Penny wise, pound foolish

A short trip to Vancouver to meet up with Luna, who’s travelling around North America and has arrived in La La Land (the term coined in eastern Canada for Vancouver back in the sixties when it was the hippy heaven Canadian equivalent of San Francisco). Mike has warned that I should get a reservation on the ferry, but I’m convinced I can save $15 by just getting there early.

Arrive at the Nanaimo terminal an hour and a half before the 3:10 ferry. It’s full. I will, the attendant tells me, be lucky to get on the 5:20. Bollocks. I’m supposed to be meeting up with Catherine tonight to go out for dinner and explore the Heights (my new neighbourhood). No mobile phone, so I go off in search of a payphone. Ring her mobile, which goes to voicemail, leave message. Spend four hours at the ferry terminal, reading my book and wishing I hadn’t stripped my computer of all its games. The 5:20 arrives half an hour late. Mine is the third last car to get on it. Phew. Try to use the payphones on the ferry, but they won’t accept my credit card. Still don’t know if Catherine got my first message. If not, she’ll be arriving at my place at 6:30 and I won’t be there. Bugger. Go to the top deck for a smoke. Spot a hairy biker sending a text message on his mobile. Ask if he would possibly allow me to use it to make a call. Get hold of Catherine at home. Tell her I will ring as soon as I get to the flat in Burnaby. She laughs when I tell her how galling it is to admit Mike was right.

It’s 8:30 by the time Catherine gets to my place. She’s already eaten (don’t blame her). We go for a wander. Yes, I’m pleased to see, the Heights area does have quite a lot on offer, including a couple of really good restaurants (the best one of which is, unfortunately, closed for its summer holiday). Good butchers, good fishmonger, interesting shops. Yes, this will be a good neighbourhood.

Get up the next morning and plug in some of the spare lamps I’ve brought over from Gabriola, old ones of mine which make the place look a bit more interesting. I’ve brought various bits of fabric with me which might make good tablecloths for the table rescued from the recycling on last trip. The beautiful fabric I bought in a market in Provence some years ago, really doesn’t look right, which is a shame. Then I realise I still have the card table Catherine and Bob had donated to tide us over until we got a table. Get it out of the storage room, open it up on the balcony. The Provencal fabric looks perfect. Now all I need are some chairs for it (not to mention needing some chairs for the rescued diningroom table).

Set off to meet Luna at Continental, a coffee shop on the Drive, which used to be a big hangout for the Greenpeace staff. Am greeted effusively when I arrive by Anita, the now 72-year-old owner who is seldom in the shop these days. Have a chat with her and buy a pound of espresso before Luna arrives. She is loving Vancouver and plans to come back here to settle for several months in September. This is a bonus as so many of my other Vancouver friends are now living elsewhere.

Luna has graciously agreed to make part of our day together a trip to Ikea, where I absolutely have to go to buy some bookshelves in anticipation of all the boxes of my books (and other things) due to arrive early next month. Before dragging her out there, I take her for a tour of places I lived in the Drive, starting with the house on Cotton.

It has had quite the Painted Lady makeover since my day, but still holds fond memories of all those wonderful women’s dinners.


I also show her the house where Rowan and I first lived in the Drive, before I met Mike. And, yes, it is pretty fucking amazing. It is also for sale at the moment for $1.5 million. (When I clocked this on a previous trip I immediately went out and bought a lottery ticket, which, predictably, failed to make me the new owner.)

We make a stop at the Peg, an antiques/second hand shop which I am reasonably certain will provide me with some reasonably priced diningroom chairs.

As so often in the past, The Peg does not disappoint and we leave Commercial Drive with two rather nice chairs which go very well with the tablecloth. Result.

In honour of our Swedish friend Jenny, we have a Swedish meatball lunch at Ikea, before loading four bookcases and two folding chairs into the car and heading back to the flat.

When Luna suggests we might want to look at the instructions, I tell her instructions are for wooses. I’ve put so many of these Billy bookcases together I could practically do it in my sleep. We quickly have the two tall ones assembled and in place. At this point I realise I’ve forgotten something about my attempt to order bookcases on line for delivery (for which the Swedish bastards were going to charge $125). What I need is two tall and one medium full width bookcases and one medium narrow bookcase. What I’ve got is two full width medium bookcases and that’s not going to fit. Bugger. We assemble the full width medium case which is destined for the kitchen, leave the other one in the package for return and exchange (oh, joy) another day.

Still, the dining area has been completely transformed. it has (as you can see) been a good day’s work.

Time to uncork the wine, unfold the chairs and start relaxing on the equally transformed balcony.


The plan is to spend the next morning doing some more work on the flat. (Like getting the second coat of paint on the kitchen walls.) But Mike has me worried – as does my own BC Ferries experience of the previous day. It’s the Thursday of a long weekend and I really don’t want to have a five ferry wait at Horseshoe Bay. (There are, of course, no reservations left for any sailing that day.) So, instead of painting the kitchen, I pack up and leave at 10am, figuring I probably won’t make the 12:50, but I might get on the extra sailing at 2:30 or, failing that, the 3:10. Get to Horseshoe Bay at 10:35 and am informed by the attendant that I will be on the late 10:40 sailing. (It seems there’d also been an extra sailing at 10:10.) Probably could have got the kitchen painted after all. Oh, well.

