As we emptied the greenhouse of tomato plants and transferred the geraniums there for overwintering I wondered if I would become an older person from the south. Last week my husband filled up all our terracotta containers and others with a mixture of sand from my family, compost and well rotted manure and I proceeded to bury a mixture of tulips - a gift from a friend in Rawtenstall, and the daffodils we had dried out over the summer. These latter failed to flower in the first season, but we dug them up and are giving them a second chance to flower by the front porch. Then my husband netted everything against the curiosity of squirrels.
And I saw myself, four years ago, back in Redbridge, planting out saved daffodils and new bulbs purchased for our customer from the superstore, and my husband ingeniously netting containers with whatever came to hand. As he mowed our small lawn avoiding our two apple trees I remembered the great expanse he used to tackle for this widowed lady, the disused vegetable plot and the fallen apples towards the back in the grass. I tidied up our neat square after him and and uttered a prayer that I might never get too infirm to attend to my borders or leave them, bereft of flowers, invaded by grass.
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