Day 9 of the 100 day project

9th April, 9th day of the project.  I think I got it a bit wrong today.  I went to yoga this morning, which was an excellent idea and helped to make me feel I was well on the way to recovery.  Then this afternoon I headed out to the garden for a small session on the project.  The first mistake I made was that I hadn't decided in advance what to do.  This meant I was assailed from all sides by things I could do and as a result ended up doing too much.  The second mistake was to be too aware of the beauty and order of the garden belonging to the friends we saw this weekend!    I know their garden is much smaller than ours but it still a fair size and very intensively gardened.  Walking around yesterday with my friend I was so impressed by the weedfree beds, the tidy raised beds waiting for their vegetables and most of all by the clean and orderly greenhouse already full of the new season's growing things.  I know our friends are very good and keen gardeners and I really should have managed to admire without making comparisons but that is a great deal easier said that done.  My wooden greenhouse in particular, of which I am very fond, called to me today to sort it out and get rid of the endless old pots and dead geraniums and cushions covered with cat hair from a visiting cat who has worked out how to insert herself through the vents.

It was a sunny, breezy day too, full of spring's potential.

First of all I cut off the blackspot affected leaves of a hellebore angustifolia which has colonised one of the raised beds.  That wasn't a bad thing in itself but it made me aware all over again that the bed itself is grown through with bindweed and creeping buttercup and should be entirely cleaned out and started again.

I tried to turn my back on that by finishing cutting back the phlox that I started yesterday.  That was quick and easy and made a nice little impact for a nice little job.  Tick.

Then I went to sit in the wooden greenhouse for a bit as my chest was sore and I thought I was probably doing more than was a good idea.  Here the contrast between Sarah's greenhouse and my own was just too much for me and I found myself sorting and throwing out all the geraniums which hadn't survived this last very cold winter and longing to sort out and clean the whole space.  Since that was far too big a job for today I went back outside and weeded half the new herb bed, ran out of steam, decided to go inside and was highjacked by remembering that I have been intending for weeks to sweep the flagged area which looks out over our view as it is full of bits of rose from when the hedges were cut.  Did that, was pleased with it, tick.

So all in all I was out for well over an hour and was far too aware of all that is to be done and not enough aware of the satisfaction of doing something!  I think the lesson is to decide what to do earlier in the day so that I head out knowing what I want to do.  And the second lesson is to not to compare yourself with your friends!  I think I can easily do the first.  I am less sure about the second.  But maybe what it is telling me is that I need to give the greenhouse some love, a little bit at a time!