Our journey.......

I was sitting in the garden at dusk last night watching the bats feed. I love to see them leave the house, fly out into the garden, it seems almost joyous. I tried to get a photograph, of course, I couldn't. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed two insects sitting on top of the cardoon bud and thought they may do instead. Poor light did not give a good image but you can probably see why they fascinated me. Now in daydreaming mode I thought about seven years ago when we decided to move here.

With rose tinted specs we started to live our dream, after 31 years we were moving to an old property with a large garden. Mr Practical would do all the work on the house and I would landscape the garden.
The house had not been cherished, so Mr Practical has spent the last seven years replumbing, rewiring, replacing all the outside timber, installing central heating, etc etc.
The garden itself was sad......the small copse had been used as a dump.......It took me three days of solid work and two large skips to clear most of it.
I can remember opening the shed door to be greeted by some sort of chemical cocktail. Being someone who doesn't use sprays etc my heart sank into my boots. I believe it takes ten years to be able to say 'this is an organic garden'. So I am still not there. I cleared the shed and then pulled it down, before it fell anyway.

The rabbits were the worst problem......I had my mind set on a garden for bees, butterflies and birds. I therefore needed to plant native , also wildflowers. Breakfast, dinner and tea for rabbits. At one count I had 22 rabbits in this garden, so my problems were huge.
I know quite a lot about the little creatures now, I am by no means an expert but I probably have more knowledge than most.
The garden itself is a heavy clay soil, also a high water table......not to bad in summer but in winter the garden becomes a bog. If its a wet season the results are horrendous.
I have given this garden my all, my body has ached in places I never knew I had. And if I am honest I have sometimes wondered what I am doing here. Mr Practical has felt the same. He works full time and then comes home to work. BUT we are a good team........when one is down, the other will pull them up again.
In the cold light of day, I would not have missed this ongoing journey for anything.

I have only to look around now and see the dream taking shape.
To sit amongst the flowers in the meadow and watch the insects settling on the grasses.
To have something like this foxglove appear from nowhere......she is just what fairy stories are made of.
To watch and see her grow into something beautiful............
where my soul can gain strength and my spirit renew itself, so that I have the capacity to carry on with the problems that life dishes out to us all.

I look at the garden and the house........I have the right man by my side........we are sharing a dream...........this one day will be a haven for wildlife, they are starting to arrive and I look forward to greeting everyone of them with a smile. Do you have dream????