Things are back to a more even keel now aren’t they? Vaccines are up, cases are down, schools are back safely. There is an end in sight to this scary, unsettling time. We are still bombarded with covid news and stories- both good and bad but other news is beginning to dominate the headlines. That is good. It is also very sad that many other countries aren’t in the position we are in, but they will be, eventually (hopefully soon). Again and again, I realise how lucky I am to have been born in the UK (even luckier to have been born in Cornwall).

It always amazes me how much the good weather helps, today I feel full of energy and ready to do pretty much anything ( I think also, my 8am swim in the Thames has helped the good mood). One thing I will not be doing is mowing the lawn as we are going to try and do ‘No Mow May’ and let it grow for the bees and butterflies. I think this fits in pretty well with the Lagom ideal. My plan for the next few weeks is to continue working on the garden. It started last year, putting in flowering perennials into the border and growing veg (mainly sprouts) in the raised beds (made out of pallets and rubble bags, of course). This year I have so far created a border for my raspberries- out of an old compost container, we have replaced fence panels, I have bought a couple more plants and we have finally consigned the greenhouse made out of our old windows to the dump.

And that is where I am in the lagom journey at the moment, rationalising the things that are past their useful life- I have had a good look around my garden and at all the things I have kept or repurposed and I have thought about whether we still need to keep it. Is it doing the job is it meant to be doing? Would other things work better if it wasn’t here? The greenhouse, for instance, was really just used as a store for pots, so the windows have gone to the dump (10+ years after we put new windows in) and the frame has been reroofed. It is now storing pots again but in the corner of the garden, out of the way. I have a small pile of things to throw out, old plastic boxes brittle with sunshine, muddy trays from a long ago fridge, originally kept to provide plant trays but I have acquired other things to do the job just as well. I am at the stage where things have to be useful, but also look ok. And to that end I have begun to paint the fence- I have left it in the past, mulling over the environmental problems of fence paint, I have finally decided that I would like a garden with a fence all one colour.. There is a slight lagom aspect as it means that you can’t tell the old panels from the new, I think it will also prolong the life of the fence. When I can work out an easy way to get the photos off my phone I will add them here.

Until then, I will be painting, and repainting the fence!

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