I Didn’t Choose the Slow Life

Ok, maybe I sort of did. Only sort of, though. I am not good at relaxing or resting, and I am not good at having nothing to do.

For the first time ever, I have made my twitter feed private and I have actually hardly used it in the past week. I am trying not to use social media at the weekends but I’m not doing very well at this! It sucks so much of my life away into that tiny little screen and I really don’t know why I keep going back to it.

I have unliked, unfollowed and un-grouped myself on facebook as much as possible, for the time being. My feed is very bare and is mostly posts from the same three pages. I hardly see anything from real life people anymore, which is both good and bad. I am not up to date, but do I want to be? Social media to me is actually very unsocial, and I think that’s what I struggle with the most. At the ripe old age of 31 and a bit, I feel incredibly lonely sometimes.

This weekend, I have not played Sims 3 at all! I have wanted to play it for ages and ages and I signed up to Steam to download it again, and I am bored of it already. I only downloaded the base game so haven’t got any of the extras, but I am excited (still) by my super new laptop that actually works. Maybe if I had a slow laptop I wouldn’t be playing it so much.

I did something to my knee which I suspect was actually done last week when I was in the process of shovelling up pebbles by hand, but I twinged it again on Friday night and had it strapped on Saturday. I am using this as justification for not doing any squats. Again. I still haven’t been to pilates – next month, eh. I am having a few very busy, practical, physical days at work so really don’t feel the need to pay for exercise at the moment!

I have picked up my crochet hook for the first time in what feels like AGES. I made a small butterfly, and I’m not very keen on it. One of my February aims is to complete an outstanding project but I have lost my crojo. I just have no desire to do anything.

I did buy a block of air dry clay from Hobbycraft, and I have started making things with it. These are destined to become drinks coasters, but I think I may have made them too thin. I hadn’t sorted out my clay tools box so I literally just squidged the clay with my hand into a sort of circular shape, wet my fingers with a drop of water, and smoothed the surface. They are now drying on some paper for a few days, and then I am going to invest in some porcelain pens to decorate them with.

Santa got me a flower press so I have been picking a select few things from the garden to squidge. I now have three squidgings in process and have decided to make a pressed-flower display thingy in a posh photo frame. I just need to buy the posh photo frame.

I haven’t read in ages, I haven’t done polymer clay work, I haven’t written a blog, I haven’t been to the allotment, and I haven’t really missed any of it either? I also feel like I haven’t filled my time with useful things either.

A few weeks ago, David and I collected my new bike and we went for a bike ride – my first time on a bike for nearly 20 years. It was terrifying and fun, and made my lady bits hurt. I need a bigger butt to give me more padding. David said I need a different saddle. Maybe I should start doing more squats.

My insides, by which I mean, my brain, is a bit all over the place at the moment. There is lots of change on the horizon both at home and at work and I am struggling to keep an even keel. I have slipped back into my old habit of not showering regularly, and it bothers me – but not enough to change. Once a week is fine, right? Wrongo. I have a practical, physical job and sometimes I come home from work literally caked in mud, sweat, and sometimes blood (my own).

Things are bubbling away under the surface and I am scared that they are going to manifest in horrible ways. I’m not really sure what to do about a lot of them and I’m not sure how to vocalise them. Lots of things in my brain are connected to my past, ready to come out in a not-pleasant way, but also are not ready to be unleashed from my noggin.

Ah, I dunno.

This week I am going to read more, change a few things, and hopefully get up to the allotment. I hope the daffodils are out in flower – they always make me smile.

I pick up this magazine when I'm out and about and purposely take a lot of time to flick through it and read what interests me at that time. It takes more than week to read the whole thing. I might get a subscription for it.

I like having hot chocolates with all the trimmings in Davids posh cup, as it means my posh cup stays free for tea.

I bought the teeniest terracotta plant pots the other day, because they are CUTE. Expensive too, 99p each!! But I am planning a new craft project for which I want tiny plant pots.

Here is Her Majesty the Floof, a few days before we had to chase her, pin her down, and wipe her manky arse to release it from the matted shit that decorated her derriere. Such a lady.

Allotment Life: Signs of Spring

Despite being water logged and mostly abandoned over the last couple of months, Plot 31 is bursting into life! Momma P and I have been walking up to the allotment once a week – we worked out that if we go the long way, it is a one mile loop – to feed the birds and check on things. I have been taking photos each week of the bulbs that I planted last year, and they’re really looking good now.

