Today, I had the luxury of getting outside early.

Though ten minutes into my day I was already sweating as I carted buckets of sand up the slope to where I am starting the very top swale. It is hard work, but I have a Little Fella with me – more for conversation and entertainment than work however.

Underneath it though, that sweat and ache, the strain on the legs, there was just the hint of a realisation.

This is it.

This is what I have waited so, so long for. So many set backs and time extensions and distractions and deaths and births and renovations and work. So many convoluted things that stood in the way and yet now, when the world is in the grip of fear with the virus pandemic I find myself confronted with the thought that I can enjoy some of this adventure now.

As frustrating as it still is, I can see now the physical forming of garden structures and it gives me renewed hope. A few more joists, another bit of measuring and concreting and it will really start to come alive.

Yesterday, under sheer determination, I managed to get a small part of what is our main garden bed cleared. Once it was nicely flat and I had measured out the wire and stakes I was going to require, I planted my broad beans. Well, the first crop of many.

The bulk of these beans are decendents from a woman who I knew in Perth. Her father had grown them down this way in Denmark, just 50 kms ( about 30 miles ) to the west. I’ve grown other beans from other sources also. The beans I planted yesterday are probably getting a little closer to being our beans. Through all the houses we’ve lived in since those days over 15 years ago, I’ve managed to keep the beans going.

So digging my fingers into that warm soil yesterday, so close to the new earth that I will farm, was a special little moment for me. Like returning home. The beans and the new earth of our new garden, together at last.