Dogless and catless days...
Thank you, sun, for enabling me to enjoy happy, sunny days in the winter garden again. Oddly, they've been dogless and catless days. My dogs have kept wandering off to sunbathe, while the Fred cats have stayed inside to snooze on sunny cushions, or stretch out by the log burner.
Snoozing Cats
So I start talking out loud explaining my latest plan, only to find there's nothing furry listening to me. That's OK. I like my own company when I'm gardening. I think I'm quite interesting. Even if my dogs don't...
Sunbathing Dog
Even Winnie has been a lazybones. She usually brings me her tennis ball after a while, and I throw it through the trees for her. Not today. Perhaps she couldn't find one. One small thought when both my dogs disappear is that they've found something disgraceful to roll in and/or eat. But both were still sweetly smelling when the sun went down. Odd.
Mulched Garden
Sensible...
I've been really sensible and self-disciplined, too. The plan - for every barrowful of weeds removed from the garden, I'd plod down the back, fill the barrow with mulch, and spread it on top. This took ages, but I kept to it. Then I planted a spare Phormium in one of the gaps.
I also finished trimming in the Allotment Garden (was careful with the Euphorbia stalks), and tidied up the garden near the Car Bridge. This wee strip of garden has very scrappy, dull soil, and could also do with manuring and mulching. I'll do it!
Then, trying not to breathe too much, I chopped down the Viburnum Rhytidophyllum in the Island Bed. I don't like it - foliage dull and dusty, flowers a dirty cream colour. It gets me sneezing, my nose running madly.
Pink Azalea
Pretty pink...
And there, partially hidden by this unpleasant shrub-tree, was the first flowering pink Azalea, just beginning to bloom. Yeay! So much better. Non-Gardening Partner promises he will chainsaw the remaining stumps off at ground level for me tomorrow.
Shaping Up for Life - Again!
Some personal stuff. Sorry about this, but I am on another of my Shape Up For Life campaigns. Two reasons - my favourite gardening shorts have become too tight, and I'm afraid to wash my favourite apres-gardening jeans in case I won't fit back into them. So it's eat better and eat less, I'm afraid.
Oops. Breaking all the rules, my Shape Up For Life Diary boldly has the phrase 'I am too fat' written on the first page. But hey! It's all to do with the gardening shorts, not the body image. Don't really have one of those, hee hee.
Oh, and the older-lady hips and knees need a bit of a break. Oops again. Bad choice of word. Don't mean break, literally.
Anyway, Non-Gardening Partner has only just noticed that his chocolate birthday cake has lasted all week. That's because I'm not eating any, I've told him smugly. And now we are out for another celebratory NGP birthday meal, and I'm ordering salads and seasonal vegetables, no chips, no puddings. Such strength of mind, hee hee...
Late evening...
The meal went well. I'm still too fat (sorry to be so blunt), but less 'too fat' than I was six days ago, hee hee. Am eyeing those gardening shorts with interest - will they start behaving? Pretty soon, they should, pretty soon.