The first crocus are in flower in the bed under the plum tree, and the daffs are coming up too. I also spotted the first allotment tulip in this bed:

Crocus leaves have a white or pale steak up the middle

Tulip leaves wrap around each other like a sheath

I am keeping the mesh on to stop things digging in the fresh compost, and then in March (maybe April) I am going to sprinkle mixed flower seeds into this bed. I am thinking scabious, nigella, calendula, vetch, poppy, and other single, open flowered plants.

The quince bed daffodils are nearly as tall as the quince bushes, and the quinces themselves are coming out into leaf:

My wee babby almond tree that was planted last year is also coming to life! I am so excited about this; I am looking forward to seeing the blossom. The buds are swelling, ready to burst:

We saw two jays as we walked into the plot so I hope it is a breeding pair and that they will set up a nest nearby. We usually have woodpeckers nesting in the brook that is at the bottom of the site. I am also going to buy some bird boxes that I’ve seen online and put them up around the allotment site.

Starling Murmuration; Fenn's, Whixall & Bettisfield Mosses NNR

This happened in early December but I am only just writing about it now as I finally have a new laptop that actually works!

David and I went to see a starling murmuration at Attenborough Nature Reserve last year. It was my first one and it was amazing! We couldn’t see much due to a huge oak tree, but what we could see was impressive. Loads of people gathered on the banks of the River Trent, watching loads of birdies, hoping we didn’t get pooped on (I didn’t get pooped on but I can’t speak for anyone else!)

We had a few days off last year and David had found another murmuration, a huge one!, in Shropshire and we decided to go and see it. Some of the pictures on Twitter have been incredible due to the sunsets in the background and the THOUSANDS and thousands of starlings in front. Absolutely incredible!! So off we went – we drove up to Fenn’s, Whixall & Bettisfield Mosses, and with my printed off map we went on a little walk while we waiting for the sun to go down. It was quite chilly cold so I was well wrapped up with all of my handmade woollens! We walked a short way along the canal before turning into the Mosses. It was a fairly simple, square, route over flat ground, but it was very wet and boggy in paces – cuz ya know, it’s a bog. 

When I did chainsaw training back in 2016, the other lady in the group was a Ranger at this site and she showed us lots of pictures of her getting the machinery stuck up to the axle in the bog. Sometimes the buggy was at a 45° angle with its rear end in the air! 

We saw some cows and we met some dogs, and I trod in a very big slippy cow poop, and we still had some time to kill before the starlings were due to murmur. So we went and sat in the car for a bit, and then we walked down the lane a bit where people with big cameras had started to gather, and then David went and moved the car, and then we sat in the car again, and then I got out and watched some long tailed tits dancing through the hedgerows, and then it rained so I got back in the car, and then more people suddenly appeared, so we decided to get out and get a front row spot at the gap in the hedge.

Morris' Bridge

We saw lots of little groups of starlings, maybe 30-40 birds. These started to join together and then they’d disappear behind the trees and then come back, then more small groups would appear. At some points there were 3 or 4 clusters of starlings flying around, but then a huge flock would fly overheard and join the throng. This happened a few times, and before we knew it, there was tens of thousands of starlings!! A man from the local Wildlife Trust was there, and I heard him telling someone that they usually see around 60,000 starlings here. SIXTY THOUSAND!! That’s a lot of poop.

It was so cold holding my phone up to film them moving, the wind was biting on my fingertips but I persevered. On some of the photos it is quite hard to see the birds due to the way the light shines, but in others it’s like a black cloud in the sky. It is so cool to see! Very fluid and liquid-like as they move and react.

It’s fair to say that this was the best starling murmuration we’ve seen (out of the two that we have!) and I hope we see another one next winter. On the way home we dropped into a pub and had a roast dinner – yummy yummy in our cold chilly tummies!

Allotment Life: January 2020

Another month of not very much. It is too wet to do anything and too early do the rest. However, Momma P and I have been visiting weekly mainly to feed the foxes and the birds (and the rats, and local neighbourhood cats). The daffodil bulbs are coming up beautifully in the quince bed, and the crocus are poking through the anti-fox-digging mesh on the flower bed.

Flower bed bulbs

Quince bed bulbs

I have been to prune the apple tree. This is potentially the first time it’s been pruned since being put in nine years ago! I am hoping that it helps to reduce apple scab. It looks a lot more open now and less tangled.

Before....

