A break away
At the end of July, I packed up a van half with stuff and half with plants, and with Maz behind the steering wheel we headed south. After a few hours stuck in horrendous traffic we ended up a service station, we swapped over and I continued to our destination: Brighton. Yes, I have abandoned London and made a run for it.
Made a run for the sea and the hills. I always knew that London wasn’t the place for me, and that I have lasted this long is no small miracle. Much of it is to do with Ire being around, but with her disappearing to Ecuador I soon realised this was my opportunity to leave. I have been visiting Brighton for the last year or so, mainly because Tristan was done here, but also because I really liked the place. I’ve loved being able to go for bike rides along the beach, have bbqs on the beach, walk in the hills. Brighton is a vibrant town, with loads of festivals, concerts. It is really international as well and feels alive.
Anyway, I left half my stuff in the garden and half of it in my room. The following day I headed back to London for a few days and nights. It felt exciting to be back in London and to see its glories and lights. But boy, by the end of the few days I was ready to come home.
So I haven’t been doing too much explicit permaculture, as the first Tuesday I was living down here was my birthday and so I took the day off from normal activities. This Tuesday, to be frank, was just a bit dozy. Wasn’t quite sure what to do with the day. Had the intention to start a new project, but never quite got into it. With hindsight I can see it layed some good foundations. More of that later.
Instead, I’ve spent much of the past two weeks mulling, cleaning and sorting. Sara, my new flatmate, had a day off today and we got on with sorting the garden. It is a real tip. There is a horrendous pile in the corner that keeps on accumulating like some rampant growth (most of it is hidden in the photo by the bush). The cats are littering in the garden, there are collections of pots with nothing but weeds in them, there are bits of bike, an old desk, broken chairs. You get the picture.
So when I arrived with half a van load of plants, it made quite a difference. But I haven’t really done much since there apart from just looking after the plants. I have repotted all the window boxes at the front of the house. Replacing the dead marigolds with pansies, canary chard, sage, Spanish mint, apple mint, parsley, chamomile, nasturtium, round courgette, tomatoes.
But today was the day to get on with it. Moving things, identifying things, making a huge pot of snail soup, cleaning. It feels so much better. You can almost sit at the table now. The weeds have been replaced with tomatoes, rosemary, mint, wild strawberries, chilies, aubergines. The bike will be fixed, the curtain rails I’ve used as a temporary washing line and more mischief will ensue.
But we’re getting there. We’ll give the braai a good scrub and then it’s almost ready to go. We still need a skip or a few willing friends to move the rubbish out and just keep on keeping on. I’ve really needed to get stuck into the garden. And quite a few times during the day I could see Mollison in the film ‘In Grave Danger of Falling Fruit’ saying that you should start at the end of your nose (at least I think it was in that film). Anyway, today feels like the first day I have really felt at home. After my mornings work, I had a late lunch out in the garden. A great big salad (more about that later too). Tasted even better for being out there. Honest.