I couldn't motivate myself to get out into the garden today, even though apart from one short and phenomenally sharp shower it was mostly dry for the rest of the day. The garden looked so sodden and uninviting, after yet more heavy rain overnight, and the top part of the garden where the soil is lightest and easiest to work is also worst sheltered from the wind, which was fierce. I could have crawled around on the gravel, weeding the Italian garden, wind-induced tears dropping on my spectacles, but frankly I couldn't face it.
The poor Genista aetnensis in the turning circle catches the full brunt of the wind, and is gradually leaning at more and more of an angle. It has always insisted on growing as a multi stemmed shrub, instead of forming a graceful tree like the ones in the Chatto Gardens, and each year I cut out as many stems as I dare. This year I'll have to take out the most lopsided, downwind ones, but I'm more worried about what is happening below ground to the roots.
I made some more bread, and even though I started at half past eight, a full hour earlier than last time, it still wasn't ready until half an hour after our usual lunchtime of one o'clock. Frankly the timing of bread making is still rather a mystery, though the finished loaf was very nice once it was finally done. Also I made vegetable soup, which is a good occupation for a day when you are stuck indoors, cutting carrots, onions, turnip, potato and celery into tiny dice. Twenty minutes before serving I thought I'd blown it and been far too heavy handed with the mixed herbs, but then the flavours miraculously melded. The final addition of some broad beans and peas out of the freezer seemed to help. While I was at it I prepped the vegetables for tonight's stew, which has been simmering all day in the cool side of the Aga, an experiment in making something sold as 'stewing steak' acceptably tender. The term is rather ominous, but what's the point of having a slow-cook facility constantly on the go if you aren't going to use it to render cheap cuts of beef edible?
The Systems Administrator watched the racing at Newbury. I was amazed that was even on, since my image of the Home Counties is of them gradually disappearing under water. Apparently the fences are moved around to spread the wear across the grass, but even so the horses were coming in so muddy that the jockey's colours were undetectable under the all-enveloping spray of filth. The SA has now moved on to watch England v Scotland in the Six Nations at Murrayfield, and since the main pre-match news seemed to be that the pitch was suffering badly from worm casts, that is presumably equally muddy.
I feel as though we are beginning to exist in a state of limbo. We seem to be over the worst of our colds (though they have been so persistent that I hesitate to write that, in case it invites yet another relapse) but it feels premature to try and arrange to see anybody or do anything. With reports of cars being swept away in the Hadhams, and floods of sewage in Saffron Walden, I feel like staying close to home and travelling on familiar roads. I am even wary of the trains, in case landslips or falling trees leave me stranded and waiting for an uncertain replacement bus service fifty miles from home.
Looking on the bright side, if this carries on our olive tree, which has shrunk in each of the past three cold winters, might finally grow back to the size it was when we bought it.
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