As you might tell, I have drifted somewhat from gardening. I haven't touched my felcos for nearly a fortnight. I have picked apples and eaten them crisp and aromatic from the branch. The cavolo nero needs to be picked regularly and eaten. The field tomatoes really ought to be lifted and dug over. I've taken some photos of the late summer stocks amongst the iris swards and pelargoniums. I've clocked that the tayberries and Oregon thornless blackberries need cutting out and tying in. That the pond needs clearing out of the parrot ferns and made a note to buy a fat, round glass goldfish bowl to overwinter a couple of water hyacinths in the dining room. The paths and steps need sorting. The yew needs a trim. The hyacinths should have been potted up three weekends ago, and won't now flower in time for a scented house at Christmas. But I have, incredibly, found this Banderas song on youtube, not having heard it since the 90's and remembered ever since.
And each morning I have looked out at the sunrise from beloved first-born's bedroom windows and marveled at the speed at which time moved over my life and he grew up and left for uni. And each evening I close his bedroom curtains, and look over the valleys as the street lights in the villages light up like fairy lights, and marvel that another day has passed and I haven't hugged him or kissed him cheerio or heard his laugh or heard him talk and haven't listened to planet rock on the radio or asked him to unload the dishwasher or cooked him even a bit of toast. Pearce was absolutely right when he wrote that the Lord is hard on mothers, that we suffer in their coming and their going. But this is how a good life and a good parent/child relationship is.
