A Week (and a bit) Off Work

David and I always take a week off work for our birthdays, but this week started a day early for me as I had a complete meltdown on the Friday morning, and text my boss to say I couldn’t work. So what did we do with our week? Lots and lots, but also lots of nothing. Just the way we like it.

 

Mental Ill-Health

I have been feeling utterly deflated and exhausted lately for lots of reasons. There’s lots of things going on at the moment and it’s be a fecking horrible year. I know I’m not alone in feeling like this, but I do still feel like I am.

My tinnitus has been really bad lately. Really bad. It is worse in the evenings. It is of course my own fault for going to punk rock and metal shows without wearing ear plugs for about nine years, before I realised that they were actually a Good Idea™.

 

Physical Health

I had another meltdown on the morning of my birthday and David decided that we were going to absolutely stop eating crap and start exercising more. To do this, we need to eat all the chocolate and drink all the beer in the house first.

We were given a thing to put your bike in/onto which turns it into a stationary indoor bike. It was on a roller bar thing which added resistance, which was quite good, until we discovered that it is shredding the tyre and there is now a splatter mark of rubber sprayed all over the radiator. Oops. It wipes off easily enough, and we have now taken the bike off the roller bar. To start with I am aiming for ten minutes a day, and then next week I’ll go up to twenty.

We did also go for a 4.5 mile bike ride around the Arrow Valley Country Park.

Garden

I had a day in the garden, front and back. I was ever so productive and it looked ever so good, until the wind blew and more leaves fell onto my nice clean slabs. I swept up leaves from the front and spread them around the plants out the back as a leaf mulch layer. I replaced and replenished compost in pots, hanging baskets, and planters, and planted loads more bulbs with my new dibber that David got me for my birthday. I must’ve planted over 500 bulbs in this garden by now. I still want more.

 

The snap dragons are trying to flower again

Allotment

I haven’t been up the allotment much. David isn’t a gardener so I try not to drag him up there very much as he doesn’t really like it. I did shift a load of muck into a raised bed so it can rot down over winter, ready for planting in spring, and I have removed and cut down the sunflowers. I put the stems into a heap behind the shed as a habitat pile.

Crochet

I haven’t done any crochet. I can’t concentrate. I have laid out the pompom edging for my new cushion covers and started to pin it on, but I didn't get very far.

Birthdays

It was both of our birthdays! For my birthday we headed into Birmingham City Centre. Despite having lots of layers on we decided we were cold so went and bought ourselves new coats, before heading to a pub for a pint and a bowl of chips. This was purely a time-killing exercise as we had an hour to wait before we could go to THE IVY for afternoon tea! How twee.

Davids birthday required getting up at the crack of dawn while it was still dark, and spending 3hrs driving on the motorway and varying A roads to get to the seaside. We went down to Lyme Regis. It was beautifully sunny! We wore our new coats and had to take them off as we were too hot. We had a walk, had a pint, had a mooch in an antiques shop, and then headed back to a café where we went a couple of years ago as their sandwiches are well nice.

I paid an extra 50p for those marshmallows and they were NOT NICE.

I very much needed some time off work, but I still feel quite exhausted and like I need another week off. David has had a poorly tumtum to end his week. My first couple of days back at work have not gone as smoothly as I wanted, but never mind. Life is life.

Some more piccies...

Ms Fluffkins still hides from me

Heart eyes for days!

A Day In The Garden

David and I always take a week off for our birthday week, and we went on a wee trip to Webbs to stock up on peat free compost, pop into Hobbycraft and also the outdoors shop. I may or may not have also bought more bulbs, a tray of black viola, and some herb plants while we were there… 

And as if by magic, a giant amaryllis bulb called Flamingo also fell into the shopping trolley!

So I had a day sorting out the garden! The rain held off – in fact it started raining just as I finished sweeping the slabs – but I got LOADS done. Absolutely loads. I am well pleased with myself!

First I swept up the leaves from the driveway and put them into bags to cart them through the house and into the back garden. I emptied the bags into the borders to act as leaf mulch. This will fertilise the garden as the leaves rot, protect the bulbs from frost, and give the birds somewhere to play.

I then shifted one of the planters out the back to give it a big ol’ overhaul, similar to the first one I did in September. I emptied out the old compost, salvaged any plants and bulbs, and then put in fresh peat free compost, some AquaGel beads (they swell up and retain water), and then a load of bulbs including daffs, crocus, allium, hyacinth, snowdrop, iris, anemone corms, and chionodoxa. I put more compost in to cover the bulbs, more AquaGel stuff, and then planted the new herbs, so I have two thymes and two rosemary in the corners, a pot of mint in the middle, and then I planted the other stuff back in, so it also has red dead nettle, lobelia, anemone, and black viola. I backfilled with compost and then topped it off with grit. It looks well good! A lot tidier now.

I also decided to plant some bulbs around the base of the rose bushes (they were already here when we moved in). I used my shiny new dibber that David got me for my birthday and put in a mix of bulbs, backfilled the holes, then put down a double layer of brown parcel paper before covering it with more grit. The paper acts as a temporary biodegradable weed suppressant and should stop the grass etc growing, but it will rot away and the bulbs will grow up as normal. The two gladioli were in the planter so I hope they will be happier in the ground by the rose.

With my second tray full of toilet roll inner tubes, I wetted some compost (to make slop) and then filled the toilet roll tubes. Doing it this way means I don’t have to water the tubes so they won’t go soggy. It was very messy though! I have sown two more lots of sweet pea – one blue and one a Help For Heroes theme mix (red, white & blue). I also sowed a winter edible pea variety called Meteor that we use at work. All the pots with lollipop sticks are sweet peas.

I decided a while ago to redo the hanging baskets as they look very sad and haven’t been very successful this year (mainly because I forgot/am too lazy to water them every day). I again cleared out the old compost and replaced it with fresh stuff, put in some AquaGel, and then arranged the bulbs. I topped off with more compost and grit but next year I will clear the grit off and sow seeds (such as tagetes, lobelia, calendula, cornflower etc). For now though they look nice and tidy. The second basket had the thyme planted back in it after a trim to encourage new growth, and the last two violas. Now I need to sort out the other three baskets! I have been eyeing up some hanging basket brackets that fit to the concrete posts used to hold up the fence panels so I might get some and I can have hanging baskets all down the left hand side of the garden.

I have also chopped down most of the sunflowers. We only have one green waste collection left of the year and I was trying to keep the sunflower heads for the birds, but the squirrel has been coming into the garden and eating them instead, so now the flowerheads go straight in the green bin. Some got chucked into the woodland over the back, but I have had LOTS. The stems of the sunflowers were chopped up into pieces and I have piled them at the back of a border to be used as a habitat pile by critterbugs.

The small bulb basket that I planted up for a work step-by-step a few weeks ago already is showing signs of life!

So a good day was had, and David was out all day so was out of my way. I swept the slabs off too, so the garden is looking quite tidy – until the wind blows and all the keys fall off the ash tree.