After months of frost, ice, rain, and mud, it never ceases to amaze me how the garden simply gets on with things. Plants that looked quite finished in January suddenly poke their heads back through the soil as if winter was merely a slight inconvenience. One minute the plot is grey and bedraggled… the next it is bursting into glorious shades of green, flowers, and new life. Nature really does have a stubborn streak — rather like allotment holders.
The solar panels on the summerhouse roof have been absolute stars over the winter months. They kept dear Ludo snug as a bug on his electric blanket during those bitterly cold nights, tucked up inside his little kingdom while the wind rattled outside. Now spring has arrived, the same panels are powering a fan to keep His Majesty cool while he naps dramatically in the sunshine like a retired movie star.
Of course, the local foxes remain convinced the summerhouse belongs to them whenever Ludo is elsewhere. So far this year they have stolen an entire canister of cat munchies, kidnapped a bath towel (later recovered from a neighbouring plot looking rather sheepish), bitten the radio aerial clean in half — astonishingly, the radio still works — and chewed through the fan lead, which my kind plot neighbour managed to repair. Honestly, if foxes ever open a scrapyard and soft furnishings business, we’ll know where the stock came from.
Still… I can’t help loving them to bits.
And somehow, amongst the mischief, muddy paws, birdsong, blossom, and sunshine, Ellie’s Eden is waking up all over again.
