The passage of time
Monday 13th June. I have a week off work. It rolls out in front of me. Is there anything so luxuriant as the abundance of time? I drink tea on the orchard and watch the fete field being mown. The soft grass shorn in an afternoon. I have ideas and make lists. I have big dreams. I watch the world go by and listen to the bees on the hedge germander.
Tuesday 14th June. A day out. I visit a farm shop and debate the merits of cuts of oats. Who knew porridge oats were not the best oats for porridge? I buy fresh eggs and herbs and I covet white currant bushes. Home to the first harvest of tomatoes and to the discovery that Dom Pedro tulip bulbs are already sold out for this season. And I thought I was so organised to be even thinking of them.
Wednesday 15th June. When I was under thirty, I tried to make bread. It never worked. Dense, bricks of inedible dough. Being intrinsically work-shy, kneading wasn’t my thing and I never seemed to be able to leave it to cool enough before cutting into it. After one failure too many, I declared that I would not ever attempt bread again until I was forty. I don’t know if I thought I would be of a different disposition when I got there, or it was simply an unthinkably long way away.
Today I make sourdough. I follow Kat Goldin’s instructions to the letter, as relaxed as they are. I did not let the prospect of failure daunt me. I did not allow an attachment to the outcome affect my efforts.
Maybe that is what being forty means.
Friday 17th July. And then before I know it, I really am forty. Deliveries arrive throughout the day, boxes of champagne and flowers, cards and wishes. Which is how I happened to already be half way through a bottle of rather lovely bubbles even before Piggy Sue made a surprise appearance on Gardener’s World. My Piggy Sue. Out there in the world, being wonderful, and now on the television. I managed to cheer with surprise and delight and not spill a drop. I tell you what though, it absolutely made my day.
(The story is that Fiona Humberstone’s daughter, Poppy, made a video of her sweet peas at home to send to Gardener’s World, and she named her favourite variety as our very own PS. You can see it again here, and actually, it was a very good episode all round. Is it heresy to say I like Adam’s programmes the best?)
Saturday 18th July. A party mostly documented by my nephew Thomas. Yes, I was sufficiently relaxed to let him loose with my new camera. More champagne, pizza, a walk, pavlova.
There were a lot of photos of Morag when I looked at my camera afterwards. Thomas loves Morag very much. But there were also flowers and fruit and scones. (The one of the pavlova was by me.)
One of my birthday presents from my husband was an amazing tripod, and one of my birthday presents to myself was an introduction to videography course. I will be adding more videos of the flower field and the kitchen garden to instagram in the next few months but if there is anything in particular you would like to see, just drop me a line.
