back to the hedge

Back from holiday and back to the eleagnus hedge.  Our neighbour called round with the parish magazine as I was stuffing the latest batch of prunings through the shredder, and on seeing what I was doing remarked that we had been pushing our luck with that hedge for the past year.  He did not see why it should die from being hard pruned, which cheered me slightly since he used to be an apple farmer and must have done much more pruning in his life than I have, on the other hand he has never shown any interest in gardening, and Eleagnus x ebbingei is not the same as apple trees.

I stopped cutting after lunch, since by the time we went away my hands and arms were beginning to feel it, and I did not want to give myself tendonitis or anything ridiculous.  It is terribly easy faced with a large and repetitive task in the garden to do yourself a mischief.  I knew one woman who had been working as a trainee with the RHS who spent an entire week raking leaves, until her GP had to sign her off because she had mucked up her forearm so badly, and a professional gardener at one of the Oxford colleges who was out of action for weeks after spraining her wrist digging holes with a trowel for a large planting scheme.  Dilettante gardening, flitting from one project to the next, is the way to do it from an occupational health point of view, only of course it takes longer to get things done (unless you go off sick before you've finished, in which my way might be quicker).

Weeding around the compost bins I was pleased to catch a glimpse of our black builders barrow.  It disappeared ages ago, and we could not work out where we had left it, but couldn't believe that anyone had come into the garden and stolen it.  It is old and pretty knackered, with small rust holes in the bottom, which are only going to get larger over time until the rest of the barrow has to go to the metals recyling bin at the dump, and nobody would take that while ignoring the pots and rusted iron plant supports.  The only answer was that one of us (probably me) had left it somewhere, but I had a scout round without discovering where, so it was a relief to see it lurking behind some brambles.  It wasn't even stored tipped on its side, but fortunately the rain will have been able to drain out through the holes.

And that is all the blog for tonight, because I am taking my dad to the Arts Centre to hear a Dutch blues guitarist, and I mun eat my dinner.  I must remember when I go out that I am going to the folk club, and not drive to the beekeepers meeting on autopilot.  That isn't until Thursday.