Can you tell I’ve had another busy couple of weeks? In the last two weeks I’ve driven almost 1,800 miles. I’ve been to Birkenhead, Newcastle, home, Birkenhead and home again, plus all of the associate travel in the middle. You know I do love to drive, but driving tired is another thing entirely. Last week, I drove dad home having been awake since 01:40 for no good reason whatsoever. Sleeplessness is not new to me so I knew I’d be fine unless it went on for several days at a time. And then drove myself home again the very next day. Yep, I know it might have been kinder to my body to stop a while and actually breathe before the return leg, but I did go to bed at 9pm Wednesday, and was able to sleep right through until 7:30 am Thursday before being ready to head off. But apart from wanting to avoid the Easter holiday traffic, I was really just in need of nothing more pressing than a hairdresser’s appointment and my own bed.
Then there was a minor hiccup when the low tyre pressure alerts on Wednesdays leg of the journey resulted in a completely flat as a pancake tyre on Thursday morning. After I discovered that we don’t have tyre cover in our RAC cover (WTF – REALLY???), Mr RAC guy tried really hard to be helpful and put me in touch with somebody who could bring me a new tyre and change it, but it could be £130+ and take around 2 hours to sort. Thanks Mr nice RAC guy, but no thanks. Instead, we rang Tunnel Tyres in Birkenhead, who had me sorted for £80 in just an hour. Not quite the start I wanted or needed for the final leg of this mammoth journey, but it clearly could have been worse. I ended up getting home just before 6pm to a glass of chilled Sauvignon and a bath ready to step into. It was definitely good to be home.
And boy was it worth it! The sun shone all day long, despite a forecast to the contrary, and so again, despite plans to the contrary, I ended up having a really productive (and careful) digging day in the garden. And for me, this ‘doing’ is far more relaxing than any sitting still will ever be. I hate to sit, anywhere, and see jobs that need doing. Or worse, jobs that need ME to do them. But having lived here a while now, I realise that there are times when sitting and seeing is all I can do. I need to go with the weather, and let Mother Nature tell me when it is time to dig, to plant or indeed, to sit. But by yesterday, I had managed to plant something like 48 Phlox, 48 lavender plugs, 18 primula, and 72 assorted perennials.
And I think it is these last 72 that have given me the most satisfaction, simply because they are all planted in a bed that I had meant to pick up last year, but became one of the victims of my sciatic nightmare. So, to plant anything at all in that bed, I, along with Mr CQ for the heavy bits, needed to rid the soil of 2+ years of neglect. 2+ years of invasive things with tiny little yellow flowers that look really pretty at the start but then choke everything else except the other weeds to death. 2+ years of buttercups, which I always thought I loved until I learnt how invasive these also can be. And 2+ years of couch grass with its roots that spread forever and a day. It also meant me pulling up 2+ years of dandelion stock, which, although they would normally be my first target, I’ve been trying to avoid pulling up elsewhere in the garden for the bees.
But let me just go off on a tangent here: I had never really thought about just how many bees we have in our garden until a guy came to talk to us about *finally* sorting out the outside of the house. He asked me if I’d ever stopped to count all of the bees on the house. ‘On’ the house, I asked him. Because I knew that there is a whole beautiful raucous buzz of bees on the Pieris trees either side of the drive, and there will be more once the lilac and buddleia flower, but no, he was clear about ‘on’ the house. And then I realised that I had clocked it, but I’d just never paid any attention to it. After he’d gone, I went out to count, and standing at the front door where he had been, I counted almost a dozen huge fat bumble bees soaking in the sun or resting their wings up the front of the house. And as I dug or weeded these past few days, I’m watching as there seems to be a constant visitation, but actually, and thankfully, very few in this part of the garden. I can weed those dandelions out without a heavy heart after all.
So now I have finished, I needed to move my car to the side of the house so that I can see the fruits of my labour from any of our windows, even though right now, all there is to see in the front beds is mostly ancient shrubs surrounded by beautifully prepared apparently bare soil. I’ll take that. And now every time I look out, or walk past, I’m checking it out for signs of growth. As if they’re going to spring up that quickly. I cannot wait to start seeing those tiny plug plants turn into real colour. And I PROMISE that whatever else is going on with my sciatica, or vertigo, or blinking hips, that I WILL keep up with the weeding and TLC that will mean all of this work and those tiny little plugs will not be wasted. And here I find myself momentarily lost in the ‘whatever happened to bob-a-job week’? I could pay any number of willing scouts to weed every now and again without a seconds guilt.
But now what? As if my hectic travel diary has not been enough, Mr CQ left at 6am (which of course this morning was actually 5am after the clocks changed) so that he could be at this afternoons Liverpool v Brighton game at Anfield. Then he’s stopping with his folks for a couple of days while his car is MOT’d and he actually has a day in the office before driving back on Wednesday. I’m hoping he’s not as exhausted as I was, but we’ll see. In the meantime, though, that means I’ve the house to myself, just me and the boys, for a couple of days. I’m spending today doing bits and pieces that clear the decks for a couple of writing days, combined with a change in the weather that shouldn’t mean I feel ridiculous choosing to stay inside while the sun shines.
My promise to myself is that I will listen to my body. I will not look at the clock before deciding if/when to get up. Or when to go to bed. I will sit and write if it feels right to do so. I can sit and knit if I fancy watching a film. Or I can just read. I can do any of those things with a glass of wine or two if I want to. And I WILL enjoy the bottle of champagne Mr CQ left me, specifically to enjoy in his absence. I suspect I’ll use some of it as a cocktail mixer this evening, but definitely plan to start with my first glass in the bath later this afternoon. Recharging my batteries is my only priority for these next few days. There is a WHOLE world of hectic and chaos ahead, and I WILL start that with my battery at 100%.
Cocktail Queen 