Pruning is done to help shape trees (aiming for an open goblet/wine glass sort of shape). Any dead, damaged or diseased bits are cut off and sacrificed to a compost heap, and then any branches growing inwards into the centre of the goblet are removed, and finally any branches that cross over are selectively pruned, to prevent rubbing. I also chopped some tall bits down, and some side bits back to stop them growing over my neighbours plot. I piled the twigs up at the base of the tree so I could see how much I had cut, aiming to only remove a third of the canopy. Having the pile close by helps to visualise this!

....after!

I have shredded stacks of paperwork over the holidays and this shredded paper is destined for my allotment compost bin, but I suspect that I have a new shed rodent so I don’t want to put the bin bag of paper in the shed yet to store it as rodent will just nest in it.

I am going to treat myself to as much peat free compost that I can get my hands on so that I have it ready to top up the beds when the weather is better. I tend to buy it from B&Q, but it depends who has it for the best offer.

Plot 31 at the start of 2020. This view will hopefully look totally different in a years time!

February Challenges

My January fitness things were hit and miss. I have been doing the daily exercises but tailed off towards the end as I got busier/more stressed/exhausted with work. It is very easy for me to find an excuse not to do something! I had already decided in January that I was going to continue with a base level number of squats and push ups so that I didn’t completely lose the ability to do them. I also decided to add other things into the fitness regime to target other muscles, such as side leg lifts (lie on your side and lift the top leg 10 times, then swap).

Not related to exercise or anything actually in this blog post, but I like snowdrops and I like this photo

I realised also on the first of February that I had decided to aim to walk 10,000 steps a day during February. I managed 6,525 on the first, so a little bit short! I think this is going to be quite challenging for me as although I move a lot at work, I don’t actually walk very much. All of my manual handling training tells me to keep the journey as short as possible, which means as few steps as possible. Last year I was going to get up at 7am, go for a brisk walk at 7:30am, and be back home by 8am to get ready for work. I never did it. Maybe when the weather is better…

As well as this, last year I took my skipping rope to my Selly Oak work site. I have had it for years but no longer have anywhere to use it where I’m not going to rip up clods of grass or flick pebbles into car windows, so I took it to work where I have room to use it. I also didn’t use it last year. At all. I have however used it once this year (and it fecking killed me), so I am going to do some jump rope every time I am at my Selly Oak site, which sometimes is twice a week! Initial experiments tells me that although I wear a sports bra for work, I might want to consider investing in a better one. Gotta keep them titties down.

Sunny morning through the trees at the back of the office

Aside from fitness and trying to not be out of breath every time I walk up a flight of stairs, other challenges I have set myself include:

·       No personal social media on the weekends. I already don’t use work social media unless I am at work for a weekend event, but I don’t work many weekends so this isn’t too much of an issue. I spend so much time aimlessly scrolling and it is just mind-numbing, it feeds my anxiety, it makes my eyes hurt, and it’s just a massive sign of boredom. So I’m trying to stop it and do other things with my time. Like playing Sims 3.

·       I am going to start a pilates class! I have found one at a time that I can do at a local venue, so this month I am going to start weekly pilates. It is also fairly cheap! This does mean budgeting more money towards exercise but it’ll be worth it, especially as I am doing hula hooping, skipping and other small routines at home. I really need to improve the flexibility of my hips and the strength in my back.

·       I am going to make a lunch plan for work. There have been lots of trips to Greggs of late and I need to stop this. I do like a Greggs donut though! And a tuna crunch baguette. And the new fake steak bakes. I am going to plan my lunches based on where I am, ie either at site or in the office, and also the days of the week, as I get a free lunch at some of the sites.

·       I will finish one outstanding crochet project this month! I have lots of amigurumi on the go that needs finishing, and so many squares to finish, and bunting to make, and… and... and...

Rudy's Pizza. Huge. Yummy.

In other news, I have Done An Adulting and have completely switched my bank account allegiance after almost twenty years! Everything about it is good, except I feel like I’ve cheated on HSBC and have abandoned them. However, lots of reasons make it better in pretty much every way possible, so I’ve gone and dunnit. I’ve consolidated debts which has reduced my repayments considerably which will save me money in the long term.

I think this month I am also going to try and get up the plot and paint the new batch of wood, and start removing the bean bed. I have decided to completely redo the corner where the bean bed is so it needs to come up, be dismantled, and then be rebuilt a different way. As it is at the top of the plot it shouldn’t be too wet and quagmire-y up there. I have plans for a long, tall, skinny raised bed along the boundary of the plot (going up and down, rather than across the plot) and filling it with flowers and bulbs. It will be a boundary marker, a windbreak, a wall of flowers, and generally just look nice.