Weekly Diary W/E 3rd July - Part 2

Following on from Part One of this week's diary, I was back at work on Thursday this week. I felt like I had quite a productive day, despite being tired from not having slept well the night before. One of our volunteers worked on the Gift Aid all day, which freed me to get on with some other jobs that were long overdue. I was able to sort through and re-organise some very overwhelming corners of the stockroom and make a start on some other tasks that have not been tackled for weeks due to lack of time. It was very satisfying and felt like a nice reprieve from the norm.

When I got on the bus home, the tiredness hit me, so the evening was spent binge watching Netflix, whilst starting to take out the paper pieces from my finished quilt top. It's going to take a while, as it's a large quilt, but I'll chip away at it until it's done.

After a much better night's sleep on Thursday night, I awoke on Friday feeling much more refreshed. Fridays are one of my days off, so I stayed in bed and finished reading my current book. OH took the dog out, so I had a leisurely morning, which was nice. As I'd done a big shop earlier in the week, I didn't need to go anywhere or do anything outside of the house, which is a rare treat for me, (save for walking the dog later) so I had a lovely long homey day ahead of me.

As I do every month, I had created a list of things I wanted to do this month, but this month's list is particularly long. Lots of small things and ongoing projects included on it.  I decided I would spend the day making a start on the list. First job was to fill the storage boxes I'd bought earlier in the week. This was quite a quick job, but then led me into doing a bit of reorganising of the space under both the spare bed and our own bed.

Late morning, I re-potted a couple of my houseplants that needed it and then I went around the house watering all of them. This task is actually quite time consuming these days, but satisfying once done. Most of them seem to be surviving and some possibly even thriving, which is progress for me.

As it was a hot day, I put a couple of boxes of things we no long need outside of the house in case anyone wanted to take anything. I'm hoping they will.

By the time I'd done the above it was lunchtime, so I made myself my usual salad using homegrown lettuce. After years of failing to grow lettuce, we've had a real glut for the past few weeks, so OH has been trying to give it away to neighbours and fellow allotmenteers. It's a nice problem to have. Other things have started to mature at the plot, such as strawberries, which OH has been trying to eat down, courgettes, early potatoes and kohl rabi, so the fridge is starting to fill up again. 

At home, my dahlias, which I planted out into one of the raised garden beds the other week, have now started flowering and are beautiful, with lots of buds promising many more flowers. I can't wait. It's amazing how much joy growing a few flowers brings.

Here are some pictures of both the plot:

And the raised bed in the garden:

I'm loving my garden at the moment. It's wild with growth and very lush. Just the way I like it. It barely needs any work either, which is perfect, just a bit of pruning back and dead heading here and there and picking of fruit. Talking of which, my mulberry tree that I got for Xmas from OH a couple of years ago, has borne half a dozen fruits this year and they taste lovely. It's supposed to be 7 years before they fruit, but mine seems happy enough to produce them a bit early. 

I spent half an hour pruning back some climbers that encroach from next door. They were blocking the sun from the solar lights and preventing them from working properly. Hopefully, they'll work again now.

Later, I popped over to the glass shop to get some safety glass for the cupboard door in the vestibule. It was a bit more expensive than I envisaged, but it was needed to complete the job and constituted another item crossed off the to do list. I just need to get OH to fit it now.

I also spent an hour or so this afternoon doing some laundry and ironing. I didn't quite get to the bottom of the laundry basket, but one more crack at it and I should be able to finish it. Another pretty productive day.

On Saturday, I was back at work and OH headed off to a cycle event in Leicester. He ended up driving up to Yorkshire for the night after his ride to visit his mum and dad and help where he could, so I was home alone on Saturday night, as LB was out at a party. When I got home from work, I headed out with the dog. It was very quiet in the parks, as everyone was home watching the England game. It was bliss. I was so glad to finally get home afterwards to put my feet up.

And there ends another week.