PHASE II AS GOOD AS IT GETS DAY 70

PHASE II A.G.A.I.G DAY 70

Monday and only one thing on my mind, stepping stones. There are 14 stepping stones waiting to be embedded in one of the grass areas of the garden. Its not a lawn, lawns are flat and even, root free and evenly green. My green areas are not flat, root free or evenly covered in grass. So laying these stepping stones is going to be far from simple. A quick breakfast and I am into my work clothes, steely toe capped boots and arm fulls of tools. I’m out in the garden and I am at it. I am at it for hours. At lunchtime it was hot and I continued and then wonder why I felt dizzy when I got up too quickly from digging out and preparing another bed for another stepping stone. Of course taking drugs to reduce hypertension and a blood thinner probably did not help. I take a time out with a timely cheese sandwich and then I am at it again. I get to the last three, which are due to go where the most roots are running through the ground. Its a real bastard getting them out but I get there. Every stone down and spirit level checked so that they are even, even if the grassy ground is not. So I have flat stones in a slanting bumpy piece of grass.

  • Almost at the end
  • Completed
  • The spirit bubble of joy
A days work. They will be revisited

I finally feel I have finished, its gone six o’clock and I am tired. I take a call from a friend who has been to the sea and chat for a while. I’m reminded that eight years ago this was my retirement night out. Its been an interesting and in many ways a revelatory eight years. I pack away my tools and contemplate my garden and take pictures of what catches my eye.

When the sun shines the garden becomes a place of calm.

I change and eat tea that my partner has prepared. During the meal Tesco deliver unannounced. Then its a bath bomb bath for me, radio 4 and Just a Minute to amuse me. I drift and rest and think about how my life in “retirement has been”. The best and worst of times. Never boring, always stimulating and surprising. That’s not a bad eight years., except for the life threatening scary bits, but I’m still here. I climb out the bath and write the blog to NCIS in the background. Tomorrow I return to the shed to type and write.