Back in April I came to the decision to no longer blog, I wasn't enjoying it anymore and I felt that I had nothing interesting to add or that others would want to read about. Over the course of the last year or so I felt like this blog had become a place of negativity for me and all I seemed to post about was how I had fallen out of love with gardening, it had become a chore and I was literally dreading doing something that I once loved so much.
So what's changed? Why come back? (thankfully I refrained from deleting anything).
Well the answer to that is Me! I've changed! Or rather my thought process has changed. It took a while though, I started out the year full of hope and plans after doing very little last year and all went well to start with. Then as things began to bloom in the garden it all got on top of me again and I couldn't juggle the garden with all the other things I had to do so to cut a long story very short I was doing a bit of everything but finishing and achieving nothing.
In the end it broke, or at least I did. I had to admit and truly believe that I can no longer do all the things I expected of me (no one else put me under that pressure except me) and that I had 2 choices - I could either continue in this awful cycle of self loathing because I couldn't achieve anything or I could prioritise and focus on one job at a time. I chose to focus but this is hard for me because my mind wanders, I have very little concentration now, pain is a daily fight and narcoleptic sleep naps pretty much dictate my daily life. On top of that I have had to hand the reins over to Mr TG, I can tell him what I want and where I want it but all heavy labour intensive work has sadly fallen to his shoulders.
It's just a new style of gardening for me.
Not much has improved in the garden this year but plans are afoot for next year and I've finally agreed that we need to make the garden low maintainence - a large portion is to be decked next year and another large portion is to then be gravelled with lots of planting in the gravel. The one thing we never do is sit out and really enjoy the garden because it never quite looks finished or inviting enough, this is something we have to change.
The pond had a leak this year. I didn't notice until Mr TG dug a hole for a Lilac tree and the hole filled in with water immediately. At first we thought it was just due to the rainfall and the ground being so wet but then we noticed the sleepers were wet and when Mr TG shone a torch through one (it was hollow) he could see water dripping constantly. I knew where the leak would be because I caused it and forgot to mention it when it happened. I'd basically tried to stab some ice with a garden hand fork and hit the liner instead.........3 times.
Luckily we found a product online that would seal the holes without needing to empty the pond. I was dubious that it work but it has.
Say hello to my little friend.
There's been a serious lack of Butterflies this year here.
This both amazed and scared me. We have lots of Gorse hedge here and this particular morning it all looked like this. While I was amazed to see all the webs that we don't normally see the amount of them literally terrifies me.
