Sunday 1 July 2018

One garden for another









I'm trying to stay in the moment and enjoy my garden for the final year before I swap it for my Greek one. I can't help but make comparisons though and have a mental check list that keeps growing and growing just like my bloody grass which I remind myself is one of those jobs I won't have to do in Kefalos thank goodness. Shrubs though that's a different matter and hopefully the nice man from the council isn't going to send me a letter about low hanging branches on my boundary after all who knows where my boundary is in Greece because short of mapping it out with flag markers which will soon be overgrown I'll never know.


As I sit contemplating the ants trail by small tidy little ants not great big ones that look like chopper motorbikes with a high back end. Damselflies and dragonflies flit across the pond as my shoal of ever multiplying goldfish swim lazily under the water lilies so many that no chance for the mosquito larvae to thrive which is why I won't be having a water feature in my new garden. Butterflies hover from flower to flower and the bees make busy for the honey season, so no change there then. Froglets, frogs and toads jump around the patio narrowly missing my feet as I hang out the washing. Birds twitter in the trees.
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I have my trusty nature saving kit, of gloves, jam jars, fishing nets and envelopes which I use on a daily basis intervening in the life and death scenario that plays out in my garden between nature and my cats. But the thing that troubles me is I foolishly agreed to put a cat flap in my Greek back door and my kit is just not up to the job out there.




How do I prepare for the Stick Insects, Geckoes, scorpions (hopefully not) Big Bees and OMG not a snake. So I'm putting a photo on the door of yes/no, I'll get a spare spaghetti jar for the stick insects as they are too big for the jam jar. Beds with legs to avoid snakes and not sure about the scorpions. Geckoes will probably run anyway and they are rather cute. Small owls and birds and stray chickens will have to take their chance and be ready for me to rescue them if needed. Haven't seen any Peacocks in Kefalos for a long while so they won't be strutting their stuff on my verandah. Cicadas welcome and if I get to see a tortoise or hedgehog I'll be delighted as they do pop up every once in awhile. Not sure what Big Osc and Molly will make of the new strange species, just hope they read the sign on the cat flap.





ps

haven't even moved in yet but this one has