The thing is, we’d talked about this. There was that evening, somewhere in the middle of sticky July, where we walked home through the park as the dusk draped over us and set all the ducks in a row. If a second lockdown came, we’d buckle up and bunker down. We’d managed one, we’d know more this time. We’d have one another, as we did in the Spring, and we’d take walks, dance in the kitchen, make do.
But now we’re on the crest of it and there is sinking ahead. Curfews and measures and rising numbers and quiet panic burbling beneath the sheer tedium of it all.
Gardening, at this time of year, is about preparation. Summer is done with, out in one fearsome blast, and the spiders are here instead. I often feel I am uprooting them - from behind bits of wood and between gaps in things. I find their webs in my hair. The soil needs nourishing, the seeds are sown, the crispy things are cut back and composted. We dust down and gather up. We test the limits of the days, how long they stretch, how cold they get. Frost pockets appear beneath our feet. We store up before the ground hardens and the light dwindles. We are nearing our last chance.
It’s normally my favourite time of year, this. Smeary skies and a rich headiness to the soil, leaves that crunch and sulk. But there’s not been enough of summer, somehow; not been enough of a break to inspire industry again. I shuffle between bouts of fierce physicality and sheer listlessness.
Still, I think of spring. It’s impossible not to when dealing with bulbs, 230 of which I lay out on the kitchen table and then, smaller, on an elaborate map in pencil on paper. A further hundred-odd will go in once November comes, once the others have settled. And so I crack through the earth as the light threatens to fade and the wind picks up, and imagine dozens of frittilaries pushing forth those strange, checkerboard heads in the spring.
I’m not even sure it’s the flowers that I crave so much as the certainty of their arrival. To plant a bulb is to usher hope into the dark at a time when darkness feels increasingly inevitable. I have made myself quiet promises all summer in the event of a second lockdown: I will get out into the garden every day. I will write about it. I will force myself to go to ground when the screens feel overwhelming and compulsive. I will stand and breathe in that cold air. As the kettle boils, I won’t fuss with the draining board but look out the window. I did it this morning, watched a starling find something in the bed, a squirrel inspect the globe thistles, felt gratitude for the rain to settle the new things in.
This year, gardening feels like preparation beyond the normal autumn routines. I’m not sure I’ve ever needed the soil to be more nurtured, the seasons to be more dependable, the bulbs to be better protected. I am clinging to a spring in which I look out at tulips, and so I plant them.