Back on Gabriola, the Blueberry Hill rose bush is in its second bloom (unlike the second rose bush, which has done nothing) and two tomatoes are almost ready to eat. Hurrah! Look at the vegetable patch and blink with surprise. Do my eyes deceive me or are the carrots and beets staging a comeback? Of course it could just be weeds, but they do look like carrot and beet leaves. Oh, my god.

Another comeback elsewhere (or, more likely a never went away). Downstairs, despite removing all signs of cat food, there are mouse droppings on the floor near the spot where the food bowl used to be. Later I see not one, but two mice. Grrrrr. Really must track down some humane mouse traps.

Home invasion

The garden has been invaded. Not by snakes or snails (or even puppy dog’s tails), but by Mike.



Of course I understand that now that the garden looks so nice and the bench so inviting, he wants to get into it. And I had always intended that he should get to enjoy it, too. That’s why I spent more than a day widening the path and trying to remove likely-to-trip-up rocks from it.

But it is a bit of a palaver. First I have to get Mike, with his walker (no way he’s going to make it down the path even after my work with his cane alone) up the back path to the car. Then I have to drive him (with the walker and his folding chair – in case the bench isn’t high enough for him) down to the front of the house and help guide him into the garden. Of course it turns out the beautiful bench is high enough, so I get stuck with the folding chair. After 15 minutes of sitting in this, reading my book, I feel as if I’m skipping school. So much to do. So I leave him to it for an hour, go back and reverse the process to return him to the house. And the next day he wants to do it again. Honestly, some people.

Meanwhile, the downstairs has also been invaded – not by Mike, but by a mouse. The disadvantage to having a blind cat is his oblivion to Mickey Mouse scurrying around.

I suspect Angie of sneaking in during the day to empty Tri’s bowl of food, then I realise that the area near his food bowl is littered with mouse droppings. Grr. Empty the food bowl, get the hoover out. A little while later I spot the mouse. He seems to be making a bolt for the door (good – I can shut it behind him and hopefully he’ll fuck off somewhere else). Instead he disappears through a previously unnoticed hole between the carpet and the drywall. Plug up the hole, reasonably certain he can get through the wall to the crawl space at the back of the house, though not really caring if he can’t. Job done.

Take Tri downstairs in the late evening. Put some food and water down for him. Read for a while. Turn off the light and stretch out in bed with Tri sprawled out beside me. Five minutes later from the area of the food bowl I hear crunch, crunch, crunch. Bollocks. Either Mickey Mouse found his way back in through some other hole or he’d taken up residence with a chum. Fuck.

In the morning I ask Mike if he thinks Arbutus might sell humane mouse traps. He smiles, says he is not only sure they do not, but that they would laugh at me if I asked. Suspect he’s right.

Off to Vancouver to meet up with travelling pal Luna (hurrah!) and do a bit more work on project number two: the transformation of the beige apartment.

I have a cat

And, no, I'm not referring to the ones resting under flora in the garden.

In 1993, when Mike’s then 18-year-old daughter Heather was still living with us, we decided it might do her some good to have a kitten of her own. Heather did, after all, love cats. Having Clancy in the house did her no good, as he only ever hissed at her, but Jenny did welcome affection. However, it did seem that Heather would benefit from the responsibility of her own cat.

A friend of a friend had taken in a stray, who turned out to be pregnant and produced eight kittens – five female and three male – all a golden tabby with white stomachs and paws. By the time we rang her about taking a female kitten (figuring this would stress Clancy out less), there was only one left. We said we’d have her. Heather and I set out to collect the female kitten, the runt of the litter, named Angel by her temporary owner. As we sat on the floor with the kittens, one of the males, dubbed Triangle Nose for (you guessed it) the triangle on his nose, made a bee-line for Heather, curling up in her lap and purring up a storm. It was – for Heather – love at first sight. She’d lost all interest in little Angel.

What to do? I rang Mike and asked him what he thought of bringing home two kittens instead of one. (I was figuring if there were two of them, they would play together and lessen the likelihood of the male hassling Clancy.) Mike’s response was pragmatic: “One kitten, two kittens, I don’t mind what you decide, as long as it’s clearly understood that whatever happens, it’s not my fault.” My decision, then. We took both.

Heather, to me somewhat surprisingly, had no interest in renaming the kittens. I had no interest in having a cat named Angel, so that was quickly morphed into Angie. Even as a kitten Tri (another quick abbreviation) was a big, affectionate feline. Angie soon realised she was getting short shrift on the feline adoration front and considered her options. Mike, she worked out, didn’t have his own cat and so she decided he was going to be her human.

An early indication that Angie was smarter than the average cat came one night when we’d retired, taking Clancy and Jenny into the bedroom with us for some peace and quiet. As we were laying in bed reading, the bedroom door knob started rattling. I got up to investigate and found Angie on the bookcase in the hall whacking at the doorknob with her paw. She didn’t succeed in getting in, but she’d been quick to work out how doors worked.

Anyway, by the time Heather was ready to move out, Mike was far too bonded to Angie to consider letting her go anywhere and it was generally agreed it would be cruel to break brother and sister up, so we ended up with four cats.

Flash forward to 2008. Mike’s been in hospital for much of the year being treated for cancer. The prognosis is not good and I decide to take time off to get him back to Gabriola for a few months. Tri and Angie have been in the “care” of the housesitter from hell. The housesitter has been evicted and more responsible replacements brought in.


