Jane and I started hosting these Extreme Gardening Events in 2015. We have an enormous garden and really and truly need help to keep it in some kind of order. Some of the folk who attended in 2015 were here with me last week. I am truly blessed with amazing friends. 

Celyn went to the kennels the previous Monday; I’m lucky; the kennels collect and deliver. Celyn is on her holidays!

One woman came the previous Thursday; between us we sorted and tided two sheds and the room I call ‘The Studio’; it holds my Motability scooter and so much more….although so much less now! 

We put over a thousand plant pots out for free collection and all but a very few, oddly shaped ones, were taken within 12 hours! 

Everyone arrived on Monday 18th May. There were some very joy filled reunions, for sure. After a meal, ‘Rosemary Chicken’ we wandered around the garden and I showed them some of the things I hoped could be made right over the week. They announced they could do them all. And they did!! And more!! 

The most important one was making it safe for me on my 2 sticks to get through the gate from the woods….the existing pavers were green and slippery….my garden helper, Rowan, had put down ‘coins’ of wood for me to walk across…lethal when wet. And that is 99% of the time. All the old wood was cleared and some non-slip plastic driveway squares put down…the driveway squares had been re-purposed from outside the hen run. No hen run anymore; they had all known the hens and we were sad that they were no more.  

Trees were planted….at least 4 oaks, 2 willows, a Portuguese ironwood tree bought several years ago by Jane…it now stands a better chance of survival!! A Yew. A beech.

Defunct weed suppressant was pulled up and piled into a tidy heap…

There were lots of jobs done….too many to list here…but the main thing was we all laughed and joked and we rejoiced in being together for a little while. I really am blessed. 

On the final evening, we went out for a meal together in a rather good restaurant; it was my intention to pay the bill…but one of my friends got there first. How kind! 

My friends keep me going. We have a WhatsApp group and tell each other all sorts…that minutiae is the glue which keeps us solid. A bit like the Gorilla Glue which held together someone’s boots where the soles decided they’d had enough!! The glue held throughout his 7 hour train journey home!! 

I cannot thank them enough. I had the best time. Unanimously they are already looking at diaries to book in the next one…and the next one, they have said, must include Celyn. 

Family is, for some of us, hard. Friends are chosen and I choose my friend/family over all of the remains of my family. We bless each other.

CMM

A Moodscope member