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On Breakfast this morning there was a report from a reservoir in Somerset. Apparently it’s down to 80% capacity. Normally at this time of the year it would be at 100% but because we had a very rare dry March, it is down. No-one is talking about hose pipe bans but it can only be a matter of time…surely.
Not that it is affecting us in the south east (I’m sure this will come though) and particularly in our garden where I always water from the butt at the side of the house. Mind you, the level is dropping as each hot, sunny day follows the last.
Today I spent a lot of time in the garden and considered the wonderful things about compost. As I weeded, it occurred to me how brilliant it is that throughout the year I have thrown old vegetable peelings and bits of old flowers, grass cuttings and ash and all sorts of other garden detritus into one of three bins to be rewarded with a big box of dirt. Nutrient rich dirt, it should be said. But dirt all the same.
When did this happen? I didn’t see it. I’d mow the lawn and chuck it in. I’d fill the little green bin in the kitchen with raw scraps and dump them on top of the grass cuttings. And somehow, magically, it became dirt. Call me simple but I think that’s amazing.
And then the pay off. After weeding and watering, I sprinkled this lovely mulchy stuff onto the beds, feeding it. And it cost me nothing. While other people throw everything in the bin and have it carted off to some refuse place for shoving into the ground with all the plastic and dead batteries, mine is being put to use. Love it.
But I didn’t really want to talk about that. I really wanted to write about the types of days I have. On the negative side I mean. There are two. My Bad Space Days and my Consequence Days. Both irk me and haunt me with their relentless attempts to slow me down.
In short, my Bad Space Days are when I’m clumsier than usual. People bump into me, I can’t abide crowds and I’m generally just in the way. Space is at a premium and I can’t afford it. It’s not like a phobia, it doesn’t freak me out to the point where I have to curl up into a ball and sob like a baby. I just want my own space back. I don’t care if it’s in a crowd, on a train or a bus but I just want to feel master of it. Fortunately this doesn’t happen very often.
Worse are my Consequence Days. These take the form of something going wrong and, as a consequence, something else has to be rectified before the original problem is solved. Then the ‘something else’ has a problem and, as a consequence…and it keeps going backwards until, by the end of the day, I’ve fixed everything, finishing with the first thing that started it all. It’s very annoying. And it happened to me today.
Still, I managed to get through the day, fixing as I went, in between gardening and shopping and walking the poodles and, all in all, it was a beautiful day.
Farnham Park looking like a watercolour
I think if people were honest we all like our own space where we can sit and think or go for a walk and think. I do mine when I walk around the shops, then come back to dad revitalised as he cant walk around with me. love mum