Tidied

For the benefit of comparison, the "before" of the side garden is here. What a mess. The overgrown forsythia (we cut it back immediately, but only got the stump out of the ground last summer - the situation before the stumps came out can be seen here; and for my reference, the extra here shows the top half of the bed in late summer, when it had all been well weeded). The spindly roses which were doing nothing at all. The various rampant lilies, crocosmia and other ground cover. At that point, in March 2023, the peony was just coming through, but you can see the state of its growth now in the extra. The one constant is the moss on the path. Oh, and the bit you cannot see, which is the bottom of that side of the garden on either side of the path. Still not properly dug out. But let's ignore that for now. It remains a good dumping ground for other stuff and one side of the path, the side nearest the house, it is subject to some mysterious ponding issues which we haven't got to the bottom of.

I spent a good deal of time in the side garden today, doing a bit more weeding and getting wood chip mulch down on most of it, which makes the whole effect look at great deal neater. I also did a bunch of other small jobs on a detailed "to do before we leave" list, as did Mr A. It included harvesting most of the remaining narcissi from the garden, to bring back to Edinburgh to form a gorgeous bunch in a vase on the dining room table (which is likely to feature on blip).

After having a late lunch of a delicious roasted vegetable soup, we set off back to Edinburgh at 4.15pm. We had a busy, but reasonably unfussed journey back to Edinburgh and to my surprise the lift was working when we got back, as I had understood it to be out, via our building what's app. A glass of wine and a bowl of crisps took us to bed time. While driving 3-4 hours on the A9 used to result in me being quite wound up and unable to sleep, I've got better at relaxing after driving and today found myself very sleepy at around 9pm (hence a back blip....).

Missing Tain, but we will be back soon.