Moving the Earth

 

Photo taken on the walkway outside my flat c. 1995, when younger sister Carol was on a visit from Australia

 Some people to take the contents of their gardens with them when they move. Apparently,  it's not uncommon to do this on a large scale.

As a flat dweller whose garden is in pots, I don't have that option. Quite apart from my 'start again' mentality, the plants would die in  storage  while we look for a new place. All the same, there's  a fair amount of spade, or rather trowel, work involved. Instead of assuming that the new tenants will want to look after my current crop of neglected geraniums I've decide to throw,  or give,  them away and leave the walkway free of clutter.

What to do with the earth from the plant pots was a question that
troubled me for a while The council sell garden bags for £10, I was told, and you leave them out for collection,  but how many were obtained for that amount I wasn't sure. Then my neighbour at Flat 5, who does the general gardening, said to throw the earth on a bank beside the garage block. Problem solved.

A  more interesting challenge is the collection of rocks on the back balcony. Ten years ago -can it be ten years?- I agreed to take charge of a rock collection  belonging to a Singaporean friend, a Mandarin tutor at Westminster University.(I'd known her some years because the part-time evening degree tended to drag on at my extremely slow rate of progress) She was moving at the time into a rented flat in North London and there wouldn't be room for them in her new digs. So I loaded them into my car and drove them South.  They may not look much in the photo, but they glisten and show off their markings when it rains. Now that L has a flat of her own we can meet up for lunch in Chinatown and effect a handover. Might take two trips with my shopping trolley, as I no longer have a car.

Unfortunately,  a number of the rocks have already disappeared. Every five years or the balcony floor is re-covered in bitumen as part of a refurb, and the last time I wasn't vigilant enough to stop a workman from helping himself to a few. What's the point of stealing rocks, you might ask, but these are no ordinary rocks. It's obvious from the photo that they are all very different, and indeed they were collected over a number of years from beaches and hillsides my friend had passed on her travels.  I hope she'll be so delighted to be reunited with them that she won't miss the ones that are gone.

The relationship the Chinese have with rocks is a bit mysterious, to Western ways of thinking, and  I'd certainly noticed that their ideas about gardens are different. Instead of a lawn and flower beds and maybe a few decorative bean rows and cloches, the Chinese like rocks - the older and more bizarrely shaped the better. Ideally they should resemble mythic creatures like turtles or dragons. Add some carp ponds with water lilies and a little bridge, a pagoda and some willows, and it's complete.

The domestic ones, as distinct from the tourist magnets you can visit in places like Shanghai and Suzhou, are of course on a smaller scale. But I  suspect they are less inclined to leave with their owners on removal day.

Driven to Distraction

I do like novelty and change, so that aspect of relocating doesn't bother me, apart from the odd twinge of regret. I'll miss family and friends but these days it's easy to keep in touch.  I know that better than most because my family and friends are scattered around the globe. We'll be able to come and go by train easily enough to see the grandchildren in London or have them visit our new seaside home.

What does bother me is all the uncertainty connected with selling the flat. I'd expected not to be here by Election day, for instance, so had arranged postal votes for Roy and self.  Then I was cross when it came and went, because I like all the palaver of going to vote in person.

The main  area of uncertainty just now is whether to call it quits with our very dilatory buyer and to put the flat back on the market. But that would mean  the prospect of more viewers to tidy up and wait in for. And no guarantee that the next one wouldn't be just as slow. I'm subjected to conflicting advice,  but whenever I'm urged to take a stricter line at the latest setback there's always Roy to tell me to curb my impatience.

Then it hit me all of a sudden last weekend - I could learn Greek! Maybe I found the box when I was sifting through the charity-shop donations.

I already have this  set of book and two disks because we went to Cyprus for the first time last October. At that time it was all a bit short-notice and I didn't have the concentration, following a death in the family. Now, with further  travel a possibility, it seems a perfect distraction.

It's a good course, all clearly set out with tasks to do each day , flash cards to carry around on the transport and mentions of exotic places  in the dialogues. 

It's not just the formality of language learning that appeals, either. True, I like the way the nouns and adjectives all fit together with their different endings, the lists of vocabulary and the carefully constructed conversations. I'm also excited at the chance  know more about the culture. I've even bought a box set about Ancient Greece.

Mostly, though, it's a comfort to be in charge and to have a sense of progress. It may seem a bit extreme, but for me it's a perfect distraction.

After the London Eye

Last Wednesday's glorious weather  prompted a trip on the London Eye with my granddaughter. The green Thames glittered below and all the buildings, from familiar  St Pauls, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, to the newer  the Shard and Gherkin, sparkled in the sunlight.

An  unexpected reaction to a view of the whole city laid below was one of nostalgia and regret. How could I leave all this behind?

I even put it to my husband when I got home that it might be better for us to rent a place in Docklands for six months - I'd seen some lovely flats advertised  in the Evening Standard. We could call it a 'transition' phase.

Next day, I was distracted by a phone call from my solicitor. Another delay was in the offing.

'Come on !' I said to Jack the estate agent. ' Maternity leave doesn't come as a surprise.'

But it does, of course, if there are complications, and that's what's happened to my buyer's solicitor. Not only that, but there's no other conveyancer in the firm, so the papers are all passed over to a completely new person in a different company. I could only wish the woman well and grit my teeth for more waiting.

Afterwards it occurred to me that the deadline for a response to the lease extension is on the 22nd . So I emailed my solicitor and the estate agent to remind the buyer.

'Oh, she's going down the formal route', so that doesn't matter.' Quite what this means wasn't  explained but I did find out on Monday that the new solicitor hasn't had time yet to look at the papers. Of course.

So it looks like a 'transition' phase will occur without a move to Docklands and the consequent  £2,000 per month rental charge.

In the circumstances, i.e. now that May is here, I can't really say I'm sorry.