Gardening successes and failures

As I've been spending a great deal of time in the garden recently I thought I'd record it at its midsummer peak.  I'm learning to be a bit more relaxed about gardening, realising that there is never a time when everything is looking good at the same time and that some plants thrive unexpectedly while others inexplicably don't even when I do everything by the book.  

So here are my recent successes and failures.  First roses which I grow in pots on the patio.  I have a yellow one called Laura Ford (on the right above) which was brilliant last year but has been disappointing this year, having been attacked by greenfly.  I kept rubbing them off but to no avail and it now looks very sad. Contrast this with my beautiful pink Ballerina, bought for a couple of quid in Home and Bargain.

I've tried growing soft fruit and, for the first time, I have raspberries - not that many but progress on last year.  But my blackcurrant looks rather pathetic I think it needs better soil. I'm disappointed as I had a brilliant one in my last garden.  I have had more success with potatoes.  In fact I have what looks distinctly like a potato plant in a spot where I was expecting to see an echinacea emerge.  I tended it carefully in the spring only to realise it was an imposter which had planted itself in a spot where I'd probably thrown the spent compost from last year's potatoes. This amused me. I reckon, as the daughter of a farmer from Co Derry, potato growing is an innate skill.  We ate the first of my new potatoes from the plants I am growing in a dustbin on Saturday evening.  My book says you can harvest when they flower - only had a few as they are quite small so I'll leave them a bit longer.  They tasted good. 

I have a good crop of peas and beetroot.  I grow peas mainly so I can eat them raw straight from the pod as I did as a child.  Our summer holiday dinner was often new potatoes, peas and butter so we were sent off to gather the peas and then had to shell them. Many never reached the table.  

I am hoping my agapanthus, two of them in lovely terracotta pots which I got as a birthday present last year,  will flower, but though they look healthy there is no sign yet.  The B&Q hydrangea which looked like it was going to expire during the dry weather is now doing better though the flowers are a pale pink and not white as advertised.  Much nicer so I don't mind. 

A final picture of my usual garden companion who has totally destroyed the lawn. and my herb garden in pots.

A Life in Teaching

At the end of this term I am retiring from teaching.  I began my career in 1983, working full-time until I had Kate in 1999 and part-time since then, stopping for a couple of years when she was small.  So that's over 35 years, most of my lifetime.  In fact, because the school where I teach isn't planning to open before the summer holidays, I have already taught my last lesson in a real classroom. 

I have mixed feelings about this.  I'm pleased to be escaping the spreadsheets and target setting and data capture which take up so much of my time;  I will no longer have to face inspections or prepare for lesson observations.  I'll no longer have to wade through every single word of  'A Christmas Carol' with a reluctant GCSE group just in case an obscure passage is set in the exam.  But I'll miss the company of young people and how they make me look at the world in a different way and I'll miss the day to day contact with my friends in the English department and the staffroom. 

In the last week a couple of things have happened which have made me reflect on my career in teaching - I can't go into details here for reasons of confidentiality. One of these incidents upset me; the other delighted me.  That just about sums up how it has been over the years.  There have been difficult lessons, disrespectful pupils and challenging moments.  But I still get that feeling of elation when a lesson goes really well, or I succeed with a tricky pupil or read a piece of of really good work a student has produced.  Maybe elation is too strong a word for it but you know what I mean.  So overall no regrets about my career choice.  

Other than some Zoom teaching this week life has continued in the new routine we've established in the last few months: dog walks, online quiz evenings, gardening for me cycling for him, eating and drinking slightly more than is advisable.  I also made some Elderflower Cordial with some flowerheads collected on a walk.  It does not look very appealing - family members have unkindly said that one of the bottles looks like giant urine sample.  It tastes ok though a bit too sweet for my taste - will use less sugar next time.  Thought about trying Elderflower Champagne which my dad used to make but the recipe says I needed champagne yeast which I didn't have.  I'm sure he didn't bother with that.  The last time I made it one of the bottles exploded so that also made me a bit wary.

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