Skiving off

The sun is shining and the sky is blue. Outside, I have a freshly dug vegetble bed (yesterday sweat and hard labour) and today, I have 3 nets of onion sets to plant into the space. I will leave room between the onions for a different crop – probably some lettuce and carrots. Lettuces are not so easy outside here in the middle of Ireland, but not, as you may think, because it’s a bit cold and a bit damp most of the time, but because of the nasty little insects that think my sole purpose in gardening is to feed them. It’s not. I want to feed myself.

Luckily we are overrun with hundreds of lovely garden birds this year, and have a vast array of feathered visitors every day. I’ve noticed that they take turns at the feeder: The tits and brighter coloured birds come in the morning, but the sparrows tend to come later in the day. The crows, needless to say, turn up at any time, but I shout at them and shoo them away. (They come back. Our old trees are full of them. We know it’s spring because our car is covered with the s**t of a thousand crows. There’s a catchy book title, which would fit right into my cosy series:

#1 A Diet of Death,

#2 A Hover of Trout.

#3 A Wake of Buzzards (working title)

#4 The S**t of a Thousand Crows.

Catchy, yes? But I digress.) So, with luck, the plethora of birds will eat the nuisance insects and my vegetables will grow.

But, because the sky is blue, the sun is shining, and the birds are singing and the soil is warm, I must give my time to getting the onions in today and skimping on my blog. It’s not just onions that cause this problem – please don;t entirely blame the onions.

Since the clocks changed at the weekend for British Summer Time, my classes go on further into the day now. China doesn’t have daylight saving, or summertime hours, so my working day shifts by one hour each day for the six months of my summertime. As this is the first week of it for this year, I haven’t managed to adjust everything else around that yet, so today, I am short of time. Besides, the sun is shining and the garden is calling. I hope you’ll forgive me for going out to it.

I hope there is sunshine in your day, whatever the weather has brought you.

Love, Jinny