Biggus Diggus

Ever since we moved into this house, I've wanted to do something drastic to the garden. Well, not *quite* since we moved in -- it took a few months for me to work out what a garden was *for*, and a few months more to understand that it was mine to do what I wanted with.

All months since then have been enriched by having a garden to play with, but it's never been quite right, because although I have learned a lot -- the importance (as in plumbing) of Having The Right Tools, what's a weed and what's not, how big things get, what will and won't live through winter, why you should never buy plants mail order, that things which say on the label that they need sun really do need sun, that to be good at planting you need to understand time (the first time in my life I have accepted that there are more than three dimensions) -- it's still the garden of the previous occupant.

She was a woman who had plenty of money and plenty of taste, but that taste was Laura Ashley gets off with Willam Morris with a few extra frilly bits and neo-Grecian touches on the side.

Robust was not her (though class was and I thank her for a fabulous loft conversion). The garden has always been deeply impractical, with steep steps near the house leading to uphill long thin lawn with ivy-ridden beds too narrow or shady to be healthy and crumbling brick paths. I have always longed to do something drastic, and since I discovered the joys of ferns and hostas in a shady garden last year, I've wanted to start by digging out the lower third of the garden, which is, for most of the year, both damp and dark.

It always seemed a low priority for M (and indeed housemate S, who has been heard to say that she would concrete the lot given the chance), but something's changed. M and I are best as a team when I (Aquarian, implementer) really really want something to happen but don't have the skills to create the plans and I badger him (Virgoan, mathematician, artist) to design it.

And we've really started it now. There's a skip outside, M's been at it all yesterday and most of today, C's been digging like a man possessed, I've been measuring up sacrificial flowerbeds, we've had construction consultancy and reality checking from a man who knows stuff we don't, and the formidable Mick son of Mick is on course for doing the building of walls and laying down of stones next month, enthusiastically if not ably assisted by us.

And we have assorted friends and relatives coming to dig for victory over the weekend -- demonstrating admirably that you don't need football fans (as they are all 'busy') to shift several tons of clay -- our rare blend of gentle sensitive loving girls and boys will get the job done nicely.

Progress so far:

  

Exhibit A (left) -- view from my room a month ago.
Exhibit B (right) -- two days post-skip

joella