This is my lockdown garden blog. In 11 hours New Zealand leaves Level 4 and moves to Level 3.

For the last 5 weeks we’ve had to stay at home in what our government calls our ‘bubble’. My bubble is 3 people and 2 dogs. We’re all sick to death of words like ‘bubble’ and ‘new normal’ and ‘crisis’. I’m guessing most people are sick to death of the people in their bubbles. I’m not. But I'm sick to death of my suburb, I’m sick of not seeing my family and friends, I’m sick of ‘social distancing’ and ‘staying safe’, I’m sick of queuing to get into a supermarket, I’m sick of all the people who’ve bought all the flour and baking paper and liquid soap. I’m sick of the people who are paranoid of getting sick and wear raincoats, gumboots and welding masks to go shopping and I’m sick of the people who run around the park in facemarks and hide up driveways and alleyways to avoid passing people on the street. I’m sick of people who think that a few old people dying of Covid-19 isn’t a big deal. I’m especially sick of the people, those normal looking crazy outliers, who rant at me while I’m walking my dog or post offensive things on social media - these guys all say the same thing - the cure is worse than the disease and the government is overreacting. These guys want lockdowns abolished, borders opened up and life returned to normal. What the fuck is normal?

Central Park filled with field hospitals isn’t normal. Old people abandoned and left to die in rest homes isn’t normal. Pregnant women dying of Covid-19 isn’t normal. The President of the United States telling people to inject themselves with disinfectant isn’t normal. There is no normal, new or otherwise. What there is is ‘this’. So, for the record, I’m really happy with the way the NZ government is handling ‘this’.

My husband has turned our gym-come-man cave into his office. He works long hours, 7 days a week. His work is very stressful, made harder with trying to work with big groups of people over Zoom. My son stays up late gaming with his friends. It doesn’t matter because school starts when ever he wants it to start. It’s all online. As for me, I’ve developed a very definite routine.

I wake up at 5.45 so I can take the dogs out for a run in the local forest. I take them separately. I have to take them early to avoid all the people who’ve sudden’y started dog walking and exercising in the forest. I come home, do the dishes and then I make a flower out of recycled Nespresso capsules. Every day I glue a flower to our front fence. Some days I make an elaborate flower and some days I make a daisy. I do more domestic tasks and then I work on my novel for an hour or so. Then it’s lunchtime and I do yet more domestic tasks. At 1 o’clock its time for Ashley Bloomfield, he’s our Director General of Health. He updates NZ on the Covid-19 numbers. One of the reasons I’ve thrown myself into domestic duties is my obsession with Radio New Zealand. It’s a lot easier to listen to the radio when completing boring repetitive tasks. The people on RNZ have kept me sane. It’s Journalism at its best.

I have this lovely thing going on with my 2 Wellington cousins and Wellington sister. We message each other most days. We tell each other about the small things that happen: celebrating a birthday in lockdown, the view from a hill after a walk, the colour of the sea, hair dying that goes awry, the weirdness of not being able to see one another.

As my life has shrunk, it’s the noticing of small things that have taken on a greater importance and a greater meaning. Before lockdown my life was a novel. At the moment it’s a haiku.

The leaves on my neighbours beautiful ash tree are changing from green to pink and orange. There are acorns all over the back garden. Heavy gold pears are making my little pear tree double over. All my miscanthus plants have long feathery seed heads. The one and only crabapple growing on my crab apple tree was blown off. A small white snowball of flowers has strangely appeared on my snowball tree. Something is making holes in my small kale plants. I took coleus cuttings a couple of weeks ago. The lawns haven’t been mown for over 6 weeks. The grass grows extra-long in the areas close to the hose and at the bottom of slopes. I made a leaf bin out of chicken wire. I moved 3 roses to new homes and I’m going to move 2 more. My rose Alchymist died. The soil is so dry I’m going to have to start putting on the sprinkler.

There are thousand of red toadstools in the forest. I saw one as big as a dinner plate. The forest floor is carpeted with mahoe leaves.

There are still lots of flowers in my garden and lots of bees. I’ve started reading Carol Klein’s book ‘Grow Your Own Garden’. I'm feeling sad that my seed sowing days are mostly over but thanks to CK I know I can keep taking cuttings through autumn and winter.

It’s a magnificent autumn, blue skies, still days and sun. Some rain would be nice. I can appreciate these days in small moment sized bits of time but I can’t luxuriate in them I can’t sit outside for hours with a cup of tea and a book like I could in January or February. I wish I could but I feel the need to keep busy because at the back of my mind is the realisation that the entire world is caught up in a pandemic.

There was a guy talking on the radio. An academic called Paul Wood. He spent a long time in prison when he was a young man and had some good advice for people stressed out by lockdown and physical distancing. He said we all need ‘appropriate realistic optimism’. I’m working on this.

Here are two new shrubs with the most exquisite small flowers. The white one is a species camellia called Camellia irrawadiensis. The green one is a rose called Rosa chinensis ‘Virdiflora’.

I grew many of the flowers in my front garden from seed. One of my favourites is Atriplex hortensis ‘Green Plume’. I like the texture and colour combination of this tall flower alongside goldenrod and Miscanthus zebrinus.

I haven’t felt like gardening during lockdown. I don’t know why. I still gardened though. Luckily my enthusiasm has returned. I put this down to spending the weekend working on the side garden: weeding, pruning and mulching and reading an inspiring garden book that my friend Ali gave me.

The side garden and my 2 other bubble buddies.

Tomorrow, once we get to Level 3, I’m allowed to buy plants online. For the last 5 weeks I’ve only been able to buy essential goods. I have gaps in the garden to fill and a long list of plants I want to experiment with. And of course I want to do my bit to support all the little nurseries who grow the plants I love.

I’m lucky I have lockdown in the suburbs. I can see that it’s taken me 5 weeks to get my head around ‘this’. It’s taken me 5 weeks to start working on appropriate realistic optimism. Gardening and reading about gardening is what’s going to keep me optimistic and let me accept ‘this’.