Gardening in retirement. I hate to say it but this week has been tricky. You’re probably sick and tired of reading my negativity particularly since we got back from our trip, but for some reason there have been a number of irritations on return and this week has continued in that vein. Ridiculous speeding fine, aggressive van drivers, bloody over-precious cyclists, mean-spirited planners. Just four examples.
True we’ve been on the road more than usual this week what with trips to Derbyshire and the vineyard but really I do not enjoy driving or even being driven these days. In fact I do not enjoy this country at all at the moment and that’s largely to do with this bloody government we have. But that’s for another time, in this blog I’ll try and err on the side of looking on the bright side. Not my usual perspective I know.
So let’s call this a horticultural blog. I think I can just about justify the title. Starting this week at the Heanor house and weeding the path. At the bottom of the very long garden that goes with this property there are the remains of a very old, dilapidated shed, my grandfather’s old shed in fact and one I have spent many happy hours playing in. But now it has to go and I’ve asked my neighbour / gardener to take it down and we’ll replace it with a new one.
He’s started on this onerous task by removing the roof or at least what was left of it. Naturally he wanted me to see what he’d done and give him the go ahead for the next steps. But there was a problem, namely I couldn’t get down the path to inspect it.
So that’s how come we spent most of Monday this week, first buying tools (strimmer and extension cable) and then using them to clear the path. Not easy even with the new strimmer. In fact I’m slightly ashamed to admit that Mrs Summerhouse cleared more than I did with the strimmer, by hand.
So anyway I had plenty of time to contemplate that most-beloved of retirement activities, namely gardening – you know rewarding and relaxing or creative and fulfilling. I don’t think I ever thought that our retirement would involve, as so many people’s does, gardening. And at least I got that prediction right because there has been very little and what there has been has been distinctly lacking in pleasure. Maybe it’s the jobs themselves or maybe it’s just me.
True at Drummond we bought our bedding plants for the front and back gardens and that was more pleasurable but that might have been because I was watching Mrs Summerhouse do the work. Maybe that was the reason?
Which brings us to this end of the week and the trip to the vineyard. More work, more weeding only this time on a larger scale. It’s no wonder I don’t like, what I’m calling, gardening, it seems my form of gardening is just another word for weeding. Even spraying (as opposed to pulling up) the grass / weeds was a little anxiety provoking. Get any of the spray on the vines and it’s goodbye to the vines.
So once again even with all the tools / mechanical aids we have up at the vineyard and elsewhere, horticulture does not offer much in the way of a positive diversion from the woes of retirement life. I can only hope that doesn’t sound too dramatic. I’m quite sure there are other diversionary tactics that a retired person can employ to avoid dwelling on the irritations of life but gardening does not seem to be one of them.
Gardening in retirement summary
It’s not very encouraging when my attempt to think of reasons to be cheerful turns into a blog about weeding. It makes me wonder if I’ve seriously miscalculated the kind of retirement I want to be leading. Keep reading these blogs to find what the answer might be.
At the top of this blog, a quick peek at the self-set flowers (foxgloves) up at the vineyard. They look great and needed no weeding to look this good. Is there a moral here?