Cleaning the garden is much more favourable then cleaning the house! But just like the house, I have a habit of changing things around. The garden never seems to look the same one year to the next and quite often, my kind and unassuming husband (a creature of habit) gets quite exasperated with my ‘uplifting’ projects.  But I cannot help myself! I see things quite differently, one season to the next. So it’s out with a spade, a fork and a pair of wellies. Oh! And a sketch pad too!

     Making a map of the garden is something I have always enjoyed doing. It’s a bit like art work! However, just like a sat nav, my paths around the garden don’t always lead to anywhere in particular. But I do try to make the journey interesting by adding plants that make me smile or herbs that, when I brush past them, release a smell that can only be described as delightful!

     Today, I looked at the compost bins and decided they ought to be moved to an area of the garden where they can’t be seen. However, when I turned to walk back up the garden path, I saw my kind and unassuming husband watching me. He was smiling and shaking his head so I guess I will have to work harder on that one.

      And for those of my readers who would like an update on our home for waifs and strays, here a few. Remember the baby chicks we had? Well they are almost fully grown and chase each other around the garden like excited children. I do think, however, that one is a cockerel and I’m waiting for the day he wakes us up...and the rest of the village!

      All seems quiet in our log store, where last week there was evidence of a polecat or ferret. I guess it’s moved on for the time being, I sigh with relief! And do you remember Miss Broody Pants? Well she is still sitting on an empty nest, wishing and hoping for more young ones. We keep lifting her off and feeding her, but at the first opportunity, she scurries back.

      The tadpoles are gaining their legs and soon the garden will be a hive of activity. The apple trees are full of blossom and so are the pear and the plum trees. The spring cabbage is ready to pick (if the hens have left me any) and the potatoes are all planted.

      So as you can see, life at our home is busy as usual but never too busy that I can't sit by the pond with a cup of sweet tea and just think!

‘You spend too much time talking!’ the Sister on the ward once told me. ‘Get them in and get them out!’

    Get what in and what out, I thought to myself. Was she referring to people or injections? Surely she couldn’t mean the patients. Not these patients, who were facing life changing therapies. So I nodded and smiled then continued just as before. I was a nurse after all and since when had the word reassuring been switched to chatting?

     The following day I was called into the Sisters office. She was on the phone when I entered, so I gazed out of the window and across the car park. My eyes were drawn to an old campervan, something I had always longed for. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, I thought, to just up and go! No more shifts, no more sadness, no more being told to stop chatting.  

     ‘Sit down!’ the Sister said in a voice that told me this was serious.

      ‘You are a wonderful nurse!’ she said as my eyes wondered again to the top of the camper, waiting for the ‘but’ to come.

      ‘But,’ there it was, so I looked directly at her and waited for the blow, ‘you are a Social Butterfly!’ she said peering at me over her glasses. And she smiled a sickly smile that even I would refuse to wipe up. All the while, I hadn’t said a single word.

       ‘The pace in this department is quickening and there is no time to chatter. We have to get them in and get them out! Do you understand? There is no time to talk!’

        The old camper across the car park looked more alluring than ever. That is all I could think of! Not rules or regulations. Not ways to save money. Not forgetting to nurse holistically.

         ‘You have to toughen up if you’re to survive in nursing,’ she kept going on. ‘You will burn yourself out!’ I already had, I thought miserably, and she had started the fire, not the patients. Oh she was right, of course, in a strange sort of way, but not my way. My way would cost the department a lot more time and money.

            As I walked across the car park, on that late summer’s evening, I noticed the old camper, still sitting there as if waiting for me. It was in perfect condition, considering its age. The pale blue curtains matched the bodywork and then I saw it. There was a butterfly sticker on the side of the window with the words ‘A butterfly never lands on the hand that grasps it!’ What a coincidence, I thought, remembering what the Sister had called me earlier that day...A Social Butterfly!

           ‘It’s for sale if you’re interested,’ the voice startled me and I turned to see a handsome man standing there. He looked the clever sort, the sort that is kind and unassuming!

So I bought the old camper and married the kind and unassuming man two years later.

Palomena Prasina sat on her leaf sucking sap and sulking.

     ‘What’s up with you?’ asked her mother.

     ‘I hate school!’ said Palomena without looking up.

     Her mother, who was basking in the sun before hibernation time came, turned and looked at her eldest child. It caused a big ache in her stomach to see her so sad.

      ‘Has anyone upset you in school’ she said gently and crawled over the leaf until she was right in front of Palomena. Palomena shook her head.

       ‘Yes they have!’ shouted a spider as he wondered by. ‘I heard the beetles call her Sulky Stinky bug today!’

       ‘Stinky bug! Stinky bug!’ cried the young wingless nymphs that gathered around their sister.

       ‘Please be quiet children,’ said their mother. ‘Is this true Palomena?’

       Palomena looked up at her mother and nodded sadly. ‘Do I stink?’ she asked. Her mother didn’t want to lie to her child so she told the truth.

