In the Garden

We are all experiencing the familiar pull into outdoor routines, seedlings and sitting knitting under the willow tree and den-building and picnic blankets. I don't see myself as an outdoorsy person - I *want* to be, feel it is something admirable even, but quite honestly I don't love gardening and my idea of "a nice walk" is an extremely lazy meander.

I do love the freshness of the Spring sunshine, and taking my usual favourite things out into the garden (crafting, reading, watching the children create wildly inventive games and role plays, cooking and eating with friends, and staying up late into the night discussing the oddly philosophical questions that overtake us when we probably ought to be heading to bed instead).

Jenna ran around with the camera today. I think they were pretending to be stranded somewhere; they certainly built shelters and made a fire, coupled with the usual "pretending to be stuck places and then getting annoyed when parents try to help because they really ought to know it's just part of the game".

I love that the contorted willow has grown so fast. I remember planting a tiny bit of stick in a pot when Jenna was a tiny baby, and speculating that perhaps by the time she started climbing trees it would be sturdy enough to climb. It was. And now it towers, and they all climb up and perch there together like a row of birds on a telephone wire. Blissfully sweet.

This is what Jenna packed in her survival kit. I admit, I snorted with somewhat-unmaternal laughter that she packed a whole lot of tweeny girly stuff and photographs *of herself*!

As a child I always felt strongly in warm weather that there were just not enough hours available for being outside. I used to walk to school looking at the sharp outlines of shadow on sun-warmed pavement and feel like something was being stolen from me with those hours I had to be indoors. These four seem to feel the same need: the TV has certainly been rarely so much as glanced at in a fortnight and I have to bring in baskets of toys and books from the garden each evening.

Once again I'm telling myself firmly that *this* year I'll make the most of the growing season, take better care of the garden space, put right the little jobs that need doing, dig over the back border, keep the nettle patch a little more under control. Well, I *might*.

The rest of our days are the usual mix of children pretending to be animals, reading aloud (mostly The Odyssey), job-hunting, paper everywhere from fits of drawing/painting, and a house that badly needs me to spend more time tidying up and less time procrastinating/crafting/playing with the children. Ha! I think I'll go and sit under the willow tree with my book instead...