Early One Morning.

This is a section of my complex garden. Complex, labour-intensive, demanding.
At least once a year, just about now, I think I can't cope with it any more.
Everywhere I look I see weeds. The vine grows visibly, strangling everything it touches. To prune, or rather hack it back, I have to clamber up on a stone wall, and use a stepladder. Ground elder romps through the fence between me and a railway embankment, as do brambles and goose-grass and many other undesirables.

Every day I need to work here. I have to so something to try and keep control.
Some days I'm out here for hours, other days an hour is all I have.

I could be on a cruise.
I could be lolling about on a beach in Cornwall.
I could be on a plane, travelling to visit far-flung family.
But I'm not.
I'm face-down bum-up in the garden, finger-nails that have never known a manicure clogged with earth.

Then, one morning, this morning, I wake early. I make a cup of tea and go outside, still in my nightdress, and am surrounded by magic.
There is dew on the grass and the air is filled with bird-song.
The Crambe Cordifolia (on the left of the picture, by the lamp-post) sends wafts of honey-scent across the lawn. There are glowing jewels of colour in the herbaceous beds and on the rock-garden.
Stipa Giganticae shines golden and shimmers into the slightest breeze.
The sun is warm on my back, and no one except the birds and a visiting kitten can see me in my nightdress.
For half-an-hour I experience perfection.

No pain, no gain.
I wouldn't have it any other way.