I think the worst damage the housesitter from hell has done is destroy my beautiful blue glass Deco coffee table set. (When I heard this I did wonder what was really so bad about the death penalty.)

Then I realise, when I look at Tri, that his left eye is completely clouded over. Take him to the vet who says the eye was probably injured in a fight and, left untreated, a cataract has formed and covered the eye. Now I’m really wondering about the death penalty.

Still, he’s getting around okay with one eye and it certainly hasn’t diminished how affectionate he is nor how loudly he purrs when he’s curled up on or beside a female human. (Tri is definitely a ladies man. And he is, as you can see, such an elegant cat.)



Since my return to Gabriola in May, Tri has made it very clear that I am his human. He spends every evening on the sofa, curled up beside or on me.

When we came back from our early July trip to move Mike into the new flat, there was a note from Judy, the cat sitter. She suspected Tri had gone blind. A trip to the vet (and the evidence of our own eyes watching him nearly walking into things) confirms this. His blood pressure is high and apparently in cats of a certain age high blood pressure can result in the retina detaching itself. We put him on medication (really, where have Pill Pockets been all my life – all those struggles to get medicine down an unco-operative cat’s throat, instead of them gobbling them up?). There is a slim chance that, if his blood pressure comes down, the retina will reattach itself.

In the meantime, as the ophthalmologist we also take him to see points out, cats are better equipped to cope with going blind than dogs, their whiskers protecting them from actually walking into walls. As long as he has my nap of an evening, he seems contented enough.

Unfortunately, Tri does get very upset at night when I come downstairs to my part of the house, wandering around upstairs yowling loudly and plaintively. Then one night, I’m awakened by Mike banging on the ceiling. I blink awake, conscious that the clock radio is still working and therefore the problem isn’t a power failure. Make my way upstairs. Mike in his wheelchair in the kitchen doorway, pointing frantically up the path where Tri is determinedly making his way away from the house, towards the car and then the trees. I can still see him, walk up the path, pick him up, carry him indoors. Has Tri gone looking for me, we wonder? I walk up and down that path often enough to the car. Was he following my scent?

What to do? If we block off the cat flap, Angie, who enjoys her nightly prowls, will go ballistic, but we can’t risk Tri wandering off into the woods. I decide to bring him downstairs where there is no cat flap on the door, so he cannot escape in the night. Seems a bit mean, given that he’s blind, but decide it’s the best way to protect him. Fill a spare dish bowl with cat litter, cart that, some food, two bowls downstairs. Bring Tri down, show him where the litter and food are. He navigates around this new space with his whiskers, finds the litter box, eats some food, drinks some water, then finds me on the bed, curls up and starts purring.

I have a cat.

It’s a long time (other than brief visits from Irmani’s cat Mojo when Irmani and Jonno are away) since I’ve had a cat sleeping on my bed.

The first morning, before going out to water the garden (yes, there is a garden connection to this story), I take Tri back upstairs. When I go back in later there is no sign of Tri. Bit of a panic, until I realise I’d left my door open (as I generally do). Tri is back on my bed, curled up and sleeping soundly. He’d found his own way back to my part of the house. All right then. He’s claimed his territory.

I have a cat.

Potpourri, anyone?

Another day, another dig, another ton of rocks. Time for another flowerbed. But what shall I put in this one? There’s no lobelia left in the garden shop, I’m sick of bloody petunias and there constant need of dead heading. I want something different. But what? I am led by my nose to the answer.


Yes, lavender. Five different kinds of lovely lavender. It grows in the south of France. How hard can it be to keep it alive. And, unlike the petunias, they are perennials, so no need to worry about what to put in this spot next year. (“Next year” is my new mantra. Next year I will put in raised beds for veg and do the job right. Next year I will have lots of lovely daffs and tulips. Next year I’ll plant this and I’ll plant that. Next year.) Not to mention the potpourri I’ll be able to make if I ever get around to it.

As I sit down to admire my lavender, Sally drives by, stops to tell me how much she loves the bench. Not half as much as I do. It’s so comfortable. (Now, of course, Mike wants to get into the garden. Where was he when I was doing all this work?) When I look back at the lavender, there are bees all over it. Yes!

Okay, I’ve completely failed to grow any food from seed. (The lettuce and rocket haven’t actually died yet, but nor have they grown to edible size and I very much suspect they never will.) But there will be food produced.

Look!


The tomatoes are ripening.

And what’s this I see?

My first pumpkin.

The red pepper plant teases me.

Yes, it’s all very exciting, but I’ve been here before. What are the odds this pepper will actually grow and turn red before it rots? Experience teaches me the odds are slim. However, I shall hope for the best.

And, of course, there are the blackberries.

Nought to do with me, as I’ve admitted before. The blackberries were growing here long before we bought the house. Still, it’s my fruit on my property, so good for me.

Can you eat lavender, I wonder? Tempting to e-mail Rowan about this. Not, I’m sure, that she will say lavender is edible. But no doubt she will suggest lavender water, lavender oil, probably lavender beer. (God knows she seems to make wine and beer out of everything else.) Hmmm.

Benchmark

Goddamnit. I promised Pat a cold one on a painted bench before he leaves for his holiday and, by god, he’s going to have one.

Back to Arbutus, figuring, what the hell, a black bench will be fine. Go through all the cans of marine paint and what do I find, lurking at the back, but a dented tin that says it is “mid blue”. Mid blue. Hmm. I like blue. That should be okay. Get a discount, because the tin is dented and head back home.

