A Blissful last Gardening day of summer - mid-November 2013.....

 Last week, I gathered my gardening bag, a nice capacious game bag, in fact, and drove out with the dear SO to a village in Northamptonshire, to tidy up a friend's garden.

He was going to  help remove an ancient fire place but had promised to mow the lawn, once he'd finished in the house, which was just as well, for the grass was about one foot high, thick and extremely soggy.

We drove through the most beautiful open countryside, up hill and down dale, our road winding through fields and hamlets, with birds swooping in the clear blue sky above.  Totally blissful!

We enjoyed coffee and nibbles as soon as we arrived and then....put on boots, gloves and thick layers of various overcoats....for it was, very cold outside.  In fact, the following morning, there was a light sprinkling on snow everywhere so, thank goodness, we were there the day before.

The well-established garden, full of large plants, trees, bushes, with clumps of oregano, lavender, rosemary and dill clustered near the garden door.  I do so love the pruning of herbs for, with the very first cut, a mingled sweet aroma assails the air with the plants, sighing out their delicious scents.  My first experience of this was now many years ago, in a small herb garden I'd created in West Sussex and a visiting friend offered to help with my pruning.  Becoming a rather harassed gardener
with my young babies to care for, the lavender bushes had slowly grown very woody and unwieldy.  They just cried out for a decent cut-back and my friend, gleefully picking up my spare secateurs, set to work on them.  With the first cut, my plants released their scent, exhaling their agony into the autumn air.  It was a delicious moment to be savoured, as I knew my plants would recover their glory by the following summer.

So our friend's garden was trimmed and tidied.  Great armfuls of greenery and leaves were collected and tossed into their garden bin, which was soon completely filled.

We stopped for a lunch of bacon baps and coffee, lingering over our mugs, with me slowly warming up after a cold morning's work.

Then we tackled the wet lawn with the mower becoming completely clogged up with great bunches of soggy grass.  I hurried to cut back overhanging branches and stems of wayward plants, their scents mixing with that of damp grass to produce a heady essence of garden smells.  A low-hung sun shone palely on the fading garden greenness, while sparrows and one indignant robin, stood sentry duty on "their" garden, keeping watch on our progress.  We must have disturbed quite a few snoozing insects into the air to feed the waiting birds.

And with the fading daylight, we hurriedly cleared away the mower and tools and went inside to enjoy a hot mug of tea before driving home.  As we returned to the open fields and winding roads, the sun was gently setting and we were entertained  to a sublime sunset, all peachy-gold-pink with deep violet-grey clouds, waiting for the sun's disappearance, to spread out over the entirety of the sky, as the night hour fell once more on the sleeping earth.

It was an utterly brilliant performance - I do so love sunsets, don't you?

And then we were home, time for a late shop and supper to cook before collapsing onto our sofa to catch a spot of television before the end of the day.

It had been a very good day - I do love to spend time in the garden - it's so therapeutic!!!

Daisy