So, I've been busy, as always. Work has been a struggle! It is enjoyable but we've had yet another round of redundancies which, again, I survived. Of course, I'm happy to still have a job that I enjoy, albeit a demanding one. It is hard to see friends of many years go through the hardship with which they are now faced. The company looked after them well, however, which restores a little faith. So I have now survived three rounds of lay-offs. Does that mean I am good, lucky, cheap, or a combination of the three? I dunno. What I do know is that there are fewer people in the company and we need to do the same amount of work. One of my colleagues made an amusing point about "the firm" no longer dangling the carrot in front of us, they are now beating us with both the stick and the carrot. Feels true at times. Especially when working until 9 or 10pm several consecutive weeks.
Whatever... this weekend is a five-dayer. Had Thursday and Friday off, have Monday off too. The reason? St George's Day, spring, my birthday, exhaustion, stuff planned, things to do. Had lunch at Mr. Blumenthal's place today and escaped without norovirus. Result!
I didn't realise how much gardening there was to do until I had spare time. Many things accomplished, aside from the veg planting I've already mentioned. We have many sedum growing in our garden. Most of them are the traditional Sedum spectabile but we have some white flowering variety also. Sedum can be glorious, despite their "see dem grow" reputation, and I've been experimenting with pruning them in spring to ensure they flower later and lower. The latter is more important - sedum get leggy and the weight of the flower heads coupled with the long stems means they are often found resting on the lawn rather than providing the expected late summer colour midway up the borders. My method is simple - cut all the heads off the plants, down to about one third of their growth, any time from the middle of April to the middle of May. As I say, I've been experimenting with it for a couple of years and am sufficiently confident that I have done it to every single head this year. The expected result is a beautiful cluster of self-supporting heads in early autumn that will last until December. We'll see.
Other highlights? I pruned Wesley, my wisteria, per instruction from Bernard at Wisley last year. Lo, he flowers! Wesley, not Bernard. The cornus are beautiful now that they are in leaf. The ranunculus, tulips, dicentra, azaleas, rhododendron, kerria and mahonia are all romping away, providing stunning stress-relieving colour to an already delghtful space. See:
Other news... I am now Uncle-Plutus. Welcome to the world beautiful little Anya. Also, welcome young Sen! I look forward to being an influence on both of your lives - lots to teach. And yes, I do realise that week old babies can't read blogs!
I have lots to do tomorrow. I'm currently working with some ash and some walnut and have many things to create. So little time...
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