Final score

A reminder from Jane that it’s been a long, long time since anything has been added to the blog.

Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, a girl named Anne decided (what with one thing and another) to leave her bustling home town and return to an island (let’s call it Gabriola) off the west coast of Canada where she also had a home.



Sadly, while she had been away from her house on Gabriola, the garden, which she’d laboured (with the help of her neighbour Pat) to create, had gone to rack and ruin.



This made Anne very sad.

So she vowed that when she was back on Gabriola she would rejuvenate her poor garden. Visions of year-round home grown crops danced through her head (as did flower beds and something to sit on which wasn’t the ruins of an old bench).

But before she left her bustling home town, there were many, many people she needed to see and bid farewell. Quite a few of them also lived in her bustling home town and she was able to catch up with most of them in one go at one of her favourite places.



But then there was her friend Rory, who lived many miles away in Cornwall and couldn’t come to her favourite place.

So Anne went to visit Rory.



One morning, while she was visiting Rory, they got to talking about creative things – like dancing (which Rory used to do professionally) and writing (which Anne used to do rather a lot of). Anne told Rory how sad it was that she never seemed to have (or find) the time to do any writing. Rory raised an eyebrow – as well he might. This eloquent eyebrow of Rory’s was telling Anne that she was full of something that was good for gardens, that if she really, truly wanted to write, she would somehow find the time.

Right then and there, Anne made a promise to Rory (and to herself) that when she got back to Gabriola she would (at a minimum) write something for an hour every morning when she got out of bed. It didn’t have to be fiction. It didn’t matter what it was, as long as she was writing something. It could be a letter to a friend or a journal entry. It could be anything, including – oh, yes, this is a good idea – a blog about her garden project.

And so she returned to Gabriola. On the very first morning she started writing a garden journal. Eventually she remembered that this journal was supposed to be a blog.



Like the bench and flowerbed parts of her vision, the blog went well. (Unfortunately the year-round home grown produce part was a far from resounding success.)

Then one day a funny thing happened. She switched her computer on in the morning, but instead of writing about crap soil, she found herself writing. Honest to god, make it up as you go along fiction.

Anne was very, very excited. It had been so long since she’d been on a roll like this. She kept on writing, writing, writing, in her exhilaration all but forgetting about her blog and the many followers (well, four) who’d been left in the lurch.

After a day spent planting bulbs, she decided she really should correct that.



So, here’s the final score:

Peas 0
Beets 0
Carrots 0
Broccoli 0
Pumpkins 0
Squash 0
Cantaloupe 0
Red peppers 1 (see above)
Tomatoes tons
Blackberries tons (for which garden project can take no credit)

Resolutions 1 (next year I will build the raised beds and get some bloody topsoil)

Now that the rains have come, turns out the soil in the vegetable patch can support life – it is covered in happy weeds which will need to be dug up before I empty the bottom half of the compost box on the patch and dig it in.

And now I really must go. There are fictional characters calling my name, eager to find out what they are going to do next.

Crime wave

Finally make it to Arbutus (building supply shop) to buy some dark green marine paint for the bench. Oh, guess what? They don’t have any dark green marine paint. They have yellow. Hmm, no, not really. They have orange. ’Nuff said. They have black. While I am very fond of black, as my wardrobe will attest, I’m somehow thinking painting something that sits in the sun and which I plan to sit on black is not a good idea. Bollocks. Ask at desk if they have any dark green marine paint hidden away. No, of course they don’t. It will take a week to get some in, leaving me with the choice of waiting to paint the bench or making a trip to Nanaimo to buy a can of paint. As much as I want to get the bench painted before Pat leaves for two weeks on Sunday (I’ve promised him a cold one, sitting on the painted bench before we go), he agrees that a trip to Nanaimo is too much. Bugger. I really want to get that bench painted.

Instead of a cold one on the newly painted bench, we go for a cold one and a game of pool to the pub. (There is decent ale to be had here – just a shame that it is served so bloody cold.) Pat astonishes me by presenting me with my very own pool cue. Turns out he had two pool cues he’d completely forgotten about which he’d stumbled across looking for something else in the loft. My very own pool cue. Wow. The first shot I take with it, I manage to pot the eight ball in my break. Rather a quick win for Pat. I miss the second shot I take with it and pot the cue ball instead, Hmm. This does not bode well. Fortunately things improve so I stop wondering whether my pool cue is cursed and accept the long acknowledged fact that I’m a crappy player.

Our game is interrupted with the news that some fat bastard from Alberta has managed to crash his bloody SUV into the front of Pat’s beloved Mustang convertible in the parking lot. The passenger side front end has been crushed right up to the tire, so the car cannot be driven. Not sure if the fat Albertan would have owned up to this (SUV, of course, relatively unscathed), if the pub manager hadn’t witnessed the accident. Pat is gutted. Not only is his baby all smashed up, but now he’s not going to be able to go on vacation in a Mustang convertible with his lady friend Helene. The RCMP are called away from investigating the local crime wave to fill out an accident report. (And where, I wonder, were the RCMP when my garden shed was being stripped of its contents?) The towtruck arrives and fortunately the driver is able to pull the front end far enough away from the tire to drive the car. (Oddly enough, as we’d pulled into the car park I had jokingly said to Pat, “Watch out for that SUV beside you. It’s from Alberta.”) So now Pat’s going to have to make an unscheduled and unwanted trip to Nanaimo to get the process of repairing the Mustang started and sort out a loaner for his trip. He’s holding out for another convertible. I’m not holding my breath. I’m also not asking him to pick me up a can of dark green marine paint while he’s there. Just a wee bit too cheeky, methinks.

Will the frigging birthdays never end? I cannot believe how many people I know have had birthdays in the past week. Becky, Salma, Jess, Theresa, Lucy and (I’ve just remembered) my cousin Lauren, whose birthday I forgot.

Well, in the absence of dark green marine paint and thus any Gabriola garden related photos to include, I shall mark Rory’s birthday by adding one of him working on his own garden rehabilitation project.