       ‘Everyone has a special smell,’ she said. ‘If we are upset, just like you were at school, then you react with a stronger smell. It’s a sort of protection us bugs have! It shows we have feelings!’

       ‘But I don’t want to smell,’ said Palomena, ‘no-one will like me if I smell!’

       The young nymphs gathered around their big sister. They had never seen her so upset before.

        ‘Don’t be afraid of the beetles and you won’t stink,’ said one little nymph. Palomena smiled at her little brother who was alwyas so wise.

        ‘The smell is a part of who we are,’ said the little nymph, ‘we cannot change that but we can try to control it.’

        Palomena crawled over to her brother and touched him gently with her nose. ‘You are such a wise young nymph,’ she said, ‘I shall ignore the beetles in future and get on with my school work.’

        And that is what Palomena Prasina did. She went to school the next day and when the beetles called her names, she ignored them. This went on for many days until the beetles suddenly stopped Palomena on the way home from school and asked her to be their friend.

         ‘Even though I stink?’ said Palomena.

          ‘Because, you stink,’ said a big black beetle.

One day I went to the shop to buy milk and came home with a goat called Billie! I had no idea what I was going to do with Billie, but I assumed it would all fall into place. I was wrong.

     My kind and unassuming husband was very surprised when I opened the gate to our home for waifs and strays with a goat in tow. The bearded animal snorted when he saw the garden. Heaven, he must have thought, a Billie Goats Heaven!

     I was a very kind but assuming wife, my husband said, to think that we could easily accommodate this animal that had one eye on the washing line and another on our prized allotment. But Billie was here to stay, at least for the time being.

     He didn’t make friends easily, which was probably due to his horns. These  had the potential to toss an unsuspecting person into the air. And they certainly scared many of our friends away.

     And he escaped, once or twice, could have been more but I hate to think about it. Oh, the trouble it caused. We thought that Gilbert the Great was a handful, but Billie the Goat beat him hands down.

     ‘A goat can live for twenty or more years,’ a friend told me kindly, ‘but I suggest you don’t tell your kind and unassuming husband that.’

    ‘He’s probably not far off old age,’ I replied and instantly felt sorry for poor Billie.      

     I knew we couldn’t keep Billie indefinitely, our home for waifs and strays just wasn’t right for him.

      ‘We could rent him out,’ I said jokingly, to my kind and unassuming husband many months later. ‘Someone must need a natural lawnmower.’

      He shook his head and said that Billie deserved somewhere permanent. I agreed.

       It was after Billie got into the allotment, that we sought a new home for him. I asked Tom the Egg (he really did exist) if he would put some posters around the villages and off he went on his new bicycle.

       Within two days, someone called and asked all about Billie. What he looked like, colour, size etc. When I had given them a full description, they asked if they could come to see him straight away.

        Well, what a surprise. Billie found a new home on the stage. He was to star in a play which was running for another four nights, then live the rest of his days on a farm close by.

        I have often been to visit Billie and delighted to write, that he is a happily retired acting goat.

 Goodnight Billie! I often wonder where you came from.

Come and sit down in my kitchen and I'll make us a cup of tea! There's some homemade bread and jam, just help yourself! Oh, you can hang your coat up on the hook beside the fire.

...............

     I’m not quite sure what it is about tea (a cup of tea especially) but it appears to bring such comfort to the human kind. My dear and unassuming husband is the exception as he has never drank a cup of tea in his life...very strange!

     At our home for waifs and strays, the kettle rarely gets cold. There is always someone popping in for something or another, or just for a chat. I always switch the kettle on even before they are seated. And if I am busy, then the visitor will usually carry out the task automatically. It seems that this is a very welsh thing to do.

     It is almost as if everything dissolves in the steam that evaporates into you face. No worries, no stress, all washed away in a moments connection with the tea. If only it were that simple!

     But for awhile, tea does seem to comfort people.  It feels easier to talk perhaps, with ones hands wrapped around a hot cup or mug. Tea shops are becoming quite popular. I often meet up with friends and family in a tea shop by the sea...just the thought of it makes me feel warm inside. No matter how far I roam, I will always look forward to a cup of tea at the other end.

     There are so many types of teas today, far too many to mention here but I’m sure many of you would have tried at least one or two or even more. Just writing about it makes me want to put the kettle on...just wait a moment please!

     Watching the steam come from the kettle, even before I fill the teapot (we still use a teapot at our home for waifs and strays)makes me feel trapped in its spell....not a bad feeling, even if only for awhile!

     Below is a poem I discovered and written by a woman called Naomi Shihab Nye...enjoy!

The Tray by Naomi Shihab Nye
Even on a sorrowing day
the little white cups without handles
would appear
filled with steaming hot tea
in a circle on the tray,
and whatever we were able
to say or not say,
the tray would be passed,
we would sip
in silence,
it was another way
lips could be speaking together,

opening on the hot rim,

swallowing in unison.