summer and superpowers and the life of Riley

 

I am very proud of my neat herb bed

It's been very hot, often very windy and in between close and grey and humid. We had heavy thunderstorms, heavy rain and today, it's sticky and grey. Whatever we may think, the garden is doing extremely well. Until a few days ago, I sat for a while every morning shelling the peas that R brought me. Now they are either eaten or in the freezer. We continue to argue about the soft fruit which according to my thinking should be eaten straight away in large handfulls while he believes in freezing it for a rainy cold day of jam making. Let's see what happens when the plums and the peaches are ripe. Any day now. Also, runner beans and courgettes and tomatoes and some lovely fat beetroot. It's also an excellent apricot year but they need to be washed - because stinkbugs. The man has started a big jar of cassis with the fat blackcurrants.

no more peas

Early in the mornings and again after sunset, if we are very quiet for a moment, we can hear the snails holding their fat bellies with laughter. They know, of course, that we grow lettuce and basil, fennel, kohlrabi and beetroot for ourselves. They think it's all a big joke. But we are not without our own menacing thoughts and means and, what can I say, ready for war and it looks like we are winning. But hush, let's not jinx it.

this is the covid patch, the bit we've left idle since lockdown

I used to be that person who could be observed devising schemes for ants, fruit flies or spiders to find their way out of the kitchen without loss of lives. On good days, you could hear me talking to them with heartfelt encouragement, even giving the last ant group a gentle push with the small duster. All for my good karma.

tons of finger aubergines

But honestly, the spiritual and I have not become friends. I probably lack the discipline, or my despair of the world has subsided somewhat. In the limited human reality, I now also find things that make me happy and keep me going. Actually, I always have. I wouldn't be where I am now if it was all gloom and despair. It's just so much more fun to complain and moan.

I've been thinking about all that recently. Someone, a long time ago, told me that not being religious (he meant not being a catholic) was cheap and stupid, leaving the hard work of salvation and whatever else to others while living the life of Riley (who and where is Riley now?). That I should be ashamed of myself. Another person, in a more serious debate, was confounded by the fact that my child, who was not raised with the fear of god and nothing about sins, was spending huge chunks of her time and energy doing what he called good, selfless work. How could this be, her wondered. A heathen child! Indeed. Dear gods, I am so proud of this heathen child, you have no idea.

I'll never understand it but I admit there are days when I wish I could just hand it all - fears, hopes, needs - to some higher force and say, get on with it, give me the rules and I'll fit them in. If only. But then again, how dull and predictable.

I wonder what the gods had in mind when they created Tapinoma magnum, an invasive ant species that used to live predominantly in the Mediterranean basin but has - thank you climate change! - found its way closer and closer to my home. Not there yet, but already established in towns and gardens at the southern end of the big river we live on. Their nests grow to several metres in size and the colonies comprise millions of workers and hundreds of queens. And individual colonies do not fight each other like other species, they co-operate and form the United States of Antsikia, an insect superpower. The shape of things to come.