All the radishes from the second round of seeds have been yanked from the garden. Those that were left either cracked or turned spongy inside. I’d missed the opportunity to harvest them at their peak. The garden now looks a little tragic, with only the tomato plants showing any promise.
A couple of metres away in the alley, there is a massive blackberry bramble that I’ve been snacking on post-run. There are few scents I find more magical than blackberries on a warm day. As usual, the plumpest berries are high up and well out of reach, so I messaged the landlord requesting to borrow his pole rope pruner, which I’d initially called “the long grabber stick”. Armed with this rusty magic wand, I returned to the bush to grasp at the juiciest of juicy-looking clusters.
The pole rope pruner wasn’t the game changer I’d expected it to be. The berries of beyond were so ripe that they rained down on me when I tugged at the thorny stems, totally missing the bowl they were meant to go in. Half an hour later, I walked away from the bramble in triumph with a large bowl of berries, bleeding legs, and purple splotches on my face.
I’d do it again, but in pants.
It’s been almost two weeks since my return from Slovenia, and I am still dealing with a severe case of the post-trip blues. I’d spent three weeks conversing in sign language daily. Not even in ASL, but BSL: British Sign Language. Before this trip, the extent of my BSL was the manual alphabet and a few signs/phrases such as “good morning”. Now I know over 170 signs. I’ve entered them in an Excel spreadsheet with the intention of reviewing what I’ve learned once a month, and adding to the list with the help of the online BSL dictionary.
Continue reading “Feeling prickly.”