129. Is the Grass Greener? A hare, midges and macaroni cheese pie

Saturday 27 May 2023

It’s 07:35 and I’m sitting on our decking in the sun. It’s a comfortable temperature, birds are singing and swirling around above and there is a hare eating, sitting and scratching itself in the garden. It is a truly beautiful, peaceful morning.

Another side to my morning idyll is that I am sitting above what is usually a small stream. The water has almost stopped flowing and the mini waterfall is mere droplets. I also have my sleeves rolled down and a light scarf covering my head and neck as I was being nibbled at by little midgy bugs. The bugs, however, I think I have got rid of because I lit a charcoal burner next to me. As a result, to add to the loveliness of it all, there is a smell of oil-soaked wood and frankincense.

View from the decking
Water should be flowing down the rocks. It isn’t.

The water. Big problem. The stream being so dry corresponds to our sole water supply being, at best, very low. I haven’t yet dared look in our water tank. Yesterday, and this was just the two of us drawing water, it went down from half to a quarter. The weather forecast is sunshine every day until a possible slightly wet day on 6 June and maybe again on 9 and 10 June (when my mum is due to stay). I have no idea how that is all going to play out, but I feel fairly sure we will appreciate the sun and beautiful cool-but-warm weather far less than we would have if water supply weren’t such a major issue.

I had a kind of miserable day yesterday, in part because it was a death anniversary of a family friend and I dwelled on it too much. I did go out and do some Friday evening gardening, as did Chris. We just got rid of some weeds but doing something is of course far better than nothing. It just didn’t feel like we made a big difference. Well, we didn’t, it was just an hour, but a tiny difference is better than no difference. Obviously. I then kind of looked around the garden area and lamented the fact it is all growing out of control and we have neither the time nor the enthusiasm (let alone the know-how) to keep on top of it. It wouldn’t be realistic to think we could add to it or improve it. I feel a bit disappointed in us, but I am also glad we didn’t end up with one of a few houses we liked that had the kinds of gardens that we would have ruined as they were clearly beautiful and elaborate and thus required significantly more work than ours ever would. I think I thought that having a garden would make us want to and love gardening. Sadly, while loving having a garden/outdoor space, neither of us seems committed to making the time to work on it every day.

Now that I have discovered the extent to which my Omani charcoal burner keeps midgy bugs away, I intend to spend a fair part of today sitting outdoors reading.

I ate my first macaroni cheese pie. A pasta pie is wrong, but I kind of liked it.

But now, it’s time I went to check on the water tank, hopeful that the water tank will still have a trickle going into it and not be much less than a quarter full. Tense.