gardening

Good grief, this appears to be my first blog entry since April. In my defence, I’ve had a few things to deal with.

As you may know if you’ve been following me on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, there have been yet more shenanigans with my stupid spine. Some problems I’d been having with my neck turned out to be more serious than they first appeared, and I ended up having urgent surgery to free my squished spinal cord.

Of course, given that the NHS is underfunded to the point of collapse, ‘urgent’ doesn’t necessarily mean next week, next month or even this year. When I spoke to the surgeon in April, he said, “this should be done before the end of the summer”; I immediately asked, “which summer?”. Thankfully things did move quickly, and I had the surgery in July.

I won’t go into detail (although I’m very happy to chat to anyone who is interested or going through something similar) but I ended up having a multi-level laminoplasty and foraminotomy, which was… not fun. In fact, it was spectacularly painful and I was stuck in a neck brace until my ‘six week’ post op appointment at the hospital, which actually happened after seven weeks just for the sheer fun of it. I am now sporting a new neck-length Frankenstein’s monster scar right on time for Halloween. Should have just gone all out and given me bolts.

Yes, I was properly grumpy but look at the actual state of me:

On the bright side, I’m glad it’s over and everybody at the RJAH in Oswestry was lovely as usual. Recovering from this one has been tough and frustratingly slow, but I can confirm that I am now able to put on my own socks, drink coffee (or, let’s be honest, wine) without a straw and sit at my desk long enough to type a few paragraphs at a time. Sketching comfortably is a little way off, but I’m confident I’ll get there soon.

Obviously, I haven’t been having many other adventures lately. Before my neck intervened, Luce and I had been hard at work on our somewhat neglected garden. We managed to sort out the weed covered patio, clear the paths and flower beds nearest the house and do some replanting, which was quite the achievement! My mum bought me a small greenhouse for my birthday last year, so I was able to grow (or attempt to grow) pretty much everything from seed this spring. Some experiments were more successful than others, but I really enjoyed myself and I’m already planning for next year.

As a joint birthday present/reward, we decided to upgrade our outdoor drinking experience a little…

Yep, that’s me on my birthday in June sipping rum cocktails at our ACTUAL TIKI BAR! What could possibly go wrong? We’ve acquired solar disco lights and several flamingos since then, which has rendered the whole thing approximately 35% more hilarious. And that’s two photos of me, which is more selfies than I’ve shared in ages (February 2020. I checked).

Speaking of hilarity, we finally had to have our ancient gas boiler replaced in June. We’d been putting it off for ages, mostly because of the expense but also the upheaval. Our crumbling Victorian house never makes anything like this straightforward. Sure enough, leaks sprung up all over the ancient pipework and it became obvious that we were also going to have to replace most of the ancient radiators, so the upheaval extended through the whole place, and we now have an efficient new central heating system with six-inch sections of peeling 1970s wallpaper above several of the radiators because the new ones were a different size. Goodness only knows when I’ll be able to get up a ladder to hang wallpaper. I might just have to style it out for now and call it a feature. Old wallpaper is ‘retro chic’, right? Maybe I’ll start a trend. Also, although we now have a working thermostat for the first time in twenty-odd years, we still feel the dog’s ears to decide whether it’s cold enough to turn the heating on. Because nobody wants cold ears, especially not this dog:

Now you know why I’m skint, perhaps you’d like to have a look at all the lovely t-shirts, posters, mugs etc. in my shiny new online shop? After the customary amount of coffee and swearing, I’ve added a spooky seasonal section and everything. Please order soon if you need stuff in time for Halloween, as everything is made to order and delivered direct by the printer, not the ‘weasel.

I will try and be a more regular correspondent from now on. I know I’ve said that before but this is the first time since 2015 I’m not on a surgeon’s waiting list, which is encouraging. Fingers crossed, eh?

Bonus Music Video

Ok, I admit the title of this blog entry is a bit tenuous. Is it because I talked a bit about gardening? Am I a flower trying to turn towards the sun? Or was it just a flimsy excuse to share this beautiful song at the end?

Yeah… it’s the last one, obviously. But you’ll thank me once you listen to it.

As you may know if you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, last week was somewhat disrupted by waking up bright and early (well… early) one morning at a very odd angle due to our elderly bed frame breaking. My back did not enjoy this one little bit and I didn’t get as much done as I’d hoped. Still enough for a quick journal update though. We are now completely penniless, but we have a superking sized bed with room for Staffingtons who like to snuggle and a fabulous, supportive mattress. It is glorious. If it wasn’t for my determination to be more creative, I might just hibernate until spring.

I mentioned in my last journal entry that I had been doing a fair bit of sketching from nature and missed going on long walks. Sometimes though, nature comes to you.

I often spend a while reading before I go to sleep at night. A couple of weeks ago, I was engrossed in my book in the early hours. The only light in the room was the small bedside lamp, right next to my face. Suddenly, a large flappy thing appeared between me and the page. Obviously I didn’t do a big girly shriek, drop my book, and go six feet in the air… (*ahem*)… but I was a little surprised, as random flying beasties do not usually appear indoors in early February.

Once I had ruled out vampires, actual bats or very small UFOs, I saw that it was not that big after all. As it flitted about the lamp shade, I realised it was a butterfly. Wait… what?

This is how I came to find out that certain butterflies ‘over-winter’ indoors, but can become confused by central heating or unseasonably warm weather. My 3am Googling revealed that this was a Small Tortoiseshell, one of the most common to be found in houses. This helpful site told me what to do:

“ Small Tortoiseshell and Peacock… [butterflies] regularly overwinter inside houses. They come in during late summer/early autumn when it is still warm outside and our houses appear to provide suitably cool, sheltered dry conditions.

However… such butterflies may be awoken prematurely by high indoor temperatures. This presents a major problem for the butterfly as the outside weather conditions may be very hostile and there is little nectar available in gardens.

The best solution is to rehouse the butterfly into a suitable location. Catch the butterfly carefully and place it into a cardboard box or similar, in a cool place for half an hour or so to see if it will calm down.

Once calmed down you might be able to gently encourage the sleepy butterfly out onto the wall or ceiling of an unheated room or building such as a shed, porch, garage or outhouse. Just remember that the butterfly will need to be able to escape when it awakens in early spring”.

So that’s what we did. Two more have appeared since then, which was less of a surprise. I have always planted wildlife-friendly things in our garden. We have an abundance of butterflies and moths over the summer. It wouldn’t be hard for a few of them to find a way into the crumbling Victorian pile that is Poochweasel Towers and find a quiet spot. They are very welcome to doze here.

I took a couple of photos, which provided a great opportunity to practice blending my new ink markers.

They are somewhat counter-intuitive for someone like me, who has spent most of their life drawing with graphite and water based things, as the trick is to start with darker colours then use the lighter shades to blend but I think I’m starting to get the hang of it.

When life gives you lemons, it’s time for a gin and tonic. When life gives you butterflies, draw them! After you’ve done the cardboard box/cool place thing, obviously.