Sulking...
Tinsie Camellia
OK. Finally caught the winter virus that has been tripping lightly through my family and friends. Well, I think I'm back, after sulking, semi-sick in bed for the last three days. Put it this way - today I washed my hair, took the dogs to the dog park, and did some weeding. Weeding! Aargh!
Saturday 22nd August
My last OK day was Wednesday, when I went hiking for three hours with my friend - as one does. Our track started off following the Selwyn River, then went up and through a pine plantation to a ridgeline, then back down to the river again. A satisfying, doddling loop, with just one moment of indecision. Crawl over the natural willow log bridge (scary) or scramble down the bank and wade through knee-deep water? Wet boots, my choice any day.
But as soon as I got home I had a shower, took a pill, gave up the fight and went to bed. And that was the end of the energetic me, for a wee while.
Dog Pack Leader Lost!
The dogs have been puzzled by my disappearances into closed rooms. What's happened to our pack leader? Yesterday big Escher sniffed me out in the downstairs bedroom, saw his opportunity (a wee gap in the bedclothes) and pushed himself in and under. He sighed with happiness, which kind of made me feel good too. Reality - Winnie leapt on top of us both, trying to get me up and back into the land of dogs doing things. Hmm... Must be time to start feeling better.
Sunny Garden
And I do feel better. I feel a bit slow, though, and there seem to be a thousand more weeds, wherever I look. This must have happened since I've been sick. Hmm... Absent for three whole days and my garden has fallen into disrepair? I don't think so. These weeds have been 'brewing' for months.
First Rhododendron
Sunday 23rd August
Still trying to get back on the gardening horse, so to speak, but this morning I'm feeling cross. Even the gentlest of gardening lists doesn't appeal. So I'll take the dogs to the dog park, pop into the supermarket and buy fire-starters (I'm hopeless lighting the log-burner without them), and buy some peach fizzy drink.
Weeding Dilemma
Then I'll face my weeding dilemma, which is as follows. I want to leave the self-sown forget-me-nots intact, but pull out all the other tiny nuisances. So can I tell them apart at this early stage? Nope. It's all rather miniscule, scale-wise, and makes me feel small-minded. And this adds to my crossness! Oh, I'm also cross with the caricature portrayals of Henry VIII as a fat, jolly, misguided man-boy. I reckon he was an absolute monster. But that's perhaps for another day...
Much, Much Later...
And much, much better. Six good hours doing garden maintenance, and I don't feel quite so much a gardening fraud. I've managed to upscale my weeding vision, when appropriate, and I've finished spreading the top soil along the little Wattle Woods stream. I've cleaned up part of the Frisbee Garden and burnt the rubbish. Wonder why the irises don't like it here, though. Perhaps there's been too much bonfire ash dumped on the dirt.
Brown Camellia
Commercial Footnote
A serious delay for my 48 piece pack of colouring-in pencils - apparently there is a world wide shortage at the moment. Millions - nay, squillions - of older women are busy working at their de-stress zen mandala doodly colouring-in books, at this very moment, and the colouring-in pencil market cannot keep up with demand. Hee hee...
Oh, apologies to any Tudor king fans out there. One tends to reads delightfully dribbly books (hello, Phillipa Gregory) when one is sulking in bed. And apologies about including the photograph of a totally browned-off Camellia flower. This is what they do, after all. Not normally seen in polite gardening society...