Paradise Lost, Paradise Found...

I couldn't stand it any longer. Looking out of my kitchen window at the abject jungle that has sprung up overnight, owing to the steady rains we've been having recently, spurred me into action big time. I needed a scythe just to cut my way to the shed, mind you, where the medlar tree had evidently decided it would not let me in through the doorway any longer. I did consider the window, amassed with cobwebs and a handful of dead woodlice, but decided I was the grown-up here and got nasty with my secateurs, telling myself if it came back to get me next year I'd show it Seb's chainsaw.

Honestly though, tidying the garden was like clearing up after an all night party; blowsy, drowsy plants, lolling over each other as if still drunk on the rain and unable to stand. Petals from the roses and sweetpeas had drifted across the grass like abandoned clothes, and wanton poppies, heavy with seed, hung their heads low in shame.

So while Joe was busy raking out excess weed from the small pond he and Martin have created from the stream, and Martin was pottering about totally unconcerned in the veg plot, I was pulling and tugging and fighting an all-out war with the undergrowth, but I think I may have won. Now, when I stand at the kitchen window, I can just glimpse a semblance of the garden I once had, if I look carefully enough.

Paradise Reclaimed.