When a new week begins it never comes badged up as “this could be one of the happiest and most satisfying weeks of your recent life.” But that’s how last week turned out for me.
Which was unexpected. Because as you’ll hear a long walk on the Sunday afternoon had left me feeling tired, fragile and not at all like I was about to have the week that followed. But here’s how it went.
Audio version:
Monday 21st October, early
Towards the end of some long walking yesterday, as I walked up the hill at Penny Lane, I could feel my heart working quite hard. Like it was reminding me not to push it, followed by another reminder later in the evening, as I went off to bed, early and feeling dreadfully tired” before sleeping a good nine hours.1 Still now I’m wondering about the wisdom of the whole day at the allotment I’d planned. It’s already past nine and there’s not a fibre of me wants to go there yet, before coffee, and some cereals. Then at most today could be a couple of hours at the garden later on, for something gentle like strimming and clearing any radishes worth having from the back one of the raised beds. Then, when I’m more rested in a day or two the weather’s forecast to be fine. So possibly by then some more energetic clearing and perhaps bulb planting could happen.
That all felt wise. And I like the idea of not spending whole days in the garden. So I can continue my recent pattern of gentler autumn walks and library visits. In another of the ‘next to nothing in the diary’ weeks I like best these days.
But read on to see how those allotment intentions went. As this early Monday’s wise advice to myself was about to be immediately and completely ignored, for the whole week.
Tuesday 22nd October
A cool morning of what’s forecast to be another dry day, so for at least some of it I’ll carry on with what, against my own advice turned out to be a whole yesterday of clearing, cutting back and generally doing stuff at the allotment. Sarah had cycled over part way through the day, making it much easier with both of us there to take decisions about changing some things and getting rid of some others. Starting with the maintenance area at the side of the shed. Some ancient stuff that had been hiding there, including some left over pond-liner from Sarah’s early days as a plot-holder many years ago that’s now on a pile to be discarded. Along with an old sieve and the broken up pieces of an ancient table we’ve had in the shed porch for years, which had rotted well beyond further repair. That pile’s now in the corner of the polytunnel, keeping it dry in case we need to take any of it away to the dump in Sarah’s car. But I have hopes that with Halloween and Bonfire night coming up then the pieces of old table, at least, might be wanted more locally.
Anyway, and like with most of our clearing here as well as at home over the years there’s nothing in that pile will be replaced, as we always prefer the emptiness.
Also to be cleared, a decision this rather than an action so far, are all three of the allotment’s raised beds. I set them up in the late days of the lockdowns, keen then to be growing salad crops and vegetables as my own limited contributions to both the gardening of the place and our food supplies. But over this past year as I’ve taken over the wider care of here I’ve lost all enthusiasm for these “produce” parts of the garden. Finding, to use a good Scouse term, that I “can’t be arsed” with the time, trouble, attention and ugly protective netting the raised beds require. And would rather have the land they stand on back for more of the gardening I’ve come to love. Even though there’s a kind of expectation from traditionalists that plots should contain regimented rows of produce, I don’t care. I’ll grow the hebes, heuchera, hellebores, dahlias, digitalis and such others as I prefer. Like this is some kind of Pleasure Garden, which it is.2
So now there are three relatively new and reasonably portable raised beds to be moved on. Our next-plot neighbour is having one of them but the other two are hereby officially looking for new homes.3
All in all then a second great and long day at the allotment. I stayed on doing bits of other stuff long after Sarah went home until, hours later and with the light fading on the final Tuesday evening of British Summer Time I walked home. Along Penny Lane, happy with the day and feeling the satisfying kind of tired that work enjoyably done can sometimes leave you.
Wednesday 23rd October, Late Afternoon
A third perfect autumn day for allotmenting. And as of this one the plot now has no raised beds. One of them I mentioned yesterday is now with the neighbour on her plot next door. And the other two have been picked up by a friend from Damien John Kelly House. A local abstinence based recovery centre with an allotment of their own, who were the first to respond to my invitation yesterday to come and get them. Meaning I now have the land back where all the raised beds were to think about. Some often in shade, some full sun. And as for what will be planted there are the new grasses I’ve been planning as well as other possible new plants from my own growing knowledge from this past year, of what works well and doesn’t in the soil here. All a pleasure to think about and, by the way, there’s not one word in that last couple of sentences I could have imagined writing even twelve months ago.
