This Eden

One week in late October

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 the last week turned out for me.

Princes Park in Liverpool, during this week of perfect Autumn

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, from last week’s Journal.

Listen to an audio reading here:

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 “dreadfully tired” as I said to Sarah, 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 of those 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 liked the idea of not spending whole days in the garden. So I could continue my recent pattern of gentler autumn walking and more library visits. In the kind of ‘next to nothing in the diary’ week 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 day 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 left over pond-liner from Sarah’s early days as a plot-holder twenty odd years ago was discovered, and is 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, and which during this last year has rotted well beyond further repair. The pile’s now in the corner of the polytunnel, keeping it dry in case we need to take it away in Sarah’s car. But I have hopes that with Halloween and Bonfire night coming up then the pieces of the 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 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 prefer. Even though I realise 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 now officially looking for new homes.³

All in all then this turned out to be a second great and long day at the garden. I stayed on doing bits of other stuff after Sarah went home until, hours later and with the light fading on the final Tuesday evening of British Summer Time for the year, I walked home along Penny Lane, happy with the day and feeling that satisfying kind of tired that work enjoyably done leaves you.

How the week began, some tidying of the Winter Bed.

Wednesday 23rd October, Late Afternoon

And by the way, in turning Quiet into a journal it hadn’t been my intention to include whole sequences of consecutive days like this. But then these days were so exceptional I’ve decided they’d work best as a linked set. So here’s day three.

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 Instagram invitation yesterday to come and get them. Meaning I now have the land back where all the raised beds were to think about. Some of its often shade, some in 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, which has been joined today by one from Penelope Lively. Another gift from time⁴ that had me glazed over when I first tried to read it a few years back while I was reading 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 and all their gardens. And spoken of gardens in literature, as fictional devices, as reality and metaphor, and about Eden, which Penelope Lively calls the primordial garden.

“The little library in the shed”

“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 painting of it he’d always planned. 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. Meaning time will tell about future sketching, if any.

But anyway this week, at this Eden, tomorrow’s weather is again forecast fine. So of course I’ll definitely be here. Not fool enough to walk away from a primordial Eden.

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 of course, as well as the architecture, the music and the hushed silences of them, 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 hushed silence ones. And the quality of the contemplating that can then 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 for the allotment. What the shape of its reinvented garden will be by the time next springtime arrives. 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. And mindful of the unreliable heart valve, I won’t even try to get more than the Sunlight work done this week. Knowing 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.

And after the pause…

Three medium sized clump-forming grass varieties have now 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, or that’s my idea. My own gift to next spring.

And so it was done. With rain forecast for Friday, by late Thursday afternoon the new Sunlight side of our allotment, wider than before and stretching, as planned. back to where the compost bins had been was envisaged, cleared space for, dug out and created. Over four perfect days in Eden that, though I’m no doctor, I’d say were 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.

The new Sunlight Side

Saturday 26th October

On Friday, yesterday, I was glad to wake up to the forecast sound of rain falling, since that meant I could rest rather than do any more shifting of soil and plants around the allotment. Because there are always more things could be done. But for this week, enough was definitely enough. So yesterday I was content to do my usual of walking a bit and taking some books back to a library. But otherwise I stayed home and began the editing and shaping of the week’s journal entries into what you’re reading or listening to now, ready to be published some time early in the coming week.

And now it’s late on Saturday morning. I was up extra early today, well before six, despite its being the last very dark morning for a while yet, as the clocks go back tonight ending British Summer Time for this year. Not, thinking about it, that clock-time matters all that much to me any more. Now I’m no longer turning up for any forms of work the times when I need to coincide with other people are limited. Mostly meaning I can get up at the beginning of days and go back to bed at their end in time with my own rhythms. Up when I wake, back to sleep when I’m tired. Which I so much prefer to the imposed “get up when you’re told” clock-times of my school and working lives. Peace at last.

The Saturday morning Cathedral

But, to conclude the week’s main story, I’ve walked across the perfect peace of Princes Park into Toxteth Library, now the editing of all this is almost done. And it is Cathedral-like in here as I first noticed a couple of weeks ago, the last time I visited. 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 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 here, on Sunday morning, I’m back at the allotment again. To end the week with this lovely autumnal picture of what’s been done.

This Eden, this week

An Endpiece: Some reading and listening

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.

And thinking about it, neither of these two beautifully played end-pieces to here would have been found without those two magazines and the music streaming subscription.

But right now and from me, that’s it for this time,
Ronnie

1. See here for a brief heart valve explanation.

2. 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.

3. Rather than wait to publish this I decided to advertise the give-away immediately on Instagram Stories. And the raised beds were soon gone.

4. 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.”

5. 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.

6. 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.