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“In our frenzied attempts to catch up with life, we run right past it. Once we have run past it, what we are in reality attempting to catch is ourselves.”

Craig D. Lounsbrough

Looking back through the archives for this almanac I note that I have gotten into the habit of posting – during the late spring/early summer of each year – a succinct gallery of photographs taken in our garden here at the southern end of Vancouver Island.

As one might imagine, these analogous offerings look remarkably similar year on years. Given that much of the garden is furnished with mature shrubs, perennials and ancient (relatively speaking!) trees, this should come as no surprise. The true beauty of the garden in spring-time is that it is at once the same as it ever was – whilst also being ever new.

And how cool is that?!

The title of this post, however, is “Playing catch-up” – so there is clearly something going on here other than the mere uploading of a fresh instalment of an old favourite.

As indeed there is…

Those who follow these things closely might notice (should they care to put any effort into the thing) that we are almost at the start of June and – as yet – no garden images have appeared for this year.

Some reasons for this tardiness have been hinted at in earlier posts, but these reflect only a small part of the whole story. Whereas Mother Nature has been powering ahead with her usual vim and vigour, our attempts at getting the grounds of our abode into shape have been running well behind. These factors have been in play:

1. Executing an estate: I wrote near the top of the year of the sad passing of The Girl’s step mother. The Girl is sole executor of the estate and there has been much busy-ness, much driving to and from Nanaimo and much clearing out and putting things in order so that the will can be appropriately executed. She and I have already carried out well in excess of two hundred hours of work on the matter.
2. Garden machinery: The grass in our garden grows fiercely at the start of the season and is long, tough and very wet before I can even get a first cut in. On my second attempt this year our old gas mower finally seized and we have been obliged to purchase a new one. Since we acquired the old mower very much second hand when we came to Canada (eleven years ago) we can hardly complain. Our power-washer – the which we share with a dear friend – also refused to start the year in an orderly fashion. Fixing this was simply a matter of getting the carburettor cleaned out, but getting our local small motor specialist so to do set our power-washing – and by extension everything else – back by five weeks.
3. A week in hospital: A close family member suffered a blood and heart-related incident and ended up spending a week in hospital here in Victoria. This inevitably required us to make one or more trips each day to the hospital for the week concerned. This time lost delayed a surprising number of other matters that were already queuing up for our attention. Fortunately the family member concerned is now back home and improving day on day.

As you can see – the start of the year has gone considerably less smoothly than we would have hoped and we may be excused if some normally essential tasks have had to be delayed.

I will see what (if any) images I might have to hand from the world outside our windows…