But this gardening, this allotment and these autumn days have been a gift from time. Educated as I have been all year by Sarah and the little library in the shed here of Beth Chatto and Christopher Lloyd books. Joined today by one from Penelope Lively that’s another gift from time4 and had me glazed over when I first tried it a few years back, being more used to her novels. Today though its words have flowed like a conversation between the two of us. We’ve talked about Vita Sackville-West, Virginia Woolf, Gertrude Jekyll, Beth Chatto in all their gardens. As well as gardens in literature, as fictional devices, as reality and metaphor. And about Eden, this Eden, An example of what Penelope Lively calls “the primordial garden.”
“The garden - any garden is in a state of unstoppable change. Each day, each week, each leaf, each bud, each flower - moving inexorably on to its next incarnation, the spring sparkle forgotten by the time of the summer show, that too fallen away before smouldering autumn. The dead of winter, but one determined rose with a flower at Christmas.”
Penelope Lively
She also writes about Claude Monet and how he worked on the creation of his garden at Giverney for twelve years before he judged it ready to begin the paintings he’d always planned it for. Reminding me, in that tangential way reading can, of my own occasional sketching and how I haven’t done as much on here as I’d thought I might. And wondering now whether I ever will? Certainly once the book moved from Monet and painting onto “The Written Garden” in its next chapter, my own engaged interest level rose from “quite” to “very.” It’s the written word, all my life, the writing and the reading of it that lights me up. So future sketching? I doubt it.
But anyway this week, at this Eden, tomorrow’s weather is again forecast fine. Meaning of course I’ll be here. Not fool enough to walk away from a primordial Eden now I know that’s what here is.
Thursday 24th October, very early
Cooler again this morning, as the year cools, I woke up early dreaming of a church. Not one I’d ever been to, except in the pages of “Adam Bede” a couple of weeks back. Where George Eliot’s description of the afternoon sunlight falling through stained glass onto the raised faces of the village congregation was so gorgeous it’s stayed with me and turned up in this dream. Not like I was one of the congregation, I was just watching, but the dream’s reminded me how much I like churches. The quality of the stained-glass light as well as the architecture, the music and the hushed silences, unlike the silences of anywhere else. And the meaning of it, this dream? Just that I think I’d like to visit more churches during my walkings around. For all those reasons I’ve said but especially the silent ones. For the quality of contemplating that can happen, even for doubting agnostics like me.
But back to the week’s main story, it’s looking like another day without rain. And therefore another one for me to carry on with what began as an autumnal clearing-back, but has now become at least as much about what comes next. What the shape of the reinvented garden will be by next spring. All gardens, and this has been a significant learning for me, being temporary creations that need annual and at least partial renewals by themselves and by their gardeners. In this one’s case, by me.
And for at least one of my contributions to this one’s renewal I’ve decided to extend and widen the Sunlight bed, as we call it, along the side of the allotment where two of the raised beds were until this week.5 Easiest done, this sort of grass and earth shifting work on a dry day like this one. With the ground dry but not bone dry and so easily dug. Mindful of the unreliable heart valve I won’t be even trying to get more than the Sunlight work done this week. Because there’ll be plenty more autumn days to get next spring’s bulbs, as well as the grasses I’ve yet to order, planted into some of these newly expanded growing spaces.
The early morning’s writing is here paused for a few minutes as plants are ordered
Three medium sized clump-forming grass varieties have just been ordered from Beth Chatto Gardens. Also two that Sarah and I first saw at Ness the week before last are now in the Chatto nursery’s ‘growing on’ list, to be got when they tell me they’re ready. All planned to add to the texture, flow and reinvention of the garden for next year. My gift to next spring. And with rain forecast for Friday, by late Thursday afternoon the new Sunlight side of our allotment, wider than before and stretching back to the compost bins, had been envisaged, dug out and created.
