Swimming season starts, One more trip for the tractor

It's official swimming season has commenced. The local pool always opens sometime in September. It all depends on when school holidays commence. In the month or so leading up to opening the pool the manager and his offsider spend their days getting it all ready with painting and cleaning. Every year I call past during the maintenance month to buy our season ticket. This year they were closed each time I went past. Today they were there. They were there because the pool opened on Saturday. I'm two days late.

Never mind it was such a warm and sunny afternoon and being late couldn't be helped. I raced home to tell Jean but she was mid stride into organising dinner. I grabbed the swimming bag and enjoyed a few laps in the 24 degree C water on my own. Refreshed and a sense of achievement got me home to spend a little time reading.

Proof of the commencement of swimming season

Stepping backwards to the morning. Today was the day to finish the slashing job down the road at the property which is studded with booby traps for both the tractor and slasher. Well another lucky day. Only collected a little fencing wire but spotted all the hidden chicken wire tree guards (with trees long gone) and unused fence posts lying in deep grass. Four hours later with cash in hand it was all over without an incident. The cosmos can be benevolent at times.

Did manage to make some progress towards self sufficiency. In the cold frame some seeds still haven't germinated. All these were replanted again. Never quite sure why this is so. Sometimes it is because the seed packet is past its use by date but that only means germination percentage will drop so if enough seeds are planted there should be some result - theoretically. Other times it could be that seed tray just dried out or didn't get enough water one day. Anyway it doesn't matter that much as it enforces a staggered planting.

While sitting in the kitchen looking out on the garden with drinks and left over Taramasalata and toasted sourdough we discussed how good the garden looked after our hectic few days of mowing and trimming. It always does look good after so much effort but is that only because it looked so bad before and that the contrast is greater?