20 July 2026

 We've been cultivating our garden, as per Voltaire, quite a lot lately. Aka doing hard physical labour. Big gardens need a lot of work, it turns out.

Watering is the easy and pleasurable part, but I don't have pictures of the process of cutting, chopping and rooting out that have left my limbs aching in the best possible way.

I also didn't take a good before-photo of the riotous amount of summer growth that was around the oak tree, but it's more or less visible here -

And it was distinctly satisfying to survey the after -

Many barrels and barrows of cuttings have been carted away to the bottom of the garden -

Meanwhile the herbs are still flourishing -

and found their way into a gazpacho this evening -