[Previous entry: "ACE funding"] [Next entry: "How not to work" ]
Gardening
5 April 2005
It’s spring, and a middle-aged man’s fancy turns to thoughts of gardening. Sigh. But it’s such a surprise, how much of a passion this is becoming. I’ve spent much of the weekend in the back yard, potting and weeding and pruning and tidying up after winter; I’ve ordered a new compost bin, and planted rhubarb in the original (an old dustbin I drilled a few holes in; and that there rhubarb is now growing in what was my kitchen waste from two years ago, and I love that. I am also thrilled to learn that rhubarb leaves are toxic; websites are full of dire warnings, do not eat. What none of them say is whether "toxic" in this context means lethal. There is still a crime writer inside me, and I need to know...). Windowsills are full of sprouting seedlings, and my new baby greenhouse is already filling up.
Weirdly, my kid sister has undergone the same transformation, only she’s done it in the Cornish countryside, on acres of land, so she can have a whole polytunnel to play in. I am sooo jealous...
Even more weirdly, here I am doing all this displacement-activity stuff, and still finding time to work around it. Nine pages yesterday, to bring me to the end of a section. I still have no love for this rewrite, and no confidence in it - if I was wrong before when I thought I was right, how can I trust my own judgement this time round, or ever again? - but it is at least getting done.
© Chaz Brenchley 2005
Reproduced here by permission of Chaz Brenchley, who asserts his moral right to be identified as the author of this work.