Gardening

The sun is out, and so am I! Today is a day for whacking thistles, planting out a longsuffering tray of Jackanapes and moving various Things which did not Thrive to other positions.

Both my bouganvillea are stone dead, the wind I suppose, which cut down thirty feet of clemantis armandii. New Dawn is raggy, the grapevine sickly, but citrus and jasmine are robust. Instructive.

I know pittisporum will grow here since they survive the Mistral, tough, glossy leaves, and I am watching to see if the expensive and suspect Empress Trees will fulfill their promise or demonstrate that I too am susceptible to Snake Oil.

Every single plant has beloved associations with places or people. except the Empress Trees. Maybe that is why they are under suspicion - no provenance.

Other experiments are rolling toward conclusion. A much-hyped face cream has not added lustre to my glory, and besides it smells like toothpaste, disconcertingly, so back to the Nivea. I so hysterically hate the fake green apple scent of the latest shampoo that I am using up all the odds and little hotel bottles, and letting the menfolk go Granny Smith. It doesn't seem to bother them.

The delivered box of random organic vegetables is working rather well, and we are getting to enjoy...kale. I have finished mending my crab nets, soon found a rhythm for it and now wish I had more to do, it felt so elemental. Maybe I could give myself a bad name hanging around the ports. George my son-in-law was a salmon fisherman in another life, he could give me pointers.

This is a strange hiatus. Only one day of shooting last week and that deadly dull. Next week is still in flux and there is little for me to do before it all erupts again in April. Eileen is off to Brazil for a mind-altering experience with scorpions, snakes and substances and I am wistful. I want some location work.