Sunday 8th May

Day 20

Early Sunday morning, when it would be nice to snuggle a bit longer in bed, I carry a mug of hot lemon juice down to the bottom of the garden, where my lovely husband is sitting at our old picnic table. He’s painting one of his clay models, the colour of flesh. He bends close in with the brush poised, intent. I love it that he’s living his art like this - even before breakfast.

I love the stillness of the garden - only blackbirds calling - no shouting children’s voices - its usual backdrop. Returning to the house, I notice the tangle of wirey dead looking stems of a perennial creeper, clawing the empty sky above the fence. I see this climbing vine all the time through the patio doors when I sit at the kitchen table. I’ve been worried about it. Did I prune it too hard last winter? Did I kill it?

It’s my favourite, the white flowering version of a Solarnum Crispum from the Deadly Nightshade family. It sulked for several years when we first planted it, while its sister scrambled over the opposite fence and into next door’s garden, producing clusters of tiny pale blue flowers. Then, in the summer that my mother died, it took flight, and with some wild happiness flowed through the ivy cladding in long twining waves, flinging out sprays of starry white blooms. On and on into November.

In late September, the night before my beautiful niece got married, I cut a bouquet of these flowers, delicate as jasmine, and placed them on the mantlepiece in the pink room where she would sleep next to her sweet bridesmaid sister. I left them there for a long time even after they had dropped their petals on the carpet - like confetti.

I took the secateurs to the Solarnum this afternoon, and snipped at the straggling woody stems, searching for signs of life. I found them, hidden in the ivy, a few sprouting leaves at the base of the most dead looking sticks. Shining lime green growth. I’m so happy I didn’t kill it after all.