The Search For Enlightenment

After the full on day yesterday, the start this morning was a little more sedate, although we still had big plans for the privet hedge, so breakfast was soon over. Bumble is trying to pace herself, trying to cram less into the day and give herself more time to just be.

We had promised ourselves, that we would only do an hour of trimming the hedge, but we made such a good start, that I was determined to get right to the top of the garden before we called it a day.

The cutting went really well. I ended up in the lane next to the cottage, standing on the top of a set of step ladders, so I could reach the hedge. Bumble stayed in the garden, so we were able to attack the job on two fronts and still chat.

Apart from a few interruptions, stopping to let cars down the lane, and Bumble going to get some industrial strength loppers from the chaps next door, we went at it for a lot longer than planned. But the end of the trimming was not the end of the job.

We managed to talk a neighbour, Tim, into letting us dump the clippings in his field, which saved a lot of time, but there was still a huge pile of them to get moved. At first, Bumble tried moving them in the green wheelie bin, but that proved rather unwieldy, so then we stuffed as much as we could into a huge hessian sack and moved it on the wheelbarrow.

That too proved difficult. The sack was far too big and too high to balance on the barrow, so while I wheeled the barrow, Bumble tried to hold the sack in place. But the path through the field is rather narrow, surrounded on both sides by fruit trees and other stuff, and I had the misfortune to get whacked round the ear by a small, but rather firm apple at one point.

Bumble appeared to see the funny side more easily than I, but I did reap my revenge at her mirth, by putting the empty sack over her head once the clippings had reached their destination.

With most of the grunt work done, I retired to watch the Belgian Grand Prix while B pottered around the garden until her friend Carly, a fellow Occupational Terrorist, came to visit. Carly did at least provide an interruption to the proceedings, so a little pacing was achieved.

When Carly left, around dinner time, I planted some new seedlings, donated by the chaps next door, who are shortly off to live in Malta, while Bumble set about making dinner. Even so, by the time we were fed and watered and had showered, we were both pretty well pooped.

So another fruitful, in more ways than one, kind of day. Lots done, with a degree of moderation built in to boot. By ten we were both tucked up in bed and out for the count. Pacing yourself is sometimes easier said than done, but with both parties giving their all in the quest for a shorter hedge, I think we managed it pretty well.