August Garden

It’s been a looooong slog, but our garden finally looks like a garden.  Four months ago our back door opened out onto a very muddy slope.  And when I say mud, I mean sludge.  Sludgy, sticky, wellie-sucking mud.  We dug at it, raked at it, rotivated it until our backs were sore… and then we kind of gave in and hired a builder to help because we didn’t really know how to tackle it in the end.  But now we’ve actually got borders with flowers that actually growing (lots of Dahlia, speaking of which are you sick of my Dahlia Instagrams yet?) and a patio to sit on (when it’s not raining…). 

I think my seventeen year old self would be horrified that I’ve turned into one of those garden gnomes – but I don’t care. These days, more and more, I feel like I need to be outside. There’s just something I love about walking bare-footed on grass, getting mud under my nails and watching things grow. And you know what? It’s about damn time. This time last year we were stuck inside our flat sweltering with all the windows open because we didn’t have an outdoor space.  We had a great view of the Thames (The Thames! Not everyone can sing along to London Calling by The Clash and actually mean the line “I live by the river”) but, it was spoilt by fly tippers and a couple of idiots who thought it’d be a good idea to ride motorbikes up and down the footpath. Finally being able to just open the back door and step outside into a green patch that’s 100% ours (and silent!) feels pretty special.