A Little Bit of Self-Care

Today I reminded myself that gardening is good for the soul. It really truly is. I’ve just had some fairly major things going on that have got on top of me a little. Actually I don’t generally get stressed very often, I’m fairly laid back and easy going but sometimes things can get to me – I’m only human. I sometimes find it hard to deal with things that go wrong, particularly if they are completely out of my control.

Anyway now you know vaguely how I’ve been feeling over the last couple of days, I thought I’d let you know what I did to try and make myself feel a bit better. It was quite a nice day today, nowhere near as hot as it has been for the last few weeks, so I decided to get out in the garden.

There are a few jobs that need doing, well actually loads, but small steps and all that. So today we decided to tackle some of the weeds that have crept in, get rid some bind weed and brambles and have a general tidy up. Oh and there’s an area in the front garden with some Cornish cobbles which needs more Cornish cobbles!

I set to with the weeding first and got rid of so many dandelions and other rogue invaders that were there uninvited – how rude! I did one and a half flower beds and it made such a huge difference, we can see the soil again – yay!!

I cut back some ivy from around the front gate and the rhododendron which was hovering over the front path. We got rid of some weeds on the cobbled area and then put another couple of bags of cobbles over. We weeded the bed by the side of the cobbled area and dead-headed the pretty pink rose that is there.

I weeded one of the flower beds adjoining the front of the house and then had a brain wave! We had a bag of grey slate and I thought that might look nice on this flowerbed. Being impulsive sometimes, this went straight on and do you know what? It looks so much better! I also decided to put some in the black square pots, containing conifers, either side of the front door.

It looks so much tidier just spending a few hours out there and has made me feel so much happier and a given me a sense of achievement and purpose. That’s one of the good things about gardening, you can really notice the before and after effect. Even though it’s hard work, it’s a way of de-stressing and relaxing too. I wish I’d taken some ‘before’ photos but never mind! When we get round to painting the front door – that’s on my August ‘to do’ list -I think the pretty bluey grey of the door will look gorgeous against the grey slate.

Oh and after we finished we took Duke for a walk round the field behind the houses in our road and discovered two deer!