Saturday was a disappointing level of progress since parts had to be bought but Ed’s Guttering men came and built us some nice gutters. They’re aluminium and are extruded from the back of a trailer on site – so neat. I like their motto, “Our minds are in our gutters”. While they were on it I weeded the to-be-tomato-patch in the searing heat and vowed I’d get up early on Sunday.
Sunday was beautiful. I woke up at 6am and went out in to the garden to dig in the cool morning air. I crept out of the house so as not to wake Hubby but when I left the room, the power went off so the fire alarms blipped but it didn’t seem to stir him so I went about my digging on my own with just the birds, the stream and the breeze in the ponderosa pines. At 7 am, having dug the first and worst row, the power came back on so I went in to make me and hubby a cup of tea/coffee. It was really relaxing. Then pottered back outside to resume digging. By 7:45 it was time for shorts and a thinner tee.
At 9 am I’d finished digging the third row and after more tea, started planting tomatoes. By 10am I was on to Cranberry juice (tea too hot) preceeded by water so that I didn’t drink the Cranberry juice too quickly (all the excuses possible for a rest). If it seems like my digging and planting was taking a long time, it’s because it was interspersed with requests from Hubby to assist with moving furniture around the house. I never realized our couch was so heavy – and I dropped it on myself several times. It JUST squeezed up the stairs between the wall and the post like the two were built for eachother - but not for ease. We also moved the TV unit into the bedroom (which I HATE but I have no intention of carrying that up to the upper floor as that’s MY retreat area). Nor do I have any intention of ever moving that couch back downstairs. It will stay where it is until it’s knackered enough to just toss it off the balcony – or someone else is moving it.
By mid day I was trembling from too much digging in the sun and not enough to eat so I had lunch, planted two more tomato plants that desperately needed moving, then took a cool shower before the builder came back from his lunch.
In the afternoon I moved stuff upstairs from the basement – a nightstand for me to keep all my undies in until we can work out something more permanent upstairs – and finished the bathroom curtains. I did the laundry in my new washing machine and even cleaned the new toilet and shower! Then WE RAN THE DISHWASHER. We are so pleased with this new toy that hubby was wandering around the house LOOKING for things to put in the dishwasher. You know how men normally are – blind to anything that doesn’t fall into their hands with “dirty” written on it. Well, not yesterday – no man. He was finding cups that haven’t been used for weeks!
Our beautiful green room is looking somewhat like a student flat right now – a mattress on the floor, tv, gigantic speakers and that’s about it. After all that gardening and digging though, I’m feeling like my knees are too old to be a student. Pass me my cane.