I open the tin. Mid blue, eh? I wouldn’t exactly call this colour mid blue. I would call this colour turquoise. And a fantastic turquoise at that.


Oh, my god, doesn’t it look beautiful?

It brightens up the whole garden. I’m in love.

But wait, there’s more. Pat’s friend Francesco has asked him if he has any use for a couple of cushions they’re planning to give to GIRO. Pat thinks they might fit the bench, so he takes them.



They do fit the bench and take it into a whole new garden furniture league. Unfortunately the fabric on the cushions doesn’t really go with wonderful new colour of the bench.

A trip to GIRO to drop off bottles and cans. A search in the clothes and bedding shop there. What’s this I see, folded up in the bottom of a large basket of sheets? A single fitted sheet which, if it’s wide enough will be absolutely perfect with the new bench. (Bizarrely, you never seem to find a set of sheets and pillowcases at GIRO. They’re always odd ones, often in perfect condition. Does make one wonder.) I fork out a dollar for this and head home.


It does fit. Hurrah! Finally something going completely right in this project.

And, Pat and I discover when we later toast the bench with a cold one, it is exceedingly comfortable. Sod the vegetables. Oh, I’ll keep the tomatoes and pumpkin and squash going and enjoy the fruits of my labours when the time comes, but this is no longer a produce producing project. This is now my summer reading room.

To Whom It May Concern

I regret to inform you that sometime in the night, the broccoli family, of whom we all had such great expectations, disappeared without trace. The appropriate authorities have been informed, but there is little expectation that, even with continued watering of their last known domicile, they will ever be seen again.

Their passing, along with that of their neighbours, the carrots, the beets and the peas, is deeply felt by all who knew them.

Mourners would like to believe that they were taken by birds or deer or slugs, as this would make some sense of the case of the disappearing flora, but the suspicion remains they were coaxed into existence by a cruel and incompetent gardener who left them to struggle then expire in soil entirely bereft of any nutrients.


(The carrot family are out for a walk one Sunday afternoon when a careless driver – probably some fat Albertan in an SUV – runs over baby carrot. At the hospital, mummy and daddy carrot ask the doctor for his prognosis. "I'm sorry," the doctor says, "but I'm afraid she's going to be a vegetable for the rest of her life.”)

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.

Ashes to ashes

Well, the only news in town (or, more accurately, on the island) today is that I’ve finally, two months after it was broadcast in the UK the week after I left, seen the last of Gene Hunt. (I did try, with typically Luddite failure, to download the final episode of Ashes to Ashes and I did get my friend Becky to send me a review copy which, when it arrived, turned out to be episode seven, not eight – gah.) Now I have closure. Fanfuckingtastic.

One of the many highlights of my time as acting director of Free Tibet Campaign was recruiting the Gene Genie (aka Phil Glenister) for the T for Tibet campaign.



When we launched T for Tibet, I had an e-mail from Ali Reynolds, the former director and a woman whom I very much admired, congratulating me on the campaign and asking if I’d actually met Phil. I emailed back with proof that I had:

© Clive Arrowsmith

I also admitted, in strictest confidence, that I wasn’t entirely sure what had been more exciting: meeting Phil or meeting the Dalai Lama. Some vindication when she quickly replied: “No kidding.”

It was a source of considerable annoyance to me and remains an ongoing annoyance to the staff that one if the first things my successor as director did was kill T for Tibet, considering it too frivolous and losing the organisation the goodwill of a number of famous people*. (Although the website was buried without trace, evidence of its existence can still be found on Facebook.)

And what, you ask, does any of this have to do with the Gabriola garden project? Well, not much, although there are shallow graves involved in both, so I guess that will have to be the tenuous link.

* One of my favourite T photos submitted by well known people was this one from Ralph Steadman.

© Andy Williams

It came with the following message.

“I have been trying to save the world, never mind Tibet for nigh on 50 years and I never thought it was a funny place to save. Anyway, I haven't saved it and I am sorry to say that neither will you save Tibet if we continue, outrageously, to have anything whatsoever to do with the Beijing Olympics just to satisfy the egos of an army of breathless goddamn athletes who want to break meaningless records for Gold. I loathe athletes and I loathe athletics - and I am not too fond of Lord Coe either...

“Anyway, trying to show willing, I got my dear son-in-law, Andy Williams, a superbly able Theatre Stage Manager, to take a shot of me, back and front simultaneously, in my nifty studio mirror, and he has done me proud! Please credit him for his work. Thanks. In the name of an extraordinary Culture and a beautiful people we MUST save Tibet. And of course your efforts are much appreciated. It is an outside shot where you can see outside in the reflection showing a kind of T in the door frame to an outside Orchard in Kent. Also you can see a photo on the wall above my head of two of my heroes, Paul Eluard, the Surrealist Poet, and Picasso, whose GUERNICA painting of 1937 should surely have put paid to tyranny once and for all- but, I fear, didn't- but I am so glad that he did it- because it was personal. Also on the wall is a broken Banjo and a picture of my own son, Theo, singing his heart out for a broken world too. And the last item, one of those family name histories that anyone can find.....that's it!

“OK. Good luck with your heroic work.”

