Lockdown week 7 - Saturday

Well, shock, horror - today, for the first time since this all started, we didn't go for a walk!

I wanted to spend time in the garden. I also wanted Mr L to spend time in the garden, more specifically I wanted him to cut the grass and the hedge in the back garden. I always used to cut the grass, but then a) he retired and b) he bought a new, heavier mower, so I delegated the task to him. He's always done the hedges because he's bigger and stronger and can reach higher (and anyway, I do the rest of the garden). So he did these noble tasks but then he needed a rest and by the time I'd pottered about doing bits of weeding and tying up, we just decided to have a day off walking.

But it's lilac time. Much of our back hedge is really just a whole lot of lilac bushes which, by the way, are not suitable for hedging. Or at least the variety we have isn't. It's very vigorous and the sides need to be cut back at this time of year or they would take up far too much space in the small garden - which results in no flowers because lilacs bloom on old wood. Every two years we need to cut the top too, so we get flowers only on the top, and only every second year. But that's this year. I love the scent of lilacs so I always cut some for the house, though I can't reach them. Mr L did the honours.

We had a lilac - it was much smaller and more obedient - in the house I lived in as a small girl, so I loved the scent then and, in our very first garden as a married couple, there was a hedge of it along the back of our garden, so I associate it with being a child and also a very young woman. Bliss.

There has been some interest in our banana mountain! What have we done with it? Well, I made two banana loaves (out of a total of five bananas), one of which we have part-consumed. The other's in the freezer. Mr L has a banana every lunch time. We've been eating raspberries and strawberries and sliced bananas for desert. And the rest are in the fridge at the moment. I have enough flour to make another couple of banana loaves, but the trouble is that we'll then eat them... .

And that was another day. Happy birthday, Mum. Sigh.