Gardening advice

I am not an expert at anything but one thing I am fairly good at is  this.... growing grass, beautiful green grass.

So this is how it works!  You clean up an area and put down some landscape fabric and then you  put gravel all over that and then you go to another country far away, say, Australia, for the sake of it. You come back 9 months later and the most beautiful grass will then have come up. Thick and healthy! You couldn't have done if you tried! It's a miracle! The problem is you wanted it to be a gravel path and now it is not even visible, and you have to do it all over again.

Cabin fever is rampant here with the rain and the grey skies and if it doesn't stop we will have to do the Swedish thing and go to Mallorca or where ever the sun is.

Forget the above sentence, it was written in despair after days of greyness and rain. The sun has arrived now and all of a sudden everything feels better.

I got up early today because the farmer's son who is going  to take down some trees here was supposed to come this morning but yet again he didn't turn up. Maybe country people function on a different inner clock. I will have to learn to be patient, not the easiest thing for me.

Last night I was watching TV and my mother who is staying here with me, had gone to bed when there was a little knock on the window. It was my neighbor who wanted to tell me that there was an elk in the field on their side. I have been told about these elks ever since we moved in but never seen one. I have seen others though in my previous life when I was a cook in Dalecarlia. This job included   getting breakfast going very early for the sawmill workers and I saw elks almost every morning driving to work. But we have never spotted one here, so this was a treat.

It was too dark for photos so you just have to take my word for it. My SIL will be so jealous. When they were here I had to take them to a special elk park to see elks. I know it is a little bit like cheating but what can you do when you are only here for a short time.

Hubby has left too, to go back to work and on his very last day we took a walk called the Coastal walk and it is marked the whole way. For a normal fit and well-equipped person this would probably have been a piece of cake but I struggled.  It was extremely wet and I was in normal shoes. They had also put up a stile to prevent horses and cows and some people to get over to the other side and I had a hard time with that. Hubby walked ahead to see if we were on the right track and I didn't see him again, not until I had given up all hope, and then he returned with a bowl full of mushroom. I understand that when you find a good picking spot, be it mushroom or blueberries or whatever, you can't stop. It must be the gatherer instinct that kicks in; you want to provide for your household. So when he finally turned up with that, all was forgiven and we had a nice mushroom toast each when we got back for our farewell supper.

Until next time "May you too see an elk. They are magic!"