When my DH was in hospital having a new knee an unexpected delivery arrived. That’s nice, I thought, having the naive belief that boxes meant presents, and with a feeling of anticipation I slit the sellotape and prised the cardboard apart. My heart sank. Inside were bulbs: narcissi, lilies, gladioli, tulips, jonquil, ranunculus – total 585!
My DH was not going to be in gardening mode for 6 weeks but he reassured me that waiting a while wouldn’t harm them so I tried to forget about planting 585 bulbs. I saw Monty Don use a special bulb-planting tool on Gardeners World and he made it look easy. Right, I thought, I can do that, and if St Monty used one of those implements then it was obviously what I needed. I ordered one and it arrived yesterday.
It looked more like a weapon than a gardening tool and its long fat blade should have cleft the ground like a hot knife through butter; it did not. Our ground is claggy and boggy and stony all at the same time, and those wild daffodil bulbs were going in grass, not soil, but now I had the ideal tool for the job. I began.
I stabbed the bulb planter in the grass but not hard enough. I tried again. I hit stone. If it didn’t strike stone then it made a nice little hole that filled up with water. I had forgotten to take my kneeler so I had to squat. I stabbed and waggled, shoved a bulb in, pushed it down and covered it up. By the time I had put in 80 my legs felt more wobbly than after an hour’s extreme yoga.
I am not a gardener who likes hard physical work – I don’t want to dig or mow or scythe or shear – the gardening I like is more the dead-heading, cutting back, picking flowers sort of gardening. Because basically ... I’m going to have to come out of the closet and admit it – I am a lazy person and my favourite thing is sitting down.
I once told a friend that I’d rather write an essay than scrub a floor. I haven’t changed.
You can see why I like writing – I get to sit down all the time and call it work.
I’ve finished the first draft of my story for children, a mere 30,000 words, a breeze compared to planting 80 bulbs. And only another 505 to go …
