Three things: Garden, berries, and birthday (and break)

This is my favourite view of my garden at the moment. I only see it if I am hanging out laundry (and, being in Scotland, this is not often), or when I intentionally go and stand in this spot specifically for the view. You can see it is not a big garden–I am in one corner, and the opposite corner is very close to the metal grid in the background–but man, I am so grateful for this piece of earth. I cannot believe that only 18 months ago it was entirely covered in gravel and plastic. Now birds come and steal my herbs to make nests with, worms hide in the soil, and we stuff our faces with slightly-under-ripe berries. There’s still so much work to be done… but there always will be. That’s why we garden, right?

Berries! I may have eaten my weight in berries this week. We have a not-so-secret spot to forage raspberries , and each time we visit we each eat so many that we swear we will not return… but we do a couple of days later when the next layer of berries have ripened and we’ve forgotten about our sore tummies. Raspberries are my favourite fruit of all time, but blaeberries (wild blueberries) are getting up there too. We did our first blaeberry hunt of the year this week and were rewarded with more than enough for a big batch of pancakes. We also go for the view. The heather is blooming and the rowans look so magical. On the downside, the low bushes are very easy for a 1.5 year old blueberry picking child to get lost in.

I’m one of those rare people who likes to inform people of it being my birthday. Not in advance, but on the day it actually is. That said, my birthday is tomorrow. Which still gives you time to post a card into my letter box. But I don’t expect you to, and that is why I usually don’t say anything until the day itself. This year is a special one, as I was born in the Year of the Rooster. The personality stuff attributed to these signs makes absolutely no sense to me, but I do like the fact I am in a gang with people who are separated by 12 (and multiples of) years from me. I am celebrating by heading to beautiful Edinburgh for a few days with my family and there we will eat a lot of Malaysian food, hike up Arthur’s Seat, visit the zoo, drink coffee, and wander the streets looking for mischief. Hope you enjoy my birthday too!

I should also mention, I’m going to be taking another blogging break. I’ll be away from my computer a lot in the next couple of weeks. So see you in a while!