Four perfect days in Eden these, that though I’m no doctor I’d say were comprehensively good for my heart. The work more slowly done than it would previously have been, with lighter loads more slowly lifted and carefully carried, but nevertheless stoically and happily done.
Saturday 26th October
On Friday I was glad to wake up to the forecast sound of rain falling, as that meant I could rest for the day rather than do any more shifting of soil and plants. Because for this week, enough had definitely been enough. So yesterday I was content to do my usual walking and taking of books back to a library. But otherwise stay home and begin the shaping of the week’s journal entries into what you’re reading or listening to.
Now it’s late on Saturday morning.
And I’ve walked across Princes Park into Toxteth Library, where the editing of all this is almost done. Cathedral-like, it is in here as I first noticed a couple of weeks ago. Hushed and sacred like I’d suspect it won’t be when I walk across Upper Parliament Street soon for a sit in the actual Cathedral. Saturday mornings are usually busy in there with tourists and cassocked Cathedral guides. But the Lady Chapel, off along a side aisle and down some steps is usually quiet. So I might get some time in there for one of those sits in churches my George Eliot dream had suggested to me. But let’s see.
In fact the Lady Chapel was popular with Saturday morning visitors too. So no quiet contemplating got done. Still, at least the intention was there. And now, on Sunday morning, I’m back at the allotment again. To record the audio version of this and end the week with this lovely autumnal picture of what’s been done.
An End Piece
As well as time with Penelope Lively’s book, this has been the week of the month when I read through the latest Gramophone and Songlines magazines and add new music to some playlists I thought I’d mention.
After several years away from reading music magazines at all I’ve returned to these two and the occasional Mojo as essential adjuncts to the Apple Music account I have. Each month I’ll go through the reviews and even the adverts in the magazines to see what’s new, get an idea from the reviews if I might like it, then go and find it on Apple Music and maybe add it to one of my playlists. Which I renew each month as the new magazines come out.6
Being able to do all this has made a sense out of music magazines that I now wish they’d had decades ago. When many a mistaken record would be bought on the strength of one good single or an over-enthusiastic review. Now I can sit at home with my headphones on and effectively listen to the records I’m reading about, such as these two I’ve picked out for the end of here
First, my Songlines choice is from the Driss El Maloumi Trio and Watar Quintet, from their album “Details.”
Then the other is a top pick from my Gramophone playlist, written by John Cage and played by Bertrand Chamayou.
See here for a brief heart valve explanation.
Yes it is. And I know, because I’ve read the 1909 rules of our allotment site in Liverpool, which call the whole place “A Pleasure Garden.” So that’ll do me. I’ll plant what brings me pleasure.
Rather than wait to publish this I decided to advertise the give-away immediately on Instagram Stories. And the raised beds were soon gone.
Clearly pleased with the phrase “a gift from time” I used it twice in this paragraph before realising I’d been quoting Kate Bush. From her song “Moments of Pleasure” where she sings “these moments given are a gift from time.”
We named it after Port Sunlight where all the plants came from when we first made the bed in the late days of the pandemic. And it’s now extended into a full Sunlight Side in fond memory of my going and living there for a few months in the summer of 2019, courtesy of the Village Trust, to write a science fiction story about the place, for a Sociology MA I was doing. Maybe I’ll write more about that on here sometime.
You can see my playlists and listen to more of what’s currently on them if you happen to have an Apple Music account, by finding me on there ‘at’ ronniewriting.
Hi Ronnie, I reread this, and this time listened to the music. Loved the second piece especially. Hope you’re doing well. Having followed you for so long through all these stages in your life, I miss your writing after a while and notice the absence. I’m in transition still, away from work, to…what? I envy my partner Robin who has deep interests in flour, bread, grains, growing, milling, baking and there’s a tribe of enthusiasts around that here. He’s also into wood engraving, linocut, printing (another tribe). I’m a tribe of 1 at the moment! I do have friends, but not being super social, I’m not ready for a ‘group’ yet. Take care. Sally
For me, a captivating journey through allotmenteering, photography, music, walking, health, reading and good writing. What a week Ronnie, and for this reader all the better for the day to day flow of it all. Please keep up the good work and many thanks for the chance to follow and take note of a life being well lived.