Life at the moment feels like a series of deadlines; the embroidery commission, the starting school sewing, the birthday present I finished today and although I have other deadlines coming up, they’re further away, so are fuzzy and not exactly spurring me on, so I have that listless sensation of feeling like I’ve got stuff to do but not really having the energy / incentive / motivation to do it ( I really should though, otherwise much as I am now not currently busy, if I leave some of the stuff I’ve got to do till later, the pre-Christmas run up will be a nightmare). So I was kind of drifting about a bit, doing a spot of housework (tackling the laundry mountain) and not really doing much, but I had promised myself (ok, more like told myself I had to) that I would pop up the allotment today (the allotment currently stands as a vague fuzzy deadline in my head where I know I need to get it clear before it starts getting very cold). So I dragged myself away from surfing the net (classic thing for me to do when I don’t know what to do with myself) and went up there for an hour late this afternoon, to go and fight some weeds. I have two large areas of tall weeds left; the brambles and more of the possible artichokes (ex-plot owners say there are artichokes there, I’m not particularly sure what an artichoke plant looks like but if the tall ‘weeds’ I’ve spent ages clearing are artichokes, they’re not very well grown ones). I decided to go for the possible artichokes, thinking they’d be an easier job as the one’s I’d removed earlier had been quite easy to pull up, giving me what turns out that false illusion that the soil in the allotment wasn’t that bad, put it this way, the soil on the left hand side of the allotment in the bit I’ve worked on so far is ok, the soil on the right hand side does not give its plants up easily and looks like it will be a nightmare to dig. But I cleared them anyway (eventually), disturbing quite a collection of ladybirds in the process, who I think may possibly have been trying to find a place to hibernate (sorry guys), I hope they do stick around, they can eat my aphids next summer.
It was nice stopping to watch these guys, to stop and notice the small, I even like the spiders and the ‘pretty’ spotted slug that seems to get everywhere. So by the end of my hour of what was initially reluctant gardening, I didn’t want to leave.
(I’ve vowed to myself to take my ‘proper’ camera with me as essential kit every time I go up to the allotment, as I love hunting out shots like the one above, so expect lots of insect photos and later plant photos on this blog, over on my Flickr and my slightly neglected photo blog).
