Gardeners And Architects – The Climb #843

Monday 14^th June 2021

As part of my weekly review, at the start of each week I decide upon a focus for the week. Nine times out of ten, it’s whatever writing project I’ve currently got on the go, but sometimes it includes other things.

The reasoning behind it is pretty simple. It’s very easy for some projects to get left by the wayside, the tasks not being completed and getting carried forward each week. By giving each week a focus, it’s an opportunity to put some effort into some of those goals that aren’t moving along as easily as they should.

This week, I have two main areas of focus: The Accursed – because even if I miss my soft deadline of end of June, I’d like to be close to the end come July. – and my garden.

When I bought this house, I got a ridiculously big garden with it. Not big enough for a tractor mower, but enough for a petrol one. Except I rolled out my petrol mower back in the spring, and it wouldn’t start.

Because of Covid, I’ve said I don’t want anyone in my house until two weeks after both my jabs, which means I’ve been without a mower since. And whilst it wasn’t an issue at first, the back garden has now grown to a size that small children could get lost in it.

The answer now is to strim it. I have a strmmer (although I did nearly run out of cord today but that’s another story). However, in order to strim it you need two factors: one good weather for a few days so that the grass is dry, and secondly my motivation.

There’s also the added complication that if it is sunny, I have no natural UV protection and burn even if I wear SPV50

Those two things have not been in alignment, hence the jungle in my back garden.

But with several days of good weather due and a focus on the garden this week, I started on operation strim 2021 (because this happens most years to be honest, even when the mower was working but the grass was too long to mow without strimming first)

I say started, because I hatched an ingenious plan. Strimming a 100 foot garden is hard work, so I’ve broken it up into a multi-day project. We’re not due rain until Wednesday evening which gives me 3 days to get it done. I can go out, do a bit, and when I get bored, or tired, or more likely, feel myself starting to burn, I can come indoors…

…where I write some more on The Accursed. It’s my Mobius strip of productivity at work!

I’ve found starting off the day writing really helps me, but that’s a blog for another day. But I managed to strim half the garden over the course of the day and 2 or 3 strimming sessions, along with a whopping 4277 words on the novel, across three sessions.

That’s the most I’ve done in a day in ages, so naturally – because happiness is directly proportional to word count – I’m in a good mood.

I have the other half of the garden to strim tomorrow, and I may want to go over some bits again as it gets pretty thick the lower you go. Part of me wishes I had a nice garden like my neighbours, but then I think the amount of work it would take and think again.

But, if I can that sort of work count by doing gardening, I honestly think I’ll start doing more of it.