Wednesday, 2 September 2009

New nest

We’re moving, due to the highly thrilling fact we’ve bought a house. Which means an amazing thing: a garden. I loved gardening long before it was socially acceptable, even somewhat trendy, for younger people to appreciate the art. These days Jamie Durie and his ilk are on the telly, extolling the many virtues. But back in the olden days, when I was at a party one evening, a guy looked at me askance and said: I hear you’re a bit of a Don Burke, eh? And then I told him about my sweet corn.

I may have already been purchasing seeds on the internet and obsessively perusing mail-order catalogues. I told you it was going to be a good year, and when I said that, I didn’t know a house and garden were in the offing. Housing has become ridiculously expensive in Australia (second only to Spain and Ireland, according to this article my friend told me about), and with one income and hefty health bills, we’d long accepted that we’d be tenants until further notice. Then there was a global financial crisis, interest rates went down, and we went oh yes, and thought we’d give it a go. It was one of those ‘now or never’ scenarios. It has been one of my dearest wishes to one day have our own place, I can scarcely believe it’s true.

I’ve designated myself boss-lady in charge of seed raising. Brace yourself for lots of seedling reports, after I recover from the transplant shock.