An Afternoon Of Raking.

Oh how time flies...

As nice as walnut trees are, they do have a few down sides once or twice a year. Yes, they love to shed their plumage and often are abetted by gusts of wind to scatter them nice and far. Never a nice and neat pile of leaves.

We've had a lot of rain lately and that translated to soaked and heavy leaves. As we've had two days of no rain I thought I would rake up the lot before tomorrow's expected rain. Not sure if I prefer raking dry or wet leaves but regardless, three hours of raking and carrying it was.

It was on the other side of the village at a friend's house that I was raking and even though it was jolly hard work, there were plenty of joyful moments in between. Firstly, raking anything is rather meditative and healing. And secondly, in our neck of the woods garden work, visible garden work that is, tends to be a magnet for friendly chats.

At least three different villagers stopped to admire my work, talk about the weather and general pleasantries. Nice. It gives a feeling of belonging. Plenty of slow drive-byes too but as I didn't have my glasses on, I couldn't recognize anyone but smiled nonetheless.

One daring chap actually stopped, wound down his window and shouted:

" Hey gorgeous, what are you doing? "

which normally I would have ignored but as it was my darling husband, I was thrilled that he noticed me and the raking I had done...

Biggi