30th December

A plan to visit the allotment and plant garlic was put on hold, as was a plan to revisit the garden to continue what I started yesterday.

On a sad front I heard today of the passing of a friend who was my first and only employer in horticulture. Yes, an older lady for whom I did some gardening work as a teenager. At that time I wasn’t into gardening in any way like I am now, I just enjoyed working in the garden and helping out, and I think I must have spent as much time inside round a cuppa and a plate of biscuits having a good chin-wag as I did in the garden. The lady in question – Renee, left her house and beloved garden just over 4 years ago and moved into a residential home, and today, 2 days after her 89^th birthday, came to the end of her long flowering season. She was a lady who gave fragrance and pleasure to many as she was one of those all too rare people who do not speak ill of others and are grateful for everything they have in life, even when I know that life was at times less pleasant to her. I never heard her complain about anything.

Her last illness was short lived, less than 2 weeks: she simply faded as a flower that had a good long run and could not take the rapidly advancing winter.

A few weeks ago, ironically, I heard of another friend’s passing, whom my sister and I knew as Uncle George, though no relation. For many years we lived 2 doors away and saw the fruits of his work in a decent sized allotment in his own garden. We ate his produce and marvelled at his lack of weeds. My Dad joked that there was an alarm system that rang in the house as soon as a weed poked its first leaf above the ground, and Uncle George would race out and deal with it. He too, was a kindly man whom I never heard complain, always had time for others and was happy and generous, in tune with life and content and grateful. Both of these people were of similarly wonderful character and keen gardeners – is there a link here? Uncle George began itching and then had a fall and was hospitalised where they discovered his itching was kidney failure, and he was gone in a week. It all happened so fast that coupled with a missing communication link, I didn’t hear about it until after the funeral. He too, had a long, productive season, reaching well into the winter time of life, going strong until just before the end and faded out swiftly and peacefully without struggle.

 

On both counts, I am grateful that these dear people had long and happy lives, gave joy to others and only when both had moved into homes or sheltered accommodation, did they later come to a point where they went quickly and without much suffering. I think that is how many of us would like it – passing quickly after many happy years have themselves passed. Is gardening a key to this? Years working in tune and in time with nature – not trying to reduce it to our timetable, like so much of modern life. Time spent in the open air, in healthy pursuit, eating good produce and all the while being attentive to the small details – the smallest change in weather, the first shoots or buds, patiently awaiting the harvest – again, at nature’s time not ours. Taking joy in what some think of as dull activities and landmarks of the calendar, seeing a garden take shape over years, seeing a tree reach maturity over decades, or seeing an acorn develop into an oak that will not mature until long after you yourself have returned to the soil. Maybe gardening, in teaching you the way of nature and creation, in showing you that there is so much out of your control, in always giving you something to learn, to practice, to improve upon, and in giving you such delight at the little things, is a pursuit that teaches you patience, gratefulness, an allowance of letting things be, and contentment, and thus a pursuit that can go a long way in giving you the life that so many desire.