Thank goodness for my garden

I'm really finding lockdown hard now.  I know we're allowed to go out a bit more now, but that in itself I find hard too - it frightens me a bit, to be honest.  E.g., we went to B&M (a large home and garden store, for overseas readers) the other day, to get some trellis and things for the garden.  There was no queue outside (no staff member on the doors to enforce one!), but the shop was quite busy, and a big queue for the checkouts - which was quite well managed, to be fair.  However, the sheer numbers of people in the shop made me feel really anxious, I couldn't wait to get out of there and get back home.  We also noticed a lot more traffic about.  The prospect of being in a crowd scares the hell out of me, frankly, so we won't be going anywhere that's likely to be busy.

I am desperately missing seeing friends and family, as everyone is.  Yes there's the computer and phones for keeping in touch, but it's not the same as seeing them in person.  I know we're all in the same boat, it's to keep us all safe, and it won't be forever.  But it feels like forever.

My front garden is looking really lovely, still a couple of things to do to complete it and more of the shrubs I planted last year to grow a bit more and come into flower, but I'm so pleased with the progress so far.  Betty jumps on the long flower bed in front of the fence when the postie or a delivery driver walk past, she just wants to greet them (she's such a people dog, everybody is a potential new friend as far as she's concerned).  I do get her off straight away, or head her off before she gets on it if I hear someone coming, but unfortunately she's already broken a few plants by trampling on them - my nice clump of Canterbury bells, eg, all snapped and crushed.  Husband suggested putting a picket fence along it, but unless it was a high one Betty would just jump over it - for a stocky chunky dog she's a surprisingly good jumper.  So I've put a few rockery stones (the previous tenants had an overgrown rockery) and some plants in pots dotted around in the bed, to fill up gaps.  I'm sure once the shrubs grow thicker and fill out the bed more, it'll be more of a barrier and she won't have the opportunity to jump on there.  Meanwhile, I'll just have to be vigilant and keep training her to stay off.....being half Shar Pei though, she's very stubborn and only listens when she wants to!

We're putting the gazebo up today - there's good weather forecast for the next fortnight and as our front garden is south facing and gets the sun all day, it's too hot and sunny for me to sit out without some shade.  Too hot for Betty too, but she self regulates - she lays out in it for about 10 minutes, then comes indoors of her own accord, has a drink and lays on her cool mat for a few minutes, then goes back out again.  

We're so fortunate to have a garden, I can't imagine what hell it must be for people in flats.