Ralph STEADman

The peas are toast

Get up and go out to water the garden before the sun gets on it. Discover when I do that the peas have also given up the ghost. Bloody hell, if I can’t even grow peas in this soil – peas, for god’s sake – what hope is there for anything else being produced? I think I may actually get some lettuce and rocket, and the broccoli does seem to be holding its own (though there is a long way to go before I will ever be able to eat any). This is very dispiriting – even if I know it’s all my own fault for starting too late and not doing the job properly.

Okay, I am now determined. Next year I will do it right. Get the raised beds built. Get some proper topsoil. Grow things – lots of things – from seed. Meanwhile, however, this big bed of undoubtedly barren soil mocks me (which, in fairness, it has every right to do). Some sort of intervention is needed.


Another trip to the garden store. I buy two well advanced cherry tomato plants and stick them in the sunniest corner of the vegetable plot (which is also where the compost box used to be situated so might actually have some nutrients lurking in the soil). As I’m doing so, Sally and Jamie pass by. She asks me what today’s garden project is and I tell her I’ve given up on growing anything from seed this year and am hoping to rescue the situation with the addition of some ready grown plants. She nods at the sagacity of this decision which gives me some validation (though not much – again, my own bloody fault).


At the garden shop I’ve also picked up a tray of bedding flowers, having decided that (a) the garden needs more colour and (b) that I want to do something to link up Jenny and Clancy’s graves.


The flowers, like my grandiose garden plans, are somewhat past their sell by date, the last of the lobelia (only one blue left) rather on the straggly side, but the geraniums look fairly fit. I’m hoping that (unlike the beets, carrots and peas) they will rally. When I’m finished it does look quite pretty. Occurs to me as I admire my handiwork that this new flower bed is in exactly the spot I used to have a pink flamingo imbedded in the ground (before some bastard at some point stole it). I’m thinking I need a replacement.


And there are even a couple of daisy-like (can’t remember the actual name of them) plants left over which I put in the rose/lilac bed. They’re perennials which I had a lot of luck with in Walthamstow and I’m hoping these will grow as well in Gabriola as they did in London. (See? I do still live in hope.) A bud is actually appearing on my poor scrappily surviving rose bush which pleases me no end and to some extent (though not entirely) compensates for the fact that the roses on the second bush I bought a few weeks ago don’t seem to want to open properly. Grrr.

Go inside to get a glass of lemonade, come back out to inspect my domain. Really, considering where I started

I really haven’t done too badly. (Thought a little reminder might be useful here.)


There are tomatoes appearing already on the Tumbler plants I put in last week. I have fresh herbs to cook with every night (I did have to buy a replacement basil for the one the bloody slugs had ravaged).


There will be a profusion of blackberries next month for crumbles. Okay, okay, the blackberries were growing there before we bought the house, so this crop will have nothing to do with my efforts this summer, but, still, there will be blackberries from my garden and I’m sure the pruning Pat and I did has contributed to the yield.

Speaking of Pat, just look at the bench:


The missing planks, bless him, have been replaced. Yes, it still needs more sanding of peeling paint, but it is once again a functional bench and, when it’s had another sand and a coat of paint it will be as good as new. Bit of a metaphor for the whole project, really.

Dreaming in technicolour

Still haven’t made it to Arbutus to buy a sprinkler and the situation is desperate. If there is to be any hope of anything growing in my rototilled veggie patch, I am going to have to give it a serious soak, as it is bone dry just below the surface. So I borrow Pat’s sprinkler and make an annoying discovery: either the sprinkler doesn’t work (unlikely, as Pat’s been using it) or our chronically low water pressure is insufficient to make sprinkler go back and forth. My money is on the latter. Bugger.

Turn the water off, detach the sprinkler, turn the water back on and stand there for 20 minutes spraying the plot.

I am dreaming in technicolour. While most of the lettuce, rocket, peas and broccoli appear to be clinging to life, I think the beets and carrots have gone to meet their maker.

Who was I trying to kid? (Myself, apparently.) This plot doesn’t have what it takes to sustain anything. I should have bought some manure and dug it in properly. Or, even better, stuck with my original plan to build some raised beds and use actual top soil. Instead, lacking time and money for planks and topsoil, and, most importantly, the patience to do the job right (oh, the curse of the triple Scorpio), I’ve ploughed on with what I’ve got (not that I actually ploughed). Sigh.

The lettuce and rocket and broccoli and peas may confound my expectations, but I no longer live in hope.



Nothing for it but a trip to the garden store where I buy two scrawny, but flowering tomato plants to add to the little raised bed which actually has some composted soil in it. All is, after all, not lost. I do actually have tomatoes and pumpkins and spaghetti squash and, if seeing is believing (which I doubt) red peppers growing.

The new cherry tomato plants are Tumblers, the variety Ben and I grew with such success our first summer in Walthamstow, so perhaps I do still live in hope.


The rest of the salad I eat later in the summer may continue to be store bought, but at least I’ll have my own tomatoes and in the autumn there will be pumpkin soup and squash to eat. And it does look quite pretty (if I don’t spend too much time looking at the barren vegetable plot). Oh, yes, and the blackberries are coming along nicely. So, all is not lost.

An evening in the pub playing pool and drinking pints with Pat cheers me up for a while. Normally, on the rare occasions I win, it is because he’s missed the eight ball or potted the cue ball by accident and defaulted. Tonight I’m on a role. Actually win one game by potting my three remaining balls and the eight ball in one go. As rare an occurrence as the solitary 180 I once scored in a darts game. I genuinely win a second game. Unheard of. We’re tied at three all (one of the three, in truth being one of the aforementioned wins by default) and I’ve potted my last ball. I take aim at the eight ball, miss it completely and pot the cue ball instead. Grrrr.

