spring

It’s the spring equinox. Sure enough, the weather is truly vernal. Sky cloudless, azure, the overnight chill gone before I've eaten my porridge. I hear the ticking engine of a stationary truck at the top of the driveway. A removal van, and its Chinese truck jockey has pulled up the post with our street number on it. I realise they’re about to back down to unit 4. Feo and Alvena are leaving.

I collect the paper before the truck backs over it, read till after eleven. From my kitchen window I watch Joyce hug eight-months-pregnant Alvena, then Feo. Dan is not to be seen, avoiding hugging anyone, I guess. As the truck departs I grab a plumber’s spitter and start gouging out the hole for the post with our number on it. I’ve been intending to reset it for ages.

That done I set to pulling weeds in the back garden, Apart from a 20 minute break to whip up some pasta for lunch the garden fills my day. I pick lemons, trim the lower branches. I plant snow peas garnered from last season’s crop, install wire cages for them to climb on. The bike I should be riding props up the wall in the hallway.

  

The second AFL semi-final provides a radio backdrop to my afternoon, a rare twilight game with five hours of build-up to the first bounce.

I finally build the low retaining wall for my last garden bed. I  haul bluestones, solve the jigsaw of piecing them into some sort of straight line, driving in wedging stones, accommodating the natural fall of the ground. Late in the afternoon the cat comes over the fence, digs the fresh soil, parks his arse, christens the new bed.

Just before the twilit game begins I pack the garden tools away, leap into the shower, swill away the dirt.

No ride, but otherwise a marvellous productive day.

Rock on.