Every day I spend an hour in my garden - weeding (mostly), planting, mulching… that’s about it! My partner and son do the mowing, brush-cutting and heavier work but I go out there day after day and work away at whatever little corner or sweeping hill-challenge I am currently up to.
Over the years this gardening has been many things to me - a tiny way to wrest control over my life, an insurmountable challenge that I gradually win through on, a relationship wrought with this piece of land - sometimes it’s been the worst part of every day and sometimes one of the best. Out there I can shout out hello to visiting white cockatoos, stand in amazement as a huge flock of pigeons sweep low over me, their wing-beats like a whirring engine, I can talk to the many worms (trying to avoid the many leeches and, in tick season, many ticks). Sometimes the cats come and sit with me, companionably while I work.
This hour’s gardening is the only way I’ve created anything with the land at all - maybe a stronger person could do one day a week, which is what it’s supposed to represent - and plants I planted 5 years ago are now magnificent; ones I planted 6 months ago are becoming established… some I planted with my son at the beginning of this week are still looking startled… It is satisfying. It does connect me in. It’s a burden and a pleasure, both. I like the tangible results, and that they appear no matter what my emotions were whilst I was creating them.