Still, turns out Pat has (bless him) cut some planks to replace the missing ones on the garden bench, so sometime soon there will be somewhere safe to sit. Won’t that be nice?

A trip to Nanaimo today to get Mike’s wheelchair repaired and the World Cup final tomorrow (hoera Nederlands!), so taking the weekend (other than wasting water on the dead zone) off.

R.I.P.

A truly ghastly moment in the garden. Digging in the area I’d cleared of salal I come across what looks at first like a decomposing, shredded plastic bag. A few moments later I realise the gruesome truth: the “bag” is matted fur. I have accidentally shoved a shovel into the remains of Clancy, buried, not as I misremembered Mike telling me, with Jenny, but close to her. And then I remember that Clancy died in the winter, when the ground would have been rock hard, thus the shallow grave. After a moment of feeling almost physically ill, I cover up his remains.

Clancy, that crazy black cat, as anyone who ever met him will attest, was quite a character. One of six kittens produced by the (as it turned out) pregnant stray cat a friend of mine had taken in, it was believed by many that he must be part Siamese. He had the build and the yowl and very definitely the tendency to bond completely with one person (me), while treating everyone else with at best disdain and at worst a vicious bite. (I used to warn everyone who visited me that Clancy was a biter, that, even if jumped on your lap looking very friendly, he should, under no circumstances be patted, nor should you ever take your eyes off him if he was on you. There was always some idiot who would say, “Oh, that’s okay, cats really like me.” Hard to sympathise when the inevitable happened.)

I think it was my friend Rowan who once said that in a previous century Clancy’s strong resemblance to a familiar would have seen me burned at the stake. No doubt. Clancy, who used up many of his nine lives, leaping from my third floor window to explore the wider world. (It didn’t matter how many times I repaired the screen, he would somehow rip it out again.) Clancy, who used to leap on to and drape himself over my shoulder, purring and content to be walked around, hissing all the while at anyone else who came near us. Other than my mother, Clancy, who lived to be nearly twenty, was the most sustained relationship I ever had. It was gutting at the time that he died when I was thousands of miles away, unable to see him one last time. (Until just now, of course, but that, tragically, is not the same thing.)

And so it is important that his desecrated grave be properly marked. It is too shallow to plant a flowering shrub on top of him, as I have done for Jenny, so something in a tub is called for.

I go to the garden shop, thinking I no longer just want that planter with the fuchsia. Now I actually need it for something important. But the planter is gone. I ask if they have any other fuchsias and we look everywhere. There are a few left, but none of them are right. I want the sort of fuchsia I had in Walthamstow (now residing with Irmani in Camden): deep purple and vibrant pink, strong colours to mark the grave of a strong personality. None of these will do.

There is another garden shop at the other end of the island. After dropping Mike at his physio appointment, I drive down there, wandering around aimlessly and feeling dejected that my mission may not be accomplished. But wait! The woman who runs the place asks if I’m looking for something in particular. Yes, I tell her. She leads me to the back of an almost empty green house and there they are: withering in the heat and desperate to be replanted, half a dozen fuchsias of exactly the colour I want. I buy four of them and head home.

It’s only a pedestrian black plastic pot which will have to be replaced at some point by something more in keeping with the vibrancy of the flowers and of the personality of the cat whose grave they will mark, but for now the plastic pot will have to do.


It looks pathetic just sitting on the dry earth, not looking at all like the memorial it needs to be, and so I start digging up more rocks to surround it. (No shortage of these.)

I stand back, knowing I won’t be entirely satisfied until there is a proper pot, and say a long overdue farewell to Clancy: So long and thanks for all the mice.

Late night with Idris

Oversleep after a late night in bed with Idris Elba. (I wish. Forgot I’d pre-ordered Luther before I left the UK, not because this fairly standard maverick cop fare was anything special, but because Idris Elba is mighty fine to look at. One episode led to another, as they do.)


I rest my case.

Anyway, by the time I get Mike sorted out in the morning, there isn’t much time left before the sun is going to get into the garden and it’s going to be a scorcher, so I get myself out there. Water and give the vegetable patch another rake before transplanting my seedlings.


They look so tiny and frail in the large patch of earth. Hard to believe these miniscule plants will turn into beets and broccoli and carrots and lettuce and rocket. Which indeed they may not. No guarantee that, just because they’re in the ground, they will turn into food. I can but hope.


At least the tomato plants continue to flower and bear fruit. And now there are two pumpkin flowers!

Realise I need to buy a sprinkler attachment for the hose. As soon I start digging to transplant the seeds I realise the ground is bone dry under the top layer. Only way to give it a proper soak is with lengthy sprinkling. At least this doesn’t involve a trip to the garden shop, so I might be able to resist the call of the fuchsia planter spotted there after my last trip. (And I can hear it calling.)

After taking Mike shopping and to his physio appointment, decide I really have to do something about my poor bench. Go out with some sandpaper to prepare what’s left of it for a new coat of paint. Christ, it is a scorcher. Summer has definitely arrived. Go back into house for a cold drink.


