We had been planning to go to the North Norfolk Railway spring gala today. Not in the sense of having made a very concrete plan, but I'd found out when it was on, and suggested to the Systems Administrator that we could go, and the SA had said the Friday would be better than the weekend because it would be less busy or at least there'd be fewer children. We went a few years ago, and had a very nice day out. You will never see so many middle aged men look so rapt and unabashedly happy as at a steam gala.
But then we didn't go. The SA was worried about how well our residual colds would cope with standing about on the Norfolk coast in what is still only the first week of March, even if it was quite a sunny day. The East Anglian coastline tends to be bracing, unless it's the sort of weather where inland temperatures are forecast to hit 30 C. And apparently the line-up of guest engines wasn't very exciting, because at this time of the year a lot of them are still undergoing maintenance in the rush to have them ready for Easter. I wasn't too fussed about not going. I thought the SA might have liked it, but after wasting all last week being ill I have masses to do in the garden. Forgoing a less than scintillating steam gala was a way of getting one day back.
I have almost finished pruning the willow leaved bay by the veranda. It is a very good form of the common culinary bay, Laurus nobilis, which has long, narrow leaves (hence the name) and a strongly upright habit of growth. I sang its praises to my former manager and told him that the plant centre ought to offer it, but they never did. I got mine from Architectural Plants near Gatwick, who claimed that it was hardier than normal bay. Certainly mine while looking rather sad and singed after those two hard winters didn't suffer appreciable die-back and was restored to perfect condition as soon as it had shed the burnt leaves and grown some new ones.
Its one drawback is that it would like to be large, bigger than the space I want it to occupy. And it grows fast. It maintains a neat, narrow, conical shape without clipping, but I don't want it obscuring the view from the sitting room and spreading out across the border to engulf assorted rose bushes. Fifteen feet tall would be plenty. It is planted on a slope, so I can't use a ladder without tipping over, except to work on the uphill side where I can lean it against the bottom of the bay. The border is too crowded with other shrubs for me to get the Henchman in there, so I can cut the bottom six feet from the ground and above that I have to use the long handled loppers. It is tiring working with a ten or twelve foot pole above your head for any length of time, and doubly annoying among other shrubs as the string that operates the cutting mechanism gets caught in them. So I wouldn't put using the pole lopper at the top of my list of fun things to do in the garden (I have the same issue with vacuum cleaners, where I always seem to get the flex caught around the furniture, and I hate vacuuming).
With a job like that you can't really see what you're doing while you're doing it, so you have to take several steps back periodically to see how it's looking. By now there are masses of bulbs coming through in the border, so you can't take one step, let alone several, without watching your feet very carefully. I trod on the emerging snout of a foxtail lily the other day, and felt terribly guilty for the rest of the morning while trying to console myself with the thought that in their native steppes they must have to cope with being trampled on by yaks, or reindeer. Even once you've taken several careful steps back and looked at the shape of the bay, you can't recognise any of the branches you identified for removal once you're standing right under it again. Still, I think I'm getting there by degrees.
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