Bad gardening weekend.

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What a bloomin terrible weekend it was for gardening.
It wasn’t the weather!
It wasn’t a lack of things to do!
It wasn’t a desire to do other things!
but
It was my 84 year old dad who had become very poorley on Sunday night.
I had spent Saturday shopping for plants and bits and bobs to make a new bog feature in my front garden if you recall.
Sunday morning appeared all sunny and bright, and a lovely day to get on with the task in hand. I donned my ‘bag lady’ gardening clothes, (i have three sets, all exactly the same, one for wearing, one washing, and one dry spare) I do wear other stuff but this is my main ‘gardening uniform’..
So there i was, ready and raring to go.
Firstly I started to dig a hole for the reservoir (a big plastic trug) for the pump, it took ages because of my solid clay, which fortunately wasnt rock hard but was slimy so i could get my spade in it but not my fork. It makes a really loud sucking noise like taking a first spoonfull of trifle but much louder, llol. I was on my hands and knees after about a foot, because you cant get the leverage if you stay stood up can you! The lawn was saturated and as a result so were my legs and feet!!
Anyway, hole dug, trug in, pump in, tested, and bricks piled round it for support at the top, chicken wire on top to support the tiles to support the feature, then the water in, works well! Next stage is to chose one pot out of the loads I bought in the sale to sit on top of the little plinth, gosh those pots are sooooo havy and after trying each one on top of the plinth I decided on one and it doesnt look too bad but its not perfectly level at the top due to it being hand cast.
So it worked nicely but the ground was a mess around it where I had been kneeling and messing around.
Next to do was lay the pond liner down (not for a pond but for a bog area) easy, laid it straight on the lawn, no digging out or anything, then i put large gravel at the top edge and progressed down the liner with general purpose compost and bark chippings. That is all laid out now but everything else………………well, its all strewn all over the garden. I carried about a ton of stone to put round the edge of the feature (the stone used to be a wall from my ex husbands girlfriends mothers house, confusing lol.) from round the back of my house to the front. Very tiring! I really must get my wheelbarrow tyre inflated !!
I had stopped for the night and was, as you can imagine, very muddy, very dirty, very tired, and I looked like I had survived a year in the trenches in world war one. My daughter popped round for a cuppa and to say hi. so i was sat there for half an hour with her, still filthy and still sat in the front garden. She went home, and I went into the house to have a shower and try to get back to looking human. Then the phone rang LYNNE, COME QUICKLY YOUR DAD IS POORLEY, this was my mum, panic in her voice and trying to be brave.
I rang my daughter and she came to get me in her car, I wont say how fast we went but it was fast and we covered 25 miles in 19 minutes and that included her collecting me from my house. But I digress (as usual) lol.
When we got there, i comforted my mum and dad, his temperature was raging and he was shaking all over as if in shock after a terrible accident or something like that. While I comforted them, Melody (my daughter) rang for the amublance. Two minutes (literally) later they arrived at the door. They had just been coming off the junction that is a couple of mins away from my mums. They did and ecg. blood count and pressure etc and could find no reason for my dad to be like this. How amazing is that. it wasn’t another heart atack. Thank goodness for that! He is now ok. I spent all day there yesterday and made him stay in bed. Today he is a little better again and we have no idea what caused him to be like this, I am just thankful that he is feeling better.
AND that is the story of why it was a rubbish gardening bank holiday for me.
I have taken photos of the stages I went through making the water feature, and I have also take pics of the tubs and plants I bought as you asked me to, so I will try and get these on tonight.
Lynne x

• 26 Aug, 2008
• 2 likes

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