Wednesday 25 April 2012

Getting into the groove

I have spent the last few weeks running around like a headless chicken, in order to just stand still. I had expected this retirement game to be easy, but already I am wondering when I found the time to go to work. I know that I spent too much time in the garden a few weeks ago when the weather here was warm, but with our climate you have to make the most of it when the weather is good and I do just love to be out in the garden. So since then, I have been trying to catch up with list of undone jobs in the cottage. Then there are the jobs that did not get done when husband was at home and  jobs that did not get done during the last eighteen months that I was working. The list seems to be endless. Blogging is somewhere on the list. I realise that in reality as one job gets crossed off the top of the list another jobs gets added to the bottom of the list. It has crossed my mind that if I leave something for long enough the need to do it may go away. Maybe or maybe not. Luckily the list is in my head. If I wrote it down I would frighten myself to death. Each Sunday night a blank canvass of five days lies before me, to do what I wish, as long as I do some housework and the food shop. But each week something gets in the way. Last week it was a trip into Chester to buy a birthday present for SIL and a visit to the hairdresser. This week it was a visit to the dentist. At the moment next week is looking clear.

For the first time in about five years I have managed to weed the whole of the 'woodland bed', which I mentioned in my previous post. Weeding that bed is extremely hard work. It is on a slope and contained millions of very small weeds. It has taken me two months of one to two hour stints to completely weed it and now I need to start again in the area where I began. It is like painting the Forth Bridge. My aim is to get more perennial plants and/or shrubs into it, to prevent the weeds from growing. I have now turned my attention to the rockery, which is another difficult bed to weed as it is also on a slope. When I am not working on the rockery I am in the greenhouse, which is bulging with plants - mainly seedlings and plants that need to be protected from frost. So that is where I am when the weather is fine and for when it is not good enough to be outside we have started to work on the one remaining room that we have not decorated. It is actually back to renovating as this bedroom requires more than decorating and will have a post of its' own. I know that it will be a slow job, but we shall be occupied whatever the weather does. I am never idle. I just wish that there were more hours in the day and more days in the week.