Saturday 11th May 2024
When the ground is thoroughly wet, weeds are fairly easy to pull out. As the ground drys up, it becomes increasingly hard, the roots stay in the soil, often to live again unless you have a really good go with a fork.
I often let weeds grow, until they start overshadowing the plants I paid money for, and I always vow, that the following year I will start the cull before they get too out of hand. But I can’t seem to bear to pull a plant out, past their best, even if there is only one tiny flower left. But you can’t do that with writing. You really do have to remove the weeds, the profusion of words overwhelming the narrative, find the edges and tidy them up. Making sure that what you are doing will take you forward to the final conclusion. The only real difference is that with gardening my nails get into a bit of a state.
Last night, at about midnight, like the rest of the country, we went up a local hill to watch the Northern Lights. We live in Wiltshire. The last time my husband saw them was up in Humberside, 40 years ago. What a wonder. So huge and awe inspiring. It made me feel a little small, and glad that God is so big. It definitely needed a large brush to produce the swathes of pale colour. I don’t have a good picture, but I’m sure if you go on Facebook or YouTube you will find plenty. And what I loved, was standing up there, in the dark, among strangers, dark shapes all around, we all whispered as if we were in church. Because in a way, we were.
