I turned in at the usual time last night. The Systems Administrator said he would sit up a little longer, but when I woke up at half past two the other side of the bed was still empty. I stomped downstairs in my dressing gown (I just wrote 'padded' there because that is what people walking around in dressing gowns always do, but it would be inaccurate as well as a cliche, since I don't possess a pair of bedroom slippers, and it is impossible to pad wearing Birkenstock clogs). The SA was watching the telly, wearing headphones so that the sound wouldn't carry up through the bedroom floor. He said that this was getting interesting.
I'd arrived just in time for a very long speech by someone I now know is the twenty year old SNP firebrand. We watched until about quarter to four, while Our Ginger rolled about under the warmth of the reading light on the table between us, ecstatic to have human company into the small hours. He would like it to be election night every night. We climbed into bed just as the announcement came from the count in Southwark that Simon Hughes was out, and when I rejoined the election coverage on the Today programme this morning it was clear that David Cameron was heading back for Downing Street.
Given that the party I was supporting won with an overall majority I ought to be happier than I am, but I feel more of a tepid relief that economic and foreign policy will not be driven by the two Eds. I can't think it would have ended well. Now we've got the European referendum to look forwards to, whippee, but perhaps our relationship with Europe is a boil that had to be lanced at some point. The Systems Administrator revealed at lunchtime that last week, inspired by a Dan Hodges column, he had put a fiver on an all-out Tory majority at twelve to one.
Meanwhile, back in the mundane world of north east Essex, I have been experimentally spraying plants in the back garden with a product called Grazers. Anne Swithinbank refers to it regularly in her Amateur Gardening column as if it worked, and since I have a lot of time for Anne Swithinbank I thought it was worth at least trying. It is a calcium solution that you spray on foliage where it is absorbed, and it is supposed to make the plant unpalatable to nibbling rabbits, deer and voles. It was discovered by accident in the course of a project to try and improve crop growth by treatment with minerals, as the experimenters realised that never mind whether or not their trial crops were growing faster, they were not being grazed off nearly as much by pests as the untreated controls.
If it works that could be a great help, and I could also use it on things like the emerging buds of hellebores, destroyed by voles in the ditch bed for the past two years, and as a precautionary spray on other winter flowers that have been stripped by muntjac in the past. I have sent off for a five litre sprayer that should make doing entire borders faster, and in the meantime the SA got me a little hand held pump sprayer from a local garden centre. The cost of Grazers is not too bad at thirty-nine pence per hundred square metres if you go for the largest pack size, an application can allegedly last four to six weeks, and young and newly planted things are most at risk. I don't mind if passing deer take the odd swipe at leaves on a mature shrub, it's when they strip it of every flower bud that I get cross.
The main problem is that it's another job to do in an already crowded gardening schedule. Time spent weeding, edging, pruning or planting feels constructive, or at least the garden looks tidier or more interesting when you've finished than before you started. Time spent spraying an invisible liquid on plants just so that they can not be eaten by rabbits feels like more of a chore. We do need to get rid of the bunnies living in the garden. I saw two on the top lawn yesterday, a big one and a little one. The SA took a shot at them from the bathroom window but missed, since the air gun is not calibrated for shooting that far downhill. The gate is doing some good, though. We've had the camera set on it for a few nights to find out what's going on, and there have been up to four rabbits at the same time, sitting outside and looking in.
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