More settled weather means attention turns to the great outdoors.
The polytunnel is washed and disinfected. The compost heap is disappearing as manure is spread on the raised beds.
Yes, where there’s muck there’s money. Or at the very least, there could be the chance of a crop.
All seeds are bought and ready to go when then time is right.
Coming up roses
This year, as well as the usual potatoes, lettuce and tomatoes, I am trying my hand at tiny cucumbers and long white radish.
If everything comes up – and, heaven forbid, the balloon goes up – we should be able to keep the village going for a while.
Then there are the trees. Two beech saplings have been moved to fill the gap on the drive where the great oak fell during the storms.
Give them another fifty years and they should be something to look at. We won’t see that, of course. Then everyone plants for the future.
And everyone is planting for The Queen. It is to mark her Platinum Jubilee – and this week, as Lord Lieutenant, I attend two such events.
One involves a prunus, a cherry blossom tree, placed on the edge of a town.
The other sees four sturdy saplings, heeled in by a community centre. I think they are oaks, but it is hard to know exactly when the leaves are off.
All in all, it has been a busy time ceremony wise. Because this week there is the service to mark fifty years since the visit by a space legend.
Another famous Armstrong
In 1972, Neil Armstrong, the descendant of an Armstrong from the Borderlands, was discovering his roots in the small town of Langholm, a traditional seat of Clan Armstrong.
Three years earlier he had walked on the moon. And now, there he was, in the Muckle Toon, treading in the steps of his forebears – and about to be made a Freeman of the Burgh.
I was not there. I was too young and living elsewhere. But the world and his wife were.
Great crowds lining the street. Mayors from local towns arriving in their chains of office. The moon man driven round the streets in an open top carriage.
My Name is Neil Armstrong
A little boy was seen with a sign. It read ‘my name is Neil Armstrong.’ I wonder where that person is now?!
Langholm’s ‘great day’ is the annual common riding. But this is another to remember.
So I go in my tartan. A fetching green, turquoise and black pattern with a touch of red running through.
Former deputy town clerk, Grace Brown, helps to unveil a plaque.
We hear from a space expert about the astronaut’s career and family life. Then there is an excellent after-moon tea.
Best of all, Bennie the naughty Norfolk sits in the car and, for once, is remarkably well-behaved.
When Neil Armstrong visited Langholm five decades ago, he told the good folk that this place was now his hometown.,
I, too, feel comfortable there. Then I am an Armstrong…
