I was up the garden today, planting runner beans as I have done for many years. I grew the bean plants from seed in little pots in our front bedroom and then hardened them off outside for two or three days. It is possible to experience frosts in South Yorkshire right up to the end of May and baby runner bean plants are very tender so it's best to wait until this particular time until you plant them outside.
After six weeks of dry and mainly sunny weather, today has been quite rainy and I had to dodge the showers to do my business with the beans. First I erected a wigwam of ten long bamboo canes on ground that I had previously dug over with well-rotted manure before sprinkling a couple of handfuls of chicken pellets on top. I used a couple of long plastic ties to secure the canes, standing on a little step ladder to reach the topmost point. The presence of rain in the air meant that I did not need to water the beans in. God was doing it for me - unless of course God delegates this menial task to his angels.
Two weeks ago I was up the garden installing a new wooden gate. I had made the previous one myself over thirty years ago but this time I got a fencing company to make the new gate to my measurements for the very reasonable sum of £32 ( $AUS 67 $US 43 Indian rupees 3,689).
The new gate is considerably heavier than the old one. During the installation process, I had it propped up on bricks before I screwed in the hinges. Maybe there was a gust of wind or something but anyway, when my back was turned the gate fell on my left calf. It was one of the pointed filials that hit me and it was quite a blow - like being stabbed with a wooden sword.
I was very glad that I had chosen to wear long trousers that morning for even through my trousers the gate managed to cause bleeding and the wound hurt like hell.
Over two weeks later and I am still conscious of the injury. Just over a week ago, the bruising migrated to my ankle and toes but that seems to have gone now and gradually I think my body is dealing with the matter as it has so often done with past injuries. Isn't that wonderful about these ape-like vessels that we live and move around in - they are so good at self-healing - especially when you are young.
I wanted to make this a simple, "domestic" blogpost without politics, poems or promenades in nearby countryside. Just a little window upon my little life in a little house on a long street in the suburbs of a northern city, in the month of May, in the county of Yorkshire, in a country called England, on the edge of a continent named Europe, on a planet called Earth in a faraway galaxy that we call The Milky Way.
P.S. The Milky Way we live in is 105,700 light years in diameter and contains between 100 billion and 400 billion stars. But hey, who's counting?from Yorkshire Pudding https://ift.tt/hqlFG6V
