Midsummer Cleansing-Planting Seeds

Forgive the glib metaphors but I do like them.  I'm lucky enough to have a garden, a fairly large garden. In London this is a particularly precious thing, providing sanctuary from the madness. I have to pinch myself sometimes at my luck and try to spend as much time there as I can particularly at this time of year when it's summery. I've been doing a lot of clearing and trimming which is a fair amount of work but rather therapeutic; it feels good to create space and allow more light in. This may sound like a metaphor from some smug American life coach but when it is literally what you're doing the metaphor feels more valid. In 1995, I read a book called Candide by a French satirist and general wind-up merchant called Voltaire, and I 've never read it since (though I want to) and I've never forgotten the final line, "il faut cultiver son jardin". A simple metaphor yet again but he was right.