Lots of gardening and an 'epic' journey!

Before ...

... and after

Gardening seems to have been a major player in September, and I picked up a new client, who was given my name by the plant guy, Adrian, at Shepton Market. Barbara had an herbaceous border that needed sorting as it had got a bit out of hand over the summer but, when I went to see it, it was not as ‘jungley’ as she had led me to believe. After four 3-hour sessions it was restored to some sort of order and there were several clear areas just waiting to be filled with new plants!

At another client, we finally managed to finish emptying the old, leaking pond, renewed the liner and refilled with water. The new liner needed to be 16 feet by 18 feet and was incredibly heavy, but it’s amazing what two determined women, of a certain age, can achieve when we put our minds to it! I’m really looking forward to watching this new pond take shape and mature in the coming months, as it all looks a bit raw at the moment.

Stall at Castle Cary Market

In between the gardening jobs, I have continued running my weekly market stall at both Castle Cary and Shepton Mallet, with varied success. I have discovered that there is absolutely no way to predict which markets will do well and which won’t – it’s not even weather-dependent as I have had some of my best sales on days when it has been grey, wet and miserable! I do now have my ‘regulars’ at both markets, who return again and again to buy marmalade, shortbread and jams. Oddly, I don’t often seem to sell chutneys and pickles – perhaps as we get nearer to Christmas this will change?

Mr Fox

Towards the end of September, I attended East Pennard Open Day, which is a village a couple of miles away. I only took my spinning wheel and my needle-felted sculptures, as jams were being sold by a local organic producer, but I had a very successful day and sold several small sculptures. It helped that it was a lovely, sunny Saturday and the local cheesemakers, in whose farmyard the event mainly took place, were open to the public with tours showing the process.

Mr Badger

At the beginning of September, my lovely Light Sussex cockerel, Aubrey, died and Mary and I decided that we wouldn’t get another one … unless someone came with one under their arm saying that it would be despatched if we didn’t rehome it! Cue my 3-day farmsit back at Dundry, where there were several young cockerels, whose fate was going to be just that! After several text messages back and forth to Mary, I duly left on the Friday evening with a cardboard box containing a Copper Blue Maran cockerel! He looked very similar to one of the Maran hens that I’d bought from Sally previously and, as she is called Smokey, he just had to be Bandit (only people of a certain age will understand the reference!) He seems to have settled in well and the girls don’t seem to mind him at all. His crow was still very ‘new’ when he first arrived but he’s been practising hard and it is beginning to sound better now.

Back in March, I had planned to go to London to stay with my brother and family but, on the very day I was due to go, it snowed heavily and the coach to London was cancelled! Richard was coming to the end of his Master’s Degree and had his final dissertation to write, so we put off re-organising my visit until that was safely out of the way. The first weekend in October was when we finally got to re-book! I had decided that, at the age of 65, I really should be able to travel across London on my own without panicking or getting irretrievably lost in the Underground, but it was a huge ‘thing’ for me, as I have never been great about travelling on public transport – airports (not the actual flying) are the worst, closely followed by train stations, large coach stations and the Underground. On previous visits my brother had met me at Victoria Coach Station and chaperoned me across London, but I was determined to do it alone this time!

The adventure started at 7.50am in Shepton Mallet, when I boarded the Berrys coach bound for Hammersmith Bus Station by way of Frome, Warminster and a layby somewhere on the A36 near Codford! During the journey our hostess came round with drinks and snacks, which I thought was very civilised, especially as she had shortbread biscuits. We arrived at Hammersmith at about 11.45 and I descended into the Underground. I had worked out my route beforehand and printed myself a cribsheet, which I now grasped in my pocket like a talisman. On it I had written down each tube line I needed, it’s end destination, the stop at which I needed to alight and how many stops that was from my starting point. So, it was onto the Piccadilly Line at Hammersmith, off at Green Park; onto the Jubilee Line, off at Canning Town; onto the Docklands Light Railway, off at Woolwich Arsenal; catch a bus from near the station and get off at Plumstead Common. Phew! It all went incredibly well and I was on an adrenaline high when I finally reached my destination – no panicking, no getting lost and it had only taken me one and a half hours!

A Thames barge nears the Barrier

Lesnes Abbey ruins

It was lovely to see Rich, Jo and Rosa again – we don’t see each other more than twice a year and it is at least six years since I last went to London. We had a lovely weekend – we walked along the Thames Path, past the Thames Barrier on Saturday, and then, on Sunday, my bro and I went on an 8-mile walk to Lesnes Abbey and back via Thamesmead along another part of the Thames Path, stopping at a pub in Plumstead to have some Nepalese snacks – I love the fact that you can try so many different foods in London! On Saturday evening we all went up to the Criterion Theatre in the West End to see a play called The Comedy About a Bank Robbery performed by the Mischief Theatre, which was highly entertaining and very cleverly done.

Canary Wharf from the Thames Clipper

I was travelling back on Monday evening and Rich had to travel to Leeds on Monday evening, too, so we went up to London in the morning, travelling up the Thames on a boat from North Greenwich and alighting at The Globe Theatre, before spending the rest of the day at Tate Modern. I’d never been there before, and I’m not a great lover of modern art, but there was an interesting exhibition by Olafur Eliasson, who uses complex mathematical shapes in his architecture and is also fascinated by Iceland and the melting of the Polar ice, so quite a mixed exhibition.

The view from Tate Modern

Rich saw me across town on the tube and we parted company at Green Park Station as he was getting on the Piccadilly Line going in one direction and I was going in the opposite direction, back to Hammersmith and the Berrys Coach home. It had been the start of the Extinction Rebellion protests in London that day and two or three of the passengers returning to Somerset had been at Lambeth Bridge all day. I do wonder if they will have an impact on Government and its decisions regarding climate change – I know my fourteen-year old niece, Rosa, is very concerned about the future and took part in the school strikes recently.