Dreadful times and a nagging fear of what is happening in the world right now. Far away no longer means anything, and neither do international rules. I know we all try to imagine ourselves in the horrifying situations that a lot of people find themselves in, and sometimes wonder what miracle of birth gave us the relatively safe place we’re living in. Once we only knew, belatedly at that, what had happened in the next village; now the whole world is the next village and our attempts to steep ourselves in their problems, are feeble at best, maddening at worst.
You have to go on, or as Winston Churchill famously said “keep buggering on”. That’s more or less all we can now isn’t it?
But I have my garden. I have the soil of mother earth to touch, the protection, the generosity, the richness, that just looking at a ploughed field can give you. And my garden tells me things, night and day, hot and cold and whatever I do or don’t do she showers me with harvests I don’t deserve.
Look at how much that sapling has grown, in just one year! Look at the plants planted but given up for lost a couple of years ago, they’re here now ! Look at the weeds planted by the wind and the excrement of the grateful birds. Plant for the future: the tiny plants which will grow if you’re lucky, into the marvels pictured on the packet! It’s a long game though. And that is what gardening means. Whatever happens, wind, scorching summers, rain, your garden will survive broken maybe, battered certainly, but the lesson is there. You will plant bulbs because there will be a next year, you will choose perennials because they will come back, you will count the oranges on your little tree because next year there will be more. The garden lives with or without you because as the earth turns the seasons will come and go. Hang in there, dirty your hands, delight in the flowers, fill your lungs with the perfumes .Maybe you’ll make it.
English that grows 