sunday evening

Well...

... let's just say I sat on a stool on a paving stone in the general vicinity of what will become my lovely new seating area, and leave it at that, shall we?

No point aiming for perfection I say!

I've been smiling every time I've walked into the living room this week and spotted these flowers (rescued from the reduced bin at the florists), popped into two old china cups from a picnic basket. How extremely jolly!

I've finally managed to get out into the garden this week - I must confess to avoiding it, because it's still a mess of rubble and pavings, and it makes me ever so slightly grumpy every time I see it.

But what kind of an attitude is that for a cheery person to have?!

A daft one - that's what.

So, I armed myself with trowel, green bin bags (the council collects garden waste here and turns it into compost), and a camera (and a cup of tea, of course)

While staring in a slightly grim fug at the beetroots refusing to grow on the windowsill, and the basil that just won't get more than 3 leaves whatever I do to it, I had a revelation.

We've got a small garden here, and we are NEVER going to grow a substantial part of our food. Last year we had an abundance of yellow courgettes, and one broad bean pod. One. I like plants - but I never was very good at keeping them alive. Every year I plant things (late), forget to water them, then put them outside for the slugs to eat, while I stare on morosely thinking about what a terrible gardener I am.

The things that do best in my garden are the things that look after themselves.

So - my revelation. Why on earth do I do this to myself every year?? Because I want a beautiful and productive garden, that's why! Because I like the idea of growing my own food and I believe gardens should be useful as well as beautiful.

Well, guess what? The fruit bushes are looking great - they look after themselves. Maybe if I watered them more they'd do better - but they manage.

There's plenty of herbs that are flourishing, all on their own - sage, rosemary, chives, lemon balm, st john's wort, all come back year on year, as well as the rhubarb, and masses of mint. The honeysuckle spreads over more and more of the house each week, it seems.

So, as of now, my garden is getting low maintenance. Well, aside from the major seating project, that is.

I'm not going to try a big pile of annual veg any more. I'm going to plant the whole thing up with fruit bushes and perennial herbs, and spend more time sitting out there admiring the view, eating rhubarb crumble, sipping herb tea, and scoffing blueberries.

Why on earth didn't I think of that before??

And now, flushed with my own ingenuity, I'm heading for the bath.

I've been neglecting this little space of mine lately, blaming full time work, and all manner of other things, for my absence.

Today I've realised that one of the reasons I've been staying away is because I haven't taken any nice pictures to post.

Ah, perfectionism rearing its ugly head yet again!

Not that I only ever post 'perfect' pictures on here, of course... but I do rather like them to be sunshiney, cheery, happy pictures, of colourful things, pretty things, not blurry round the edges, or gloomy, or have dust on the shelves and piles of washing in the background.

Well, guess what? As we established in this post, my life does have dust on the shelves (rather a lot of it, as it happens), and washing festooned over the banister, and the sun doesn't always shine, and sometimes I can't take a decent photograph to save my life.

What a shame to stay hiding away because of that!

I like pottering about in here, talking nonsense about what I've been up to! I do love to look back at the pretty photos, and the finished projects, and the flowers in the garden - but if I avoid popping in here until I've got something fascinating to say, or have completed the world's most wonderful project, or taken a fabulous photo, well, I'd probably never come here again!

So instead - here's to slightly blurry photos, that don't look quite as good as they did in real life.

Here's to half finished projects, slightly sunken cakes, flowers that are past their best, and walls that aren't decorated.

Here's to gardens that are still full of rubble, blackbirds that eat your strawberries, and slugs that sneak into the living room at night and slither their way across the carpet (hmmm...).

And here's to chasing tonight's lunar eclipse across the hills, and not finding it, but instead finding a very pretty sunset that, guess what? Looked much better in real life than it does in the pictures.

I'm practicing folks!