Gaping

The early heatwave has given way to some much needed rain, and a temperature many degrees cooler. Strange to be suddenly in summer in the middle of spring for the last couple of weeks. A chance to rediscover just what a heaven we live in up here. And what with the garden and the allotment and the Census, I have rarely spent so much time outside in April, and have changed colour slightly as a result.

On Easter Day we planted the first potatoes - earlies. Digging the trenches and throwing in comfrey leaves evoked throwing flowers into a grave. The comfrey dying to give life to the potatoes. It all became a sweet twist on the Easter story. Satisfying metaphors of renewal and rebirth. Pea and bean weevil is nibbling the edges of the broad bean leaves decoratively, but we hope not too damagingly. Otherwise all progresses well. We ate the first rhubarb over the weekend. The strawberries are starting to flower. Calabrese seedlings are almost ready to go into the ground, and beetroot, spring onions and chard won't be far behind. Time to sow French beans and lettuce. On the allotment is the one place I feel consistently happy so needing to go there more and more as the season burgeons is just fine with me.

Census collecting manages to be boring and interesting by rapid turns. Knocking on doors where people are not home again and again and again is tiresome and tedious. When people answer, it is always at least a little bit interesting, sometimes very. And I've enjoyed getting to know kids on their bikes who endlessly ride around their little closes, crescents and rises. For several days a giant television lay smashed on the pavement of a street I had to keep returning to. It appeared to have been dropped from a great height. Lots of glass and plastic fragments. Later, it had been tipped up on its side, revealing the gaping emptiness behind the shattered screen.