It started with the rosemary.
I hadn’t planned it, really. One minute I was outside checking on the rockrose after last week’s downpour, and the next I was standing with the old secateurs in my hand, clipping tiny stems with more tenderness than made any sense.
It’s always like that this time of year. The garden goes a bit quiet, like it’s waiting to see what I’ll do. And me? I get restless. Not planting, not digging—just that limbo of not-yet.
Cuttings. That was our autumn ritual. Mine and Brian’s. We’d pot them up before winter, label them badly, and line them along the inside of the porch. Most wouldn’t make it. But we did it anyway. Every year. Like we were daring them to try.
Now it’s just me. And Max. Who, for the record, is completely uninterested in horticultural nostalgia and much more focused on the possibility of sausage at the bottom of the shopping bag.
I laid out the trimmings on the kitchen table. Rosemary. Thyme. A sprig of lavender that had gone a bit leggy but still smelled like summer. I wrapped the ends in damp kitchen roll and tucked them into reused yoghurt pots. Classy as ever.
Miguel showed up not long after. Said he was “just passing,” which I didn’t believe for a second. He stayed for coffee. Didn’t say much. Just sat at the table while I fiddled with my makeshift greenhouse of plastic tubs and scribbled-on labels.
“You’re taking some back to Ireland?” he asked eventually.
I nodded. “The fuchsia too, if I can keep it alive for the flight.”
He didn’t offer advice. Just helped me tape one of the containers shut and made a joke about airport security thinking I was smuggling a forest.
Later, I walked to the market. Bought way too many bulbs. Again. I always do—hopeful impulse buys I’ll curse myself for later when I’m on my knees in the dirt trying to remember what colour tulips I already planted.
The woman at the stall wrapped them in newspaper and told me, “Too late for planting.” I nodded and said, “I know.” But I didn’t believe her. Or maybe I just didn’t care.
Back home, the sun was already slipping down behind the neighbour’s wall. I sat on the back step with Max curled up beside me, the cuttings in their little makeshift cradles lined up like tiny promises.
I wasn’t planting. Not yet. Just preparing.
And sometimes, that’s enough.