Days Like This

I work late on Wednesdays, but have the mornings free. This Wednesday morning was filled with glorious sunshine and warm temperatures. It was perfect for a short trip to the garden. The plan: harvest nettle. If I want enough nettle to last through next winter I have to start harvesting regularly now and continue until the plant flowers. It's a task I'm happy to do, even when it leaves my hands and arms tingling for hours afterwards. There is nothing so heady and intoxicating as the scent of fresh cut nettle. If I could fall in love, marry, have little babies, grow old and die with a scent, this would be the one.

So on this Wednesday, after yoga and breakfast, I packed up a rare mug of coffee, a pair of gloves, my secateurs and headed out on my bike enjoying birdsong and a cool breeze.

I've been encouraging the nettles that grow on my plot, so they are quite well established now and thriving. Within half an hour I had collected about 2.5lbs. I had enough time left to harvest a fistful of wintercress, rhubarb and a few tulips just about to break into bloom. With my baskets full I left for home.

Just as I got onto the bike path, a lady walking her dog caught my attention and pointed out a mama fox and her three kits sitting in the grass in a stretch of greenspace. We stood there watching them for a while. Two more cyclists and another dog walker joined our group. We looked at the fox, the fox looked at us and the kits gamboled in the shade, oblivious to the fact that they had a rapt audience.


I live for days like this; days when we are reminded that humans are not the only living creatures that inhabit this city and the air is filled with the scent of fresh cut nettle.


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