Hestia Does Gardening

I am working on being socially distant and still functional - we're ok over here at the moment.  And I want us to keep it that way.

Unfortunately, being socially distant from my friends means being at socially close quarters with Tartarus for most of the day.  With predictable results.  I had to get outside.  Time to start looking at the garden .... I am ASHAMED.

I am truly contrite. Which is how I am every single year.  I always INTEND to start in February, but I never do.  I am a gardening slattern.

This is my magnolia called Star Wars.  It has tiny white flowers, rather that the Joan Collinsesque voluptuous purple ones that I adore.  This is the umpteenth magnolia that I have purchased.  

They always die.  

Which is code for 'I always manage to kill them.'  

But look - wee buds! Star Wars lives to fight another year!

The desiccated tomato plants removed and all pots watered and moved to the newly emptied bed until safe to put outside.

Yeah, that rose has got to be cut back to ground level.  I don't worry about buds.  Just hack it back. Life finds a way.

That might be a lettuce. Which is odd because I didn't plant lettuce.

This was my cucumbers and a wind chime.  The wind chime grew better than the cucumbers.  Number of cucumbers last year? NIL.

And thus endeth Day 1 of my Gardening Adventure.

Hestia and life in the time of coronavirus

One day, our diaries will be historical documents, so we might as well document what's happening.

The virus isn't in Argyll & Bute yet - or at least there are no publicly confirmed cases in the area that I've heard about at the moment.  But that will change.  And it might change because of the Easter holidays and the University students who have been told to go home.  And maybe not to go back to uni this term.  That's a lot of bodies on the move back to distant communities.

Sonshine is just finishing second year at St Andrews and lives in a house with two other Scottish lads (Dirty Harry and Fightin' Fraser).  Who are lovely. 

Tartarus has driven up to St Andrews today to bring home Sonshine and whatever worldly possessions he wants to keep.  Because it might be the case that we go into some kind of lockdown scenario and they will not be back before the end of the lease on their property.  I think we will be kissing the refundable deposit goodbye.

I wonder what the boys are doing about the gas and electric.  *can feel financial panic rising* Maybe today isn't the best day to be worrying about that.

Anyway here on our sleepy island, things are not as bucolic as is usually the case.

We have one Big supermarket - the co-op - and any time I've been in in the past week, it's been full of folks milling around wondering who the feck is hoarding all the toilet roll, rice, pasta and butter.  And, as of today, I'm wondering who is also hoarding the butternut squash and the chickpeas.  I know - very first world problems, right?

Tartarus and I are trying to keep ourselves out and about, but, paradoxically, not being very sociable.  Well, Tartarus has been at the pub for three evenings last weekend, but I have asked, all 'nagging wife' jokes aside if he could please stop doing that as you just don't blerdy know what's going on in public spaces - especially pubs.

Juno, my mother, is on the mainland and living in her 'supported' housing.  She has stocked up on gin and jigsaws.  Has also got series 2 of The Crown to watch and a boxed set of The Sopranos.  'Hen, I survived being bombed by Hitler, so being stuck in the house for a month with a box set isn't much of a hardship.' 

The plan is, I think, at the end of that month, when things are - god willing - starting to flatten down in the UK, that I can bring her down to the island for a month or so.  Not staying with us.  Oh for GAWD'S sakes, that would be madness! But my friends have a one-bed cottage that she will be able to rent.  She'll be nearer, but still able to be isolated if the need arises.

I am trying not to panic, but the truth is that the chaos that is swirling around this virus frightens me more than contracting the virus itself.  Someone on the island, for example, discovered that her mother's toilet roll had been stolen by a visitor to her mother's house - carer? cleaner? I have no idea - but WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!

There is a really thin veneer of civilisation on us (well, clearly its thinner on some folk than on others) and it won't take much for that veneer to chip right off.  That scares the crap out of me.

I am spending my time flicking between scare stories (AKA 'up-to-the-minute-updates') and weeding.  Flicking through my packets of seeds and being determined that things will, as somebody famous once said, be ok in the end. 

And, if things are not ok, it's not the end. 

With lots of love from me and mine to you and yours, wherever you are <3

Hestia and Bertha | A caravan love story

Last week Tartarus and I took advantage of a pinhole in the horrendous weather to drive off the north end of the island (on a ferry.  I don't have chitty chitty bang bang) and go to see an Eriba Triton 430 caravan that was for sale in Callander.

Not only is Callander where my oldest pal lives, but it was actually for sale a few doors down from her in the same street!  What are the chances, eh? Anyoo, she was at work in the secondary school down the road, but I promised her that I would text her once we'd seen the van.

It was being sold by the lovely Jenne and after a restorative cup of tea we took a look at this lovely - tiny - little van.  Apparently it sleeps three, but only if the third person is the size of a Chihuahua.

Reader, we fell in love.

While we were waiting for the payment to clear, we went to visit my Bute Noir partner in crime in her natural environment of Maclaren High.  Which involves a white coat. I was wearing my *impressed face*.  I was even more impressed when we rocked up at Reception and the lady in the window not only knew who I was, but why I was in Callander and who I was there to see.  I assume my crime-fiction buddy had told her, but in wee villages, you can never be sure who beats the jungle news drum.

After a lovely alfresco chat with Seo, we went back to collect our new family member and drove home - carefully - up the side of Loch Lomond and across country until we were back at the ferry at Colintraive.

Of course, we didn't have a ticket for the new caravan.  The Calmac ladies pronounced her really cute and we boarded the boat and brought her home.

Now she is resting in the garden.  Which is starting to look like a traveller's encampment. I load up the wee video I shot to let you see inside.  This was the first time that the door had been open since we brought her home - so it's a bit shook up!  Also, my voice is about an octave higher than usual.  I think it's all the excitement.

We have renamed her Wee Bertha and I can't wait to take her out and about for our first overnight!

... and Tartarus better not sell THIS caravan without telling me!

Of course, we wondered how Nero would react to all this.  Let's face it, when he stands up in Bertha, we'll have to be sitting down.  There b'ain't a lot of floor space for a big dog and two adults.

We folded down the double bed to see what it was like and lo! Nero hopped into the caravan and hopped up onto the cushions.  Even though I was trying to push him off.  He's been in a caravan before, we reckon.  The little blighter will have a bed to himself at the other end of the van.  Or I will.  He's old and shoogly, with a John Wayne gait.  If he needs to sleep on the double bed with Tartarus, so be it. 

Camping and Caravanning Club or Caravan Club? This is the big question.