I have been publishing Everyday Delight for just over a year now. It’s been immense fun, and I have followers, subscribers, restackers, supporters of all kinds, to whom I am hugely grateful.
But such are the particular life and times of J B Priestley and his own Delights, I am beginning to struggle to mirror my own. I read his essays and usually they spark a resonant story from my past, and off I go. But this is getting harder, as I use up the sparky ones.
So, for those weeks when I can’t get going, I am going to produce my own Delights, not based on his book, but in a similar vein. Of course if you’re not familiar with the essays in the book, then this is immaterial.
This is the first of the new Delights, I hope you enjoy. Thank you for your continued support.
Back in late January, during a period of pissing rain, after a period of permafrost and inches of snow, I decided to dig a pond.
The garden here at House No31, is a cross between woodland edge and shrubbery, some grassy, meadowy slopes, and a small lawn/patio area. Although we have a naturally boggy area at the bottom end, this dries out in later spring, and nothing much seems to reside in it. We needed a proper pond.
The only sensible place to put it was in the lawn. I say lawn, but we’d already been letting it grow long for the butterflies, and we have no need of a lawn. So, when it had stopped raining and freezing, I made a start.
Now, I have a body that is falling apart a bit, quite literally. I have a connective tissue disorder which means my joints are weak and unstable, so I had no idea if I’d be able to do it. I’d even gone so far as to sketch some designs for a raised bed pond so I wouldn’t have to dig, but this would be far from ideal. I wanted ground level access for the critters, and as big a pond as I could manage.
I removed some of the turf and dug a test pit. Oh what absolute delight I felt when I realised I would be able to do it. Although we have very heavy clay we have no stones. My detectorist’s serrated spade sliced easily through the clay, and with few roots other than the grass roots, I did a tiny dance of joy.
I think people normally take a weekend, a few days to create their ponds but I had to do it slowly and methodically, gently. To listen to my body and take care. In the end it took me six weeks to dig a 3m x 2.3m level hole, with slopes and shelves, then another 4-5 weeks to get the liners down, the substrate, the stones, the water, the branches and the plants in, and to sort out the wonky bits and make it happy. Before I had even finished, garden chaps were queueing up to get in.
Now, only a couple of months later, our new pond is teeming with life. The weird and the wonderful, the plenty and the few. The plants are off like rockets (as is the blanket weed of course), with so many pollinators and egg-laying invertebrates I’ve been staggered. It’s been a literal oasis during the recent weeks of drought, full of bathing birds, copulating dragonflies and drinking bumble bees.
I am thrilled, delighted, with this new addition to the garden, which is already a monumental success, thoroughly enjoyed by all who pass through. The sense of achievement is tremendous, and although I have sustained some possibly enduring injuries, my body has also enjoyed being used in this physical way, slow and deliberate.
There’s little more delightful than providing for nature and watching it flourish, and I am so proud.
Thank you for reading.
Question for you – What is your favourite garden area, did you create this yourself? Share if you’d like in the comments.
For more about JB Priestley’s book Delight, from which I take these cues, please take a look here
What an achievement! This is so wonderful. I just love ponds. They are very special places full of wonder.
A great addition to your already great portfolio of work on Substack. I can't wait to read more about how your pond progresses over the seasons.