The first day of spring, Grandma and my garden. in The View from the Terrace

I read in the paper that today is the first day of spring as it is the spring equinox. My mother always told me that happened on my grandmother’s birthday, March 21, but I looked it up and apparently it can vary over a day or two. I never knew that, you live and learn. Now that saying also reminds me of my grandmother, if you said you live and learn to her she would answer then you die and forget all! a bit depressing that.

Grandma was an odd person. Since Cat’s diagnosis I have been wondering if Grandma may also have had autistic traits. She was so quiet and solitary and very anxious in company. Apart from doing the shopping she never seemed to leave the house. Grandad ran our family pub before Dad, and all of the 13 years that they were there Grandma never helped behind the bar, I find that very odd. She would stay in the back kitchen cooking or mending. When the pub was closed she would go in and clean and tidy up but never went in when it was open.

My parents ran the pub after Granddad and my grandparents moved to a house up the road where Grandma lived in the kitchen baking and listening to the wireless. Granddad walked down most evenings to watch our telly and go into the bar to see his old friends. Then when they got really old they moved back to the pub and had a room upstairs. Granddad would come downstairs most nights but Grandma never did, she wouldn’t even come and watch telly, she said she had her wireless. I remember her having a problem with a tooth and it was a massive job to get her to a dentist. After Granddad died of a heart attack I gave her my budgie for company and she lived in her room, talking to him until she joined Granddad the following year.

I think maybe my love of gardens began at my grandparents house. We didn’t have a garden at the pub, well we had tiny one, about six foot square outside the front window. But my grandparents had a real garden and I loved it. Dad used to go there on Sunday afternoons to help Granddad with the gardening, Dad loved gardens too.

I’ve had 2 good afternoons in my garden this last week. I love this time of year when everything starts to come back to life. I have planted most of the flowers that I bought at the garden centre on Mother’s Day. The little purple and deep yellow viola look beautiful in the window box, they look as if they are made of velvet. I planted some of the primroses under the hedge by the washing line so that there would be something pretty to look at while hanging the washing and I put the rest into the hanging baskets with some of the tall deep red primulas as the flowers in there were looking very sad. The purple and white crocus that I planted last year are coming out and look really beautiful. The forsythia is really starting to come into bloom now. I can see it’s delicate yellow blossom against the pink sunset as I write this.

The garden is full of birds, but they don’t seem to have found out that the little house Cat bought me for Christmas and that I hung in the fir tree is full of food for them. I have hung another bird feeder near it in the hope that they discover it soon.

Tomorrow we are going to Bristol to see Collabro in concert. They are a group of 5 singers who do songs from the musicals in harmony. They were the winners of Britain’s Got Talent in 2014 and are brilliant.

Last updated March 27, 2016