Lockdown laziness?
Oops. Since when has a general lockdown been a licence for laziness? Yesterday I didn't do any gardening at all. I filled my day with cups of coffee, long, tiring piano battles with Albeniz, and sky battles with my 2800 piece jigsaw. There's a lot of sky!
I also formatted some autumn rose and dahlia photographs (see above, such beautiful colours), baked and ate lots of muffins, and read chunks of my online library book - one of Miss Fisher's murder mysteries.
Dark Phormium
Only half lazy...
Today I'm half-lazy. Have done my ballet class and struggled through an hour of Albeniz, followed by a moochy hour of mainly Phormium trimming. Have come inside for a coffee : tempted to sit in a chair and doze off. This will not do!
Let me organise a gardening plan which will allow me to reclaim my place in the High Achievers Garden Club. Aha! I could go round the whole garden cleaning up all the Phormiums, trimming off all the dead leaves (and any leaves of the striped hybrids that have reverted). Is this a good idea? Will it give me a sense of achievement and purpose? Well, there's only one way to find out...
Two hours later...
I'm definitely on the shortlist for that gardening club, with extra marks for honesty, too. I didn't trim any more Phormiums - realised I would have to 'borrow' Non-Gardening Partner's good orange secateurs. Cutting through tough Phormiums would blunt them, and anyway he might see me through his office window.
The Shrubbery
So instead I scraped and dug and weeded in the back of Shrubbery. Two more barrow loads of mess dumped on the fence-line, and a sad rugosa rose waiting to be shifted out into a better spot.
Redeemed, rewarded...
Am clean, and have redeemed myself. Log burner has reignited, the house is warm, it's nearly time for the evening meal. Dubious reward : another hour of Albeniz on the piano, cramming my head full of double flats, because I love his Iberia Suite so much. I can do this!
Even if my garden isn't getting better in this autumn lockdown, surely my piano playing is? Please say yes. My fingers (and my musical mind) are getting faster, that's for sure. I'm stopping less, hitting more right notes, anticipating more, giving the music more of a life of its own. Yes, yes, yes...