Discover during the sanding process that another of the slats is rotten, pretty much only held together by the paint I’ve just sanded off. Bugger. Pat has promised me some planks and I hope he comes through else there will be nothing left to sit on.

Go inside for another cold drink. (This is definitely not cuppa weather.)

Give the salal a withering look which fails to wither it, so go to the shed and get the secateurs. Blimey, when I’ve finished clipping, hacking and digging up the salal which has infringed on the garden I have a whole new area begging for some flowers. Bollocks. Looks like I’m off to the garden shop after all.

Discombobulation

Back on Gabriola and of course the first thing I do is check out the garden project. Near the back door I discover one of my basil plants thriving while the other has been chomped almost to non-existence by slugs. Hmm. All other herbs doing well. Good.

Down in the garden I can see that Pat, bless him, has indeed added some lime to the vegetable plot and has watered the garden. Begin closer inspection.


Oh, my god, there are actual tomatoes growing! And these are cherry tomatoes, so they’ll be ready to eat sooner than they look! And there are lots more flowers on both plants than when I left. Hurrah!

Good thing the veg plot has been limed and is ready to roll, because the seeds I put in little pots to sprout have done just that.


Lots of lettuce coming along and it will soon be time to start some more.


Can’t remember what this or some of the others are. Must check my dubious filing system. Woo hoo! This is exciting stuff.


Sadly, as I predicted, I missed the unfolding of my beautiful Blueberry Hill roses. It’s looking a bit blowsy, but there are still a few buds to open and it has lots of new growth, as does my poor scrappy, survivor rose bush which I now begin to honestly believe could produce some roses this year. Blimey, I’m good.

I do wish my belongings were here from England. In amongst all the packed boxes is a silver rose bowl, inherited from my mother, which could be put to good use. Oh, well, ETA is now early August and there will still be plenty of roses then (she predicts, optimistically).

Of course, the rose bowl isn’t the only thing I’m looking forward to seeing again. A bed in Burnaby would be nice, too.

Yes, I know it’s got nothing to do with the garden project, but followers may be interested in the progress of my other big summer project: the transformation of the beige Burnaby flat. So, here goes.

Last Sunday week I arrived at the beige apartment with six gallons of paint, brushes, rollers, paint trays and, most importantly, my friend Catherine’s son Josh, the professional decorator, who is my new god.

In one very long day we managed, thanks to Josh, to banish the beige in the livingroom, diningroom, hall, both bedrooms and the kitchen.

So, this

became this.


And this

became this.

Which will look a lot better when my furniture arrives. I thank Catherine for the loan of an air mattress, but it’s not quite the same thing as a bed. (That said, I’m not sure how long it will take after furniture delivery to have a bed as the movers took the frame apart and I’m not at all sure I remember how to put it back together. Suspect there will be rather a lot of cursing involved in the process.)

And this

became this.


We didn’t make it to the bathroom (well, not for painting at any rate), but the addition of my old, funky shower curtain helps it look less dismal. Next time.

The whole week away was rather discombobulating. I was, after all, on a mission to turn a beige flat into a place that felt like home. Which then begged the question of where the hell home is. Is it Gabriola (where I’m loving the garden project, but am unlikely, when the time comes – as sadly it must – to find work) or is it Burnaby (which will look much more like my home when my furniture arrives)?

Time will tell.

In the meantime, the forecast is for a scorcher of a day, so I need to get out to the garden to do some watering and transplanting before the sun is over the yard arm.

Does this rototiller make my ass look fat?

I hope so, ’cos if it ain’t the rototiller, it must be me. At least I’m not wearing a Tilly hat. In fact, Pat reckons my lovely straw chapeau makes me look like “a little old English lady”. I shall grasp on to the little part and ignore the old.

Yes, it’s true. I have finally rototilled a vegetable plot. When Kelly brings her rototiller round for me to use, she is astonished by the transformation in the garden. Sally is similarly impressed when she walks past as I’m tilling the ground. Music to my ears. I do feel as if I’m actually getting somewhere.

Roses blooming, bees buzzing, butterflies on the blackberry bush. All very much what I want in a garden.

When I finish the rototilling, Pat comes over with a couple of cans of beer to help me celebrate. And to give his opinion on whether I’ve levelled out the decidedly sloped area which is now the vegetable bed. (I fairly quickly give up on the idea of trying to level more area as this seems to be the only part of the garden not peppered with large rocks. As nice as it would be to have more level ground, I really can’t risk breaking Kelly’s rototiller.)

Ask Pat if he happens to have any hydrochloric acid. Not surprisingly this surprises him. He doesn’t, he tells me, have any plans to kill anyone, so he’s out of hydrochloric acid. I’ve asked him because I got my cousin Peter to resend the instructions he’d given me on how to check the quality of the soil: “Mix soil into a stiff paste with water, make it into a pellet and drop this into a glass tube or small bottle. Put a few drops of hydrochloric acid on to the pellet. If there is a reasonable amount of lime in the soil, effervescence will occur though it may not be visible so put your ear to the tube. If you can hear bubbling/hissing there's no need to lime the soil. If not, it needs lime.”

I explain this to Pat, who’s never heard of this test before, but can tell me from experience and living across the road that the soil will need lime. And, because he has lime left over from his own vegetable plot (and because he likes me, he adds), he offers to rake in some lime next week while I’m away and he’s watering the garden. We like Pat.

