Monday 10 May

Part achieving the dream of a lifetime, part impulse purchase. I buy a Land Rover Defender. The omens (if one believes in such things) are good. The journey to collect it, many miles up the motorway in Birmingham, was strewn with rainbows. There was a crash on the M5 but it was going the other way. The radio only played my favourite songs. She is teal blue and absolutely beautiful. We got all of 59 miles towards home before a tyre blew up. Hugo and I crawl into bed well after midnight. Counting our blessings and actually just rather relieved to have got there in the end. 

God bless the NFU and their breakdown cover.

Tuesday 11 May

Spring comes late in this part of the world. Not because of the weather but because it is beech country. There are hedges of it wherever you look. Where they line the roads, the ancient trees touch at the top like a cathedral nave. Beech holds last year's leaves for longer than you expect and so the landscape stays autumnal well into May. And today it turned. The new shoots burst through, seemingly all at once under the force of all the rain. Suddenly, as far as the eye can see is fresh, pristine, verdant. 

Wednesday 12 May

It is still raining. Endless curtains of it. The no dig beds absorb it well but the paths are puddles. The tulips seem unaffected although the ones in pots under the thatch take a battering. The dog walk is short this evening. I thought I'd packed all the dog towels away until October. Opium poppies grow six inches in a day. There are corn poppies that I should've weeded out that are starting to flower and making me grateful that I didn't.

Thursday 13 May

It is all change in the kitchen garden. Last year's plants are setting seed although the asparagus and some mistakenly late sown black kale seems contentedly leafy. The first ink-purple irises, Langport Wren, have burst into life. I squeeze the peony buds. Another week. Maybe less. Received wisdom says that one should cut them before they open, at the moment the bud feels like a marshmallow. I am never quite sure if I get this right or not. I mean, when did you last squeeze a marshmallow? 

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Saturday 15 May

Lunch. Lunch out. A drive across counties to meet my loveliest friend at the mid-way point between us, which is always reassuringly close to my favourite town of Marlborough. It is raining less in Wiltshire and we have a glorious time.

Sunday 16 May

A wet and chilly but nonetheless inspiring and educational morning at Trill Farm Garden. A perfect mix of mud, seed collections, polytunnels and spreadsheets. It turns out the secret to the most nutritious and perfect salad leaves is not so secret after all. It's graft and a dedication to being incredibly organised. I have some way until I achieve such a regimen. This realisation was softened by a beautiful lunch and marmalade cake.

I return home, put as many jumpers as I can find on, and Maud and I settle down on the sofa with some writing for Gather.

I'm off to put the kettle on again. Much love,

G x