3rd July 2020

The plants are outside now and coming along nicely. We’ve had a fair bit of rain over the last week so this tomato plant is now looking much bigger and greener. All the plants are!

I’ve also had a few disappointments. We have a lot of snails and slugs in a very small space, and they have thoroughly enjoyed feasting on some of the plants. The Basil plants have been totally eaten away to nothing. So have the lovely marigold plants that my daughter bought me. I won’t try planting either of those plants again.

My husband has been working from home for the last few months (due to Covid-19) and it made sense to give him my office space. As a result the rhythm of my days has changed, and my little garden has had much more attention than usual this year.

I went into town today because I needed to visit the bank and the post office. This is only the second time I’ve been there since the Lockdown began. I think it’s the first time I’ve been out of the house on my own for months. It was wet and windy (so town was quiet). On one level life was happening as usual, but look closer and things are very definitely different. There’s something that feels unnerving about the long, stretched out, queues outside the shops. I bought a cauliflower from the door of a shop we are no longer allowed to enter, the staff serving from behind a perspex screen across the door. The queue was too long at the butchers (to stand out in the rain), and I changed my mind about entering the small health food shop when I saw it was already far too busy inside.

Book of the day: George Orwell’s 1984

Lunch today was bacon, poached eggs, and mushrooms.

Dinner was gammon with broccoli and carrot & turnip mash.

On sunnier days, my neighbour’s cat spends the whole day asleep in the shade of my Buddleia bush. Oh to be a cat and to just laze and sleep all day long – guilt free!