So today I’m off to Vancouver for a week to undertake another project: Turning the beige apartment in Burnaby into somewhere I wouldn’t mind living and getting Mike moved into it. Of course, the apartment won’t look fabulous until my belongings (for which there is almost no room on Gabriola) arrive from London next month, but just getting it painted some colour other than beige will help enormously. Even though this has nothing to do with Gabriola gardening, updates will follow in due course.

Before I head off to the mainland, it might be a good time to review progress.

I started here.


And now I’m here.


Not bloody bad, really. Pat on the back for me.

Will send Peter (my horticultural guru) an email before I leave, asking for professional advice on what I can still realistically expect to plant and harvest starting in July. Hopefully his list won’t be as overwhelmingly long as Rowan’s, though I fear it probably will be. Still so much to do.

PS Sadly, a quick check in with Peter has dampened my enthusiasm for square foot gardening, which he dismisses as a “gimmick”, so I will proceed the traditional route. Will at least save me money on lumber.

PPS The eagle-eyed and flora savvy may have clocked an error in previous postings.

Even though I knew when I was writing it that it sounded wrong, I have previously referred to the above plant, which grows in deep-rooted and annoying profusion around these parts, as sorrel. Sorrel, is of course, a herb. This stuff is salal. Much prized by florists because the leaves stay green long after the branch is cut off, it is a pain in the ass for everyone else.

Next steps and a revelation

Well, this is very exciting. Go out to water the garden in the morning and realise that, not only is there quite a lot of new growth on the lilac bush (hurrah!), but there is also new growth on my poor, scrappy, survivor rose bush.


Not sure quite what you’re seeing? Here’s a close up.


Yes, it’s true! Those red leaves are new growth. Is it possible? Have the two new rose bushes inspired my scrapper to a growth spurt? Or is it my TLC? Or just the fact that the poor thing is no longer choked out by weeds and is actually getting some water? Doesn’t matter. What matters is this poor little rose bush may live to flower another day.

Occurs to me that I really should be doing something to protect the roses from aphids.


So, of course, this means another trip to the garden shop and another hunt through the marigolds for some yellow ones.

And, of course, while I’m at the garden shop I cannot ignore the pleading call of the lobelias. “Buy us,” they whimper. “Take us home. We’re meant to be together.” Yes, we are. I cannot deny it. So I liberate them, along with some more petunias which clearly would rather be in my garden than in the garden shop greenhouse. (I do consider adding a fuchsia to the mix to celebrate the news from Irmani that my Walthamstow fuchsia, nearly killed by last winter’s surfeit of snow, pulled through and put out. Unfortunately, the only one they have left is a pretty poor looking specimen and doesn’t have the wonderful pink and purple blend of the one now residing in Camden. Carrying my tray of flowers to the car, I spot exactly the one I want in a larger planter. Cannot stop myself asking how much it is. No, no, no. I cannot afford to be buying everything I want. I regretfully wave the fuchsia goodbye – knowing that, if it’s still there when I get back from Vancouver, I’m not going to be able to resist it a second time.)

What to do with the lobelias and petunias? I could, as I’d previously considered, plant them in the bed, but I’m not sure the petunias will survive in the not so great soil. Plus, if I start putting something other than the companionably planted marigolds in this bed, it will just make the rest of the bed cry out for more and more (and more and more) flowers. Decide I’d be better go with another pot, like the one I planted out back for Mike.

The pot does look pretty, but where should it go?


After picking it up and putting it down in various locations, all of which look vaguely ridiculous, I finally realise it belongs on the ground beside the bench. Oh, poor bench. Structurally there’s nothing wrong with it (other, of course, than the several missing planks). I really should do something about all the peeling paint. But not today.

Well, now that I’ve potted or replanted all these flowers and herbs, I do have quite a collection of small pots. More than enough, I think, to start sprouting some of those seeds I bought in a moment of folly. Kelly is, after all, going to bring her rototiller around, so it is feasible I could have some sort of vegetable patch soon. (Even if it isn’t that imaginary raised bed of mine.) If I stick some seeds in soil and make sure Pat waters these, too, while I’m in Vancouver, surely there is some possibility that some of the seeds will start to sprout while I’m away? Worth a try, I figure.


It’s only after I’ve put seeds in the second pot that I realise I have no old Popsicle sticks or anything else to write down what’s in each pot. Hmm. Need a system. Opt for “filing” the remaining seeds in a spare pot in the order they’ve been planted from left to right (front of pot being left). Let’s hope I remember this system when I return.

Come inside to check my email and play my turn in Facebook scrabble. (I really did plan to deactivate my Facebook account as part of my overall plan – including writing actual letters to people – to abandon 21st century annoyances, but the lure of scrabble has defeated this goal.) Out of curiosity decide to Google “Gabriola garden”. There are a surprising number of hits, but the one that really counts is an absolutely bloody revelation. It’s all about “square foot” gardening.


It’s like a raised bed wet dream: 12 inch squares of prepared soil in which you can raise small amounts of multiple crops (which is what you want when you’ve only got two people eating them). Where has this been all my life?

Run upstairs to look in the Gabriola phone book for a number for the Kandas. Of course there isn’t one. Either they’re not listed or this is an alias. (Name does sound unlikely, doesn’t it?) Determine that I will somehow track them down when I return from Vancouver and arrange to have a look at this marvel.

I am inspired!

I am also very definitely now in need of quite a few planks and a saw.