You know that feeling when a favourite garment seems to have shrunk,
and you wish it had an elastic waist?

Well, today a very satisfactory sweat was raised in the Baraclough
garden, some slack was cut, seams were let out, and I'm enjoying the
ineffable comfort of letting out the belt and making room for expansion.

It dawned upon me on Thursday, that a large island bed I made last year
was a design irritation, foolishly marooned in a sea of grass. It's full
of cracking plants but somehow lacks an identity and purpose; it
urgently needed to connect to the rest of the planting. By digging a
causeway bed, the "island" could join up to a much larger sweeping
curved bed. I rushed out with me spade, and cut two little channels
through the lawn, making the curves by eye, to mark the proposed
surgery.

This afternoon, John and I stripped the lawn turf, double dug the
deep wormy soil, laying the turf upside down in the bottom of the
trenches. As we dug and turned, we incorporated a compost heap, and a
very large tub of ancient beef bones abandoned by the dog. (Our
butcher brings her a new one every Satruday, so the garden looks like a
graveyard).

The island is now connected to a border by a wide bare vacant isthmus,
about 12 square metres. The lawn is now a wide green curving path; less
to mow, and far more satisfactory to the eye.

Half way through, we stopped for a cold drink (and to get the laundry in
from the washing line, as rain threatened). By the end (sunny again), I
offered the rest of the workforce some tea. He replied that alcohol
would be far more appropriate. Glass in hand, I surveyed that delicious
expanse of bare fresh empty virgin earth awaiting .....more plants.

Janet.