Just about a year of near-isolation. Shielding. Initially being told not to leave the house, then not to leave the premises, being allowed out a bit, but then back in again, now to remain shielded until the end of the month. Then what?
A project, that's what.
Just about a year of sorting out house and garden. Everyone now has sacks and boxes and bags full of amazing STUFF; unwanted, outgrown, outdated STUFF, and no one can donate it to the charity shops. For a long time no one could even take it to the local rubbish dumps. We've all been living with it and now we really want to live without it. I am resolved to need considerably less, and I never needed much to start with. Not really. Books, paper, pens, cooking things, a few clothes. It's interesting to find how much I've been able to do without this year.
My garden has been my refuge. It has protected my sanity....or has it? I was having help with it, but initially I was not able to continue that. I lost weight and, surprise, surprise, I could cope without help.
I bought myself a Christmas present on-line. Ratchet, telescopic long-handled loppers. I could cope. I could do almost everything from ground-level but not heavy building and deconstruction work.
So now there's a project about to start.
This garden is complex and labour-intensive, made even more so by my husband's determination to use only recycled materials for his projects. He died fourteen years ago, and the garden had remained as something of a memorial to his skill and persistence. The stained glass portrait above is a rather surprising likeness of him on a bad day. It's supposedly of Saint Luke, but there's a resemblance. He placed it above the door of his second home-made summer-house. The rest of the summer-house is built from old timbers, including doors which his grand-daughter is always hoping will lead to Narnia or somewhere involving Harry Potter.
There are magical play-places, but increasingly risky play-places as old and rotting timbers and much more ancient stone crumbles away.
There is a great deal of stone and grandchildren love climbing on it. There's an area they call 'Flower Mountain', partly built of stone removed from a local church during restoration work. You can see exactly why the stone masons needed to remove and replace such stone. It crumbles away, disintegrates in frost. It's trying to get back into earth. It is no longer safe for small scrabbling feet and hands.
Quite soon there will be different stonemasons working here to restore and stabilise Flower Mountain so that it can be climbed safely, but Saint Luke and his rather warped surroundings will be leaving the garden and will be replaced by a new patio area.
I find this difficult because I think I know what my late husband might feel about my actions. It's really hard to do this, to change something that has the nature of a memorial, but I've had a lot of solitary thinking time this year. I may need to be somewhere else while Saint Luke is taken down though, shielding or not.
Fourteen years after a death and the moving-on can still be difficult, but during this extraordinary year we have all changed. My husband never met his two daughters-in law, nor his three grandchildren. Who am I to say what he would be thinking? He would possibly have been prepared to tear down his garden structures with his bare hands in order to keep them safe. Or to get them climbing ropes and make them do it properly.
Saint Luke will be safely rehomed within the family.
Perhaps the children will make him look more cheerful.
And I will be here, keeping busy and waiting to see what might happen next.
