Well COVID ensures that we have to keep ourselves busy or we could die of boredom. Lucky for me my day is pretty much the same, COVID or no COVID, as I work on my laptop and now I even hold classes for MCC and JNC on my laptop via WEBEX.

But having more time on my hands as I do not have to commute, I have literally gotten my hands dirty with the garden all over again. The lawns had been killed off by the time I returned from my last visit to the US. So I got the maali working on replanting the entire lawn and giving it a good feed of our wet waste from the pit. Plus the heavy monsoons ensured we got a good soaking for the garden, which it desperately needed. They have sprung back to life.

A request for woody cuttings of hibiscus and bougainvillea from our farm had Narsimappa, our caretaker, get together some freshly sprouted cuttings for me. I doubted they would be able to tolerate the trauma of being shaken out of the soil and brought here for me. Lucky the rain wreaked it’s magic and it looked like five of the 10 sent had ‘taken.’

I watched them and fed them over a month and then one rainy morning decided to get some large pots ready with compost and transplant them. My fingers were desperately crossed because one never knows if they can withstand the shift. But I was lucky and they all are coming along nicely.

It’s so much more fun to plant your own, rather than go to the nursery and buy plants. Proves how good a gardener one really is. Anyone can go to a nursery and buy expensive plants, but growing your own takes skill and a bit of a green thumb.

Since I have the time I started collecting the banana and papaya skins and put them through the blender and gave the plants their very own smoothie made in the Ninja, we brought from London! Immediately I have seen a big difference in the plants and one actually flowered for me.

I thought my eyes were playing tricks when I saw the bud slowly grow over a week into a really large one. A bud on such a small plant was weird but I have seen really young hibiscus flower. And then the flower opened --- oh my! I was so thrilled to see it slowly open early morning after my run and bloom to full size by the afternoon.

A delicate lemon yellow and a double petalled flower to boot. I just stared at its beauty, with it’s bright red pistil and stamens. The flower was stunning and lifted my heart during the pandemic and also through personal issues. Nature never fails to help to renew and rejuvenate my soul.

Just like the lawns which have come back to life with months of effort inspite of the dogs urinating on them. The same way we humans can look towards rejuvenation and rebirth, slicing off the nasty little pieces (and composting them) that tend to sully and muddy the even tenor of our lives.