I can’t actually see what I’m doing. I’m in the garden again. I’m writing blind because the sun is too bright for my laptop screen. It’s not Saturday, it’s Sunday. I can hear the church bells ringing. It is a very beautiful morning. I’m at the end of the garden where the strawberries are. I’m writing outside again. The distant church bells, the noisy sparrows, the wind on my cheek. It’s gentle out here this morning. I can hear a collared dove in the distance too. Peering above the shed the rambling rose is pouring out its glory. There are so many flowers it is white, with a few small patches of green where the leaves show through. And some of the flowers have a yellow tinge still. They are yellow for a day or two when they first open, and then they are white. There are so many of them, small, thrilling against the blue sky. I moved the whole plant top from the garage roof to the shed roof earlier in the year because it kept blowing off the garage roof. The westerly wind kept getting underneath it and breaking the string that tied it down. Now on my shed roof it is a bit lower down and the wind blows over it and holds it down. And it means I can see it from here. I can also see a few buttercups. I have been removing buttercups to plant other things but there are still a few about. To the right of the buttercups is the kiwi fruit that comes from the allotment. It is doing well. I have made a framework of canes to help it onto the side if the shed. I hope this is a female plant. I’m not sure. It has bare earth around where I will plant some flowers. I have grown a few from seed, just for fun. Old Tom the gnome is standing firm beside it and behind him a scarlet tiger moth that has been in the same place since yesterday. It has a lovely speckled back.

In front of me are the strawberries in the fruit cage, and beyond them foxgloves in the little wild area, next to the wood pile. It is all a bit tidier here on the paving where I am sitting. I’ve been through again and weeded between the stones and bricks, leaving the thyme. The thyme is not doing very well, but it will do better. I insist.

I planted some runner beans yesterday, the few that did come up. One of them has already started to wrap around the bean stick. I also planted a couple of courgettes yesterday and one tromboncino.

I’m a little disturbed today. The last couple of days. It is nothing. It is something. I’m listening to Prophet Song, a novel about an Ireland where a totalitarian state has taken over. It is disturbing because it is so close to home. It could happen here. But it is not that so much as the fact that this is happening right now, and worse, in other places in the world. That jumbles me up inside, and when I say I am going to grow a garden, that is my response, that is my rebellion, it is not enough. But what is enough. I do not believe in my democracy. I feel disenfranchised. I will go on planting my garden because there is nothing else I can do, but the disruption within me is looking for something, some bigger way. Until I find that I will keep gardening, keep growing food, and keep enjoying the sunshine, keep enjoying the wind on my cheek, the birdsong, the buttercups, the crazy voluptuous rose. This will be my rebellion.