Still true after all these years.

 This is a repost from rather a lot of years ago.  Some of you will have seen it, some of you will not.  However, as my title says, it is most definitely still true.

Very, very personally.  Whether they admit to the acquaintance or not. 

Which means that this next gem is also true.

I use those difficult people (too many of them family) to take a kind of personal audit.  And it is overdue.  At the moment I am not liking my bad tempered mean spirited whinging self.  At all.  Action is required.

With a little help from...

 And how I wish the winebulance was an option open to me at the moment.  Ongoing nausea means it is not.  Big, big sigh.  I can see an opening for that business - world wide.

Obsessional? Not entirely sane?

Both.  Definitely both.

You will have heard me whinge, bitch and moan about how little I like summer.  True, but I love spring.  Recently garden pornography (catalogues) has been arriving thick and fast in my mail boxes (virtual and real).

And here is where insanity appears.  We are just coming out of an (ugly) period of convalescence.  There will be more surgery (and consequent convalescence) in a couple of months.  I am very, very tired.  My body is being recalcitrant.  There is a lot of remedial work which needs to be done in the garden after our blistering summer, and my absence from it.

So what do I do?  I succumb.  Again.  Big time.

From one company I purchased a giant allium, 20 of the most scented freesias, 20 mixed hyacinths, 20 red tulips (and I will buy more), 50 mixed anemones and 200 mixed daffodils.  More than enough. 

And then another catalogue with the most glorious illustrations arrived.  And my weak-willed self succumbed again.  Do you see why I refer to the catalogues as garden pornography?  I know I shouldn't look at them.  I feel very guilty when I do - and then I start to drool and it is all over. (clicking on the images will enlarge them)

On this page I bought 100 Premium Rainbow Mixed Daffodils, 100 Double Mixed Daffodils, 100 Split-Corona Daffodils and 100 Cottage Mixed Daffodils.  Again, more than enough.  But did I stop there.  Well no.

Twenty five (five each of the named varieties of the Super Splits.  But wait, there's more.

Another twenty-five (five each of these named varieties). And...

twenty-five of the Delightful Doubles.

Because I am obsessed with my garden and insane I also invested (as I did last year) in the Gardener's Pot Luck Collection.  These will be a mystery until they arrive, being made up from the bulbs which the company has left over in quantities which are uneconomical for them to replant.  And selling them to people with no will power is economical.  In fact I suspect it is very profitable indeed. 

Oh dear.  There are many, many hours of extremely hard work ahead of me.  Much weeding and soil preparation.  Then individually planting all of those bulbs (and the additional tulips too).

I am consoling myself by saying (true) that when they bloom the blood, sweat and tears involved in planting them will be a distant memory.  It may also be a welcome distraction when the skinny one is back in hospital.  But just the same...

As I said, insane and obsessional.

(Overly) Ambititious Plans for Spring

Lusting after Spring is not rational because Canberra does Autumn and Winter beautifully, and they are both seasons I relish.  Nonetheless we have this week succumbed to the wiles exerted by the catalogues of garden porn we have been receiving.

Through J.N Hancock and Co I have ordered:
100 Premium Rainbow Mixed Daffodils
Gamblers Pot Luck (end of season run, including probably about 50 bulbs)
100 Split Corona Daffodils
100 Double Mixed Daffodils, and
100 Perfumed Mixed Jonquils.

In the meantime, unbeknownst to me the smaller portion ordered through Van Diemen Quality Bulbs:
200 Mixed Triumph Tulips
200 Mixed Darwin Hybrid Tulips, and
50 Yellow-Purple Blends of Dutch Iris.

We are seriously loopy.  At the moment getting down to the ground is very difficult and very painful for me.  Getting up again is worse.  So between us we have ordered 900 bulbs. Since I discovered this I have been weeding my heart out so we will have somewhere to put them all. We will also have to buy copious amounts of smelly fertiliser for the cats to snort.   It is really lucky that we ordered different things.  The work will be awful but I hope the results will be worth it.  I weed and plant, himself plants.  He is much faster than me, so he will be putting in a lot of bulbs this year.

Last year the results of our work in the jungle looked like this:

Our neighbours across the road hold tea parties to celebrate the blooming of the crab apple each year.

This year we seem to be planning a bigger and better display.  I am more than a little perturbed about the work involved, but looking forward to the drama of the results.

On an entirely different note.  Last night I didn't get to sleep because of muscle spasms and pain.  So I devoured the Faber Book of Diaries that I had previously been savouring.  It was really cleverly presented, itself in diary form, with three or four entries for each day from predominantly English diarists.  Some of them I have, some of them I have read, some of them I now know to avoid and others I lust after.  And will track down.