Some days just don't go so well as others. I feared today was not going to be a vintage one when I woke up with a headache, a legacy of yesterday evening's disjointed supper, and the fact that by this morning the relative humidity had rocketed. And my age. Osteoporosis and my risk of heart attack rising to equal that of a man may be a few years off yet, but the increase in headaches and spots has arrived. Though I should not grumble too much about middle age but remember that great rebuke, Have you considered the alternative?
Things did not look up when a communications failure over meeting a friend for coffee at a garden centre meant that we went to different garden centres. Oh well, mistakes happen. One of the other ways you know you are not even in the early stages of middle age but well into it is when you find you have started arranging to meet your friends in garden centre cafes. The early onset of grey hair, that's genetic and a feminist statement. Likewise insisting on wearing shoes you can walk about in is another feminist statement. I have been a feminist when it comes to my feet since I was about seventeen, and there's a risk now that fashion might finally be catching up with me. When the vet starts looking preposterously young it's a warning sign, but finding yourself meeting in garden centre cafes, that's definitive. Age has become middle.
I spent the afternoon potting on in the greenhouse, since the day still felt wretchedly sticky, and I didn't feel like moving about too much. The seedlings in divided trays in the tiered staging have become drawn through lack of light. Maybe I should have a second bench running down that side of the greenhouse, instead of the tiers. I'd lose layers, but gain in depth, since the aluminium shelves are only one seed tray deep, and I could still use the space under the bench for trays of things like foxgloves that don't need full sun. And I probably need to reduce the height of the boundary hedge at that point, as sod's law has dictated that one of the tallest and lushest stretches of growth along the whole length of the hedge has been right by the greenhouse where it is least wanted. The Systems Administrator has recently bought a new generation electronic photo frame and been running slide shows of old pictures of the garden, and it's salutary to realise how much more open it used to be.
There are also pictures of lots of other gardens. Great Dixter is instantly recognisable, but the question of whether some photos are of Hidcote or East Ruston Old Vicarage has been more of a puzzler, and highlights the debt that the latter owes to the former. My parents used to run slideshows from time to time when I was a child, with real slides and a projector, and the question of which Cornish beach a given photo of waves breaking on a rock was taken at could keep them going for hours. We are now replicating the pattern with photographs of gigantic rhododendrons. Though it was remarkable how many gardens were home to the largest rhododendron in Cornwall when we were there.
The humid air is due to blow through and it should start feeling fresher. I'll rearrange coffee with my friend, and we'll try again. Tomorrow is another day.
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