#JuneSquares

Of Sunset Over The Rooftops From The Allotment And Much Toiling On The Plot (As In Gardening Not Writing)

All of a sudden we’re having summer here in Shropshire, and it’s a case of catch-up at the allotment – not only with the jobs that could not be done over the cold, wet thrice snowy winter, but also trying to keep up with spring-sown plants that are romping every which way and need to be put somewhere. The ‘somewhere’ inevitably needs more preparation than I’d realised, and more digging than I’d hoped to do, given my no-dig pipe dream objectives. I’m beginning to think our Silurian Clag really needs total soil replacement – as in complete interment by a foot of decent loamy earth. And if that’s down to me, then that means making humungous quantities of compost. It could take years.

Yesterday I did five solid hours of labouring under the sun. The new plot by the polytunnel was alive with bee-hum. The bees were whizzing by with such greedy intent among the raspberry flowers, I could actually feel the air move as they passed me. Bbbzzzzzzzzoom. And then the birds were singing their hearts out – loud, louder, loudest – especially the blackbirds. Which reminded me to put netting over the strawberries. I ate my first sun-warmed strawberry yesterday – the best strawberry of all – that first one.

The five hours slipped away. Gardener’s time is of course quite different from everyone else’s. He Who Waits At The Farrell Establishment never knows when supper is happening. Also when I do decide to head for home the light is usually so diverting that I have to start taking photos. Besides, the raggedy old allotments are a wonderful place to be at sundown – when you have put the spade away and shut up the shed – the wide views over Wenlock; the scents of growing; the quietness of plants.

Roof Squares #4

On the Path To Harakopio ~ The Putative Roof

I’ve had a passion for pantiles since childhood when they appeared in a storybook I was reading. The story was set in Spain, and I have absolutely no memory of what it was about. Only the pantiles stuck. Once I had discovered what they were, and that they were made of terracotta, and so were red like clay flower pots, and nothing like the boring, dun-coloured slates on my own house, they gave me my first magical sense of ‘the foreign’ – of lands and peoples beyond my island. But perhaps more than that, they suggested new horizons, and new possibilities; only in my imagination though. My family was not one that ‘went abroad’.

And so this pile of tiles simply had to be recorded on our walk to the supermarket in Harakopio. It is hard to say whether they are leftovers from a past project and thus spares for an existing roof, or if they are a roof in-waiting. Or being Greece, if they are simply there, stacked up under an olive tree.

Here’s an actual Harakopio village roof: interesting compilation of new and old.

And a roof with a very nice datura, the spitting image of the one I once planted in my front garden in Nairobi, bought from a roadside nurseryman.

For more of the walk in words and pix see On the path to Harakopio

Roof Squares #3 Now over to Becky

Greek Tortoise ~ Own Roof, Will Travel

The path to Peroulia Beach from Harakopio takes you down winding lanes and through olive groves. On one such expedition we met a tortoise. A fine specimen it was too and so, still with notions of living roofs in mind, I’m posting it for today’s offering at Becky’s month of roof photos. And also for Debbie’s 6WS.

June Squares: roofs

Six Word Saturday

A Laburnum Roof?

Becky has kicked off her June spree of roof shots in square format with a view of Kew. I’d also been thinking of roofs in a garden setting, so here’s a tiny segment of the Laburnum Arch at Arley Arboretum as seen a couple of weeks ago. At 65 metres, it is the longest Britain. But where, you might be asking, are the flowers, the golden cascade thronging with bee-hum. Sorry to say we were a week early. The flowers were only just coming out. Not only that, it seems we walked down the arch the wrong way. The intention of the recent extension being to bring you to a spectacular view over the Severn Valley. Pretty much like this one, or so I imagine. Anyway, I enjoyed looking up into the tracery of entwining boughs – which would not of course be visible if the flowers were out. Always good to find a silver lining in the absence of gold.

Please pop over to Becky’s for more June Roof Squares:

June Squares

Tish Farrell

Writer on the Edge