What do pilgrims do during lockdown?

Who needs to go to Amsterdam?

The answer is that they turn their energies into the garden, of course! What else would you do in this wonderful weather, so perfect for walking in?

We’ve been busy clearing the beds of weeds. Julie is particularly good at that. She loves to take out her frustration on them, nettles especially. We’ve pruned the vines – probably not the best time of year, but they still seem to produce loads of grapes when we do it this late.

Games with the blackbirds

We’ve been playing a great game with the blackbirds. It’s called ‘You put compost on the beds, and we’ll take it out again’. It’s great fun. At least they seem to think so!

Then there are the games we play with the rabbits. They don’t want to eat everything, just the things we most treasure. They had at least five of the lupins we planted last year. We’ve devised a plot to thwart their efforts on the remaining three. Julie cuts the bottom our of a plastic flower pot and pushes it into the soil around the surviving lupin and then places a garden fork over the top of the pot. So far, so good. We’ve only got three garden forks though, so perhaps it’s just as well really that they’ve eaten all the rest of the lupins.

Lupin defence

Ah yes, then there’s the veggie patch. We’ve never done one of those before, but there’s always a first time, and we’re determined to ‘dig for victory’. We’ve acquired the seeds, the rabbit proof wire and the all the necessary posts and nails.

Construction materials for the veggie patch

We’ve sowed the seeds into little plastic pots and old food trays and they are all sitting neatly on the kitchen window sill. It’s just the hard work bit of digging the bed which hasn’t happened yet. “Julie, where’s that barrow load of compost?”. Oh dear, it’s Monday today and she’s gone off to help out at the hospital. Maybe it’ll just have to wait until next weekend.

So there we go. If we’d been walking our way across northern France (we should have been in Bruay near Arras by now), we’d be missing all this fun. What’s more,the rabbits would have eaten our last three lupins!

Stay well and stay sane!

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