Sometimes I feel like I am on a roller coaster in life, small decisions can change my whole world.  Sometimes I wonder if they are conscious decisions or not, I mean, how much of us is really conscious, do we not work on auto pilot by sleeping, eating, rearing our young, defending our homes and sources of comfort and nutrition.  Who knows what is really conscious?  What motivates us?  What gets us ticking? and Why?  There are times that I really wish I’d read Psychology, I know it would have been fascinating.

 We started to clear the garden of rubble, glass and roots and discovered much to our joy that the soil was very rich, the colour of an ancient flood plain, we felt much joy. 

And then we discussed whether we should have a mini allotment in our garden in London and what we would put in it.  And a few days after that we decided that it would be more sensible to put grass down and colourful blowsy flowers down the border.  

 But before we leave this photo, note the north and south divide of shadow, I’ve never had a south facing wall in the garden before.  

 So hubby dug and treaded down doing the gardeners shuffle and raked and we seeded and raked and watered, and that took two days,

and we also went to a garden centre and bought some herbs to start us off, thyme, sage, mint and rosemary which all smelt divine in the car coming home.  We also bought a fig tree, (which won’t be put near the foundations of the house – lesson learnt).

I was going to put the herbs in the right hand corner of the lawn, in full sun but in a pretty arch, and then I forgot and then we seeded the whole lawn.

Hubby put the fig tree in near the bottom of the garden in the right hand border and I said I might put the herbs there, near the house.

We have already decided to have summer and autumn raspberries against the shed, and maybe a vine (for the vine leaves for stuffed vine leaves, which are delicious) growing up it.

And then it hit us, an edible border, its obvious.  Such great soil, we can have a peach tree on the south facing fence and cherries, a couple of apple trees, one being a cooker, the other an eater, maybe a plum tree.  Runner beans and courgettes can be crammed in, with the scattering of seeds for beetroot and radishes and carrots and rocket.  Lots more lovely herbs, chives and basil, oregano and coriander can grow through the summer.  And if I’m really lucky I can squeeze in some tomatoes and peas against that lovely sunny wall.  

It will be a wonderful place to doze on a sunny afternoon, listening to the bumble bees pollinating the ruby red flowers on my runner beans with the aromatic oils in the herbs being gently released from the slight pressure of the heat. 

I am all for happy accidents.