Gardens, and other happy-making things

I've not been sleeping well of late. I seem to be stuck in a pattern: falling dead asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow because I'm so tired, waking up again in the early hours with my mind flitting from one thing to the next, and then nodding off again just before I have to get up with Joe.

The doctor doesn't want to prescribe sleeping tablets. I have a few things going on at the moment, what with my mum being unwell, and something else I wasn't going to mention just yet in case I tempt fate, but around six weeks ago we accepted an offer on the house. Surveys have been completed, forms filled in and all the rest of it. The house is officially off the market. There are long periods of waiting and hearing nothing.

There isn't a chain involved so hopefully all should proceed smoothly, but I'm on tenterhooks because these things can fall through at any time. We've wanted to move for so long.

Anyway, the doctor suggested a 'talking therapy' to discuss dealing with these anxieties a little better. I'll give it a try.

So, house moves. We're tentatively looking for somewhere else to rent initially. And this weekend we dug up a lot of our favourite plants and potted them ready to take with us. Some of the bigger ones can stay put until nearer the time. The gooseberry bushes are definitely coming to the new place (wherever that may be); after three years of nothing - and last year being stripped of all their leaves by caterpillars - they're covered in flowers with a tiny fruit forming at the base of each. We should have a bumper harvest.

My mum has planned a summer spent at home this year and wants to fill her garden with all manner of plants and shrubs so we have the perfect place to take our pots. There are also plenty of roomy beds for the big perennials like Solomon's Seal, the euphorbias and hellebores.

Last week I took Joe out walking near his grandparents' house. They live on a big housing estate inhabited by mainly retired people. The houses are on roomy plots; the roads are wide and quiet and tree-lined. It's nice to walk around and nosy at the gardens to the hum of lawnmowers and the smell of freshly-cut grass.

The daffodils are on their way out now, replaced by tulips and wallflowers. Other people's gardens are always fun to see. There are seaside-inspired ones with gravel and succulents and thrift, unintentionally retro ones with rockeries and heathers, dwarf conifers and azaleas, and traditional ones with perfectly manicured lawns and herbaceous borders. 

We went out walking this weekend near home. The weather has been mostly good with a warm breeze and sunshine and you could smell the hawthorn blossoms (one of the things I like the most about having a May birthday).

Something else which made me smile this past week was stopping in a line of traffic to wait as a mother duck and her tiny duckings (at least ten of them) filed across the road from one field to another. I wasn't the only one smiling - so were the other drivers.

Hope you've had a great weekend.