I still have a climbing rose to plant…). I did do a bit of painting in between. It isn’t the first time recently that this has happened. Now, I’m indoors again and I’ve had to put some of Ioana’s posh handcream on to stop my hands turning into painful sandpaper, so I smell of roses.
Soon, however, my Romanian mother-in-law will come to stay for the summer and I can get her to water everything. Last year, she got bored and I had to confiscate the secateurs. This year I can just point at everything and say ‘apa’ – water! The Romanian word for mother-in-law is ‘soacra’ – pronounced ‘swacra’. Go on, say it: swacra, swacra, swacra. My swacra is coming. Oh, no, the swacra.
Random things: I saw a frog the size of my thumbnail and Ioana saw two toads at the allotment. Ioana made nettle beer and it actually tasted quite nice.
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