The End Of Summer

The End Of Summer

The long spell of extreme heat has ended and we are now into temperatures in the middle 20s during the day and warm enough with a sweater on in the morning and late evening. I feel a liberated man and can now get on to the tasks I have for some time wanted to do. They are numerous but I can feel a surge of energy.

One of these is to finally prevent water run-off from the small plots of earth around the trees opposite my house. I’ve tried stone barriers to no avail because the water creeps between them but now have a couple of small bags of cement to reinforce them. The Fingers crossed that that will work and then that I can find plants that will flower there without too much attention.

Most of the other tasks concern the allotment. It has been the best year yet for that by quite a margin. The early crops of potatoes and leeks were plentiful, as have been those of gooseberries, blackberries, tomatoes, beetroot, aubergines, chillis and courgettes; green beans are loaded but as yet too small to pick. The only failure has been onions, for reasons that I don’t know but all on the allotment have had the same experience.

My renewed energy enabled me to do some digging a day ago to clear enough space to plant more lettuces and also broccoli and shallots for later on. I’ve bought some big bulbs of garlic and have got these sprouting in readiness for planting. Any green tomatoes that are still around in October I will make into chutney.

I haven’t yet made any chilli jam this year but will think about doing that. I haven’t enough chillis from the allotment as I have been using them as I go along but can easily buy the shortfall.

Away from gardening there’s not much. But sales of my book on Mollans have stalled; costs have been recovered so all revenues now go directly to the school, which was always the promise; I need to think what I can do to restart them. I also need to print off some notices giving the restart date for the English conversation sessions and get them posted ar ound the village. My planned trip to Scotland in October is all booked so there is nothing I need to do there except print off some tickets. I’ll be a year older when I return but hopefully won’t feel it.

Notices

I’ve printed off and had sealed in plastic two notices that I’ve posted opposite my house. One, which I’ve pinned to the bench, is a quote from Brassens song Les Bancs Publics. It reads “Les amoureux qui se bécottent sur les bancs publics…..ont des queules s très sypathiques”. The other, pinned to one of the trees, is a quote from a John Donne poem, picked up by Ernest Hemingway: “ne damandez pas pour qui sonne le glas, le glas sonne pour vous”. This quote, which Hemingway used as a warning that WW2 was coming, has always resonated with me and I think applies to world events today. For me, itmeans that warning signs are always there; can you see them and, if so, what are you going to do about them because you, as an individual, must be responsible for what you do or don’t do.

I’m gratified to see lots of passers-by read the notices but have no idea what they make of them.