Farmer, Train Driver, Gardener.

Joe's into gardening. It's amazing. A passion for animals I could understand, especially with the menagerie we  have accumulated after a year and a half, and the ducks and pigs in Seb's garden. But Joe's been caught more than once glancing casually through Your Garden magazine and sliding a sideways glance at the telly when the chefs and gardeners are doing their thing with handfuls of pungent herbs, or trundling their wheelbarrows down wet, cracked paths.

He staggered home the other day under the weight of a stack of pots and seed trays which old Mr Tollit had given him to 'get him started'. He'd been spending a lot of time up there recently but I assumed it was to do with their mutual interest in trains. Martin shrugged and happily handed over a part of the garden which Joe has ardently been digging over ever since (I've heard of double digging but this is something else entirely!). We bought some seeds together and Seb gave him a small seedhouse for his birthday, which is now crammed full of trays of burgeoning new growth.

So what with today being the last day of the holidays, and the wind still being so uncomfortable chill, we turned the kitchen into a potting shed and got stuck into the long and fiddly job of pricking out. Seeing those frail and spindly green shoots in my boy's soil-blackened hands brought a smile to my face. We'll make a gardener of him yet. And a farmer, and a train driver...

Back To It

I've been satying with friends up north, so haven't had much of a chance to write in this diary for a month or so. It's great to flip through its pages again and read my scribbles, each page like an old friend welcoming me back home.

Not that time's been wasted while I've been away: My first surprise was a beautifully arrayed set of shelves set into the understairs cupboard in the kitchen. Instead of the unsteady units we used to balance everything on, we now have properly crafted shelves made by Martin and Joe in my absence. I never knew Martin was such a dab hand with the old hammer and nails, but he's really surpassed himself here. And Joe's learned such a lot from watching his dad. I'm so pleased!