Phew!! This is exhausting.

The people with whom I discussed early retirement all said - to a body, I would wonder how I had time to go to work. Yes, right, I thought. There must be some exaggeration there, hah! I am exhausted! The day starts with a check over of the window boxes, to deadhead, water and de-slug/snail them. The tally this morning was 12 snails in the five baskets. Then I do the same in the veg patch which is now starting to show signs of growth. Nascent rows of spinach and other salads. I do a daily hoe around each row, water them with water from the kitchen or the shower - then I search for the slugs under all the boards that I walk on. Big tally this morning, it rained yesterday and so the little varmints came sneaking out for a graze.

My lettuce plantlets have been surrounded by copper circle which are filled with crunched up egg shells. (I have to admit DLG, that the egg box is back on the radiator with egg shells drying in it. I need my weaponry!) The one plant that I thought had the best defences has been totally anhillated by the wretched slugs. I think I need to do some research into their mental make-up.

Then I have breakfast - home made bread now, with marmalade - also homemade. Then I try to do an hour of work on learning Spanish, about half an hour of Pilates exercises, then I can start the day of TLC for my little house and garden. The plan is to do one room a day (well that has been too ambitious and it is only week 2!!) and also a part of the garden needs sorting daily.

Wow - my neighbours were so right about life being too busy... the really annoying thing is that I am unable to go to sleep because I keep thinking of things that I need to do. Four o'clock in the morning seems to be the hour that my body gives in and starts sleeping.

Any advice on how to get my body into a more reasonable sleep rhythm would be gratefully accepted!

This is the year of determination..

I wrote that some months ago, and now the moment is almost here. I am finishing teaching at the end of next week and at the moment I am feeling very excitied about it all. So soon, I should be able to blog more frequently, find the things I lose and read my letters before they are a week old and curling up on the kitchen table! Added to that, there are all the things I have always wanted to do - learn to draw, cook fewer burnt dishes and give my garden some tender loving care.
Scary? Too true!

One-up-manship!

Well most places have a Hummer or two, here in Newport we have an extended one!! Now why on earth would anyone want to make an extra long one of those vehicles? They aren't pretty, they are ugly brutes which guzzle so much petrol it is unbelievable! I wonder what is so special about the ride - perhaps thay all come with Horatio Kane (Is that his surname?)as a driver - now that would be really good luck...

The other thing I want to write about is the fantastic things we can now do in this world. I was sitting in an extremely wet field in West Wales at the week-end when my recently laundered cell phone rang. It was DLG from Cyprus!! She of course was sitting out in lovely sunshine - grrrrrr!
However, the outcome of the call is that we are to meet up again on my last day of teaching, so I will have a wonderful friend with me to celebrate the occasion. The champagne is on ice, the olives need to be bought, together with the rice cakes. Oh my goodness have we a lot of talking to do!

One-up-manship!

Well most places have a Hummer or two, here in Newport we have an extended one!! Now why on earth would anyone want to make an extra long one of those vehicles? They aren't pretty, they are ugly brutes which guzzle so much petrol it is unbelievable! I wonder what is so special about the ride - perhaps thay all come with Horatio Kane (Is that his surname?)as a driver - now that would be really good luck...

How strange...

that we have temperatures in the thirties and a hailstorm! However I managed to attack another patch of my wilderness which is the vegetable patch. I have planted a lot of extremely late salad crops in the hope that I will attain some kind of home grown crop. Watch this space - I bet we get early frosts this autumn!!
The scents in the shrubbery continue to fill the garden, the philadelphus is just finishing, but the jasmin is now taking over with a vengenance. I love the way the scents fill the air - one of the best things in life. (Well, choco;ate runs a close second!)

I couldn't resist adding this, there is the most beautiful gibbous moon out there tonight. I have just been out on a slug crawl, the crop was not many but they were the big uns!

Try this!

My poor mobile phone is struggling to cope with the demands of living with me. Having spent about 45 minutes tumbling around in the washing machine it can now, after a prolonged drying out period, receive phone calls and text messages. The only problem is that I can barely see the display and by the time I get around to sending a text in reply, well I can't see a thing! SO, DLG, the last message was written blind, heaven knows what it ended up saying because with automatic text, the most innocent word turns out to be something very different. For instance, 'mum' becomes 'nun', not something I ever aspired to!!