Since early February through to mid-April I enjoyed four spinal relapses leaving me unable to do any work in my garden. Pretty much any available time I was able to work needed to be focused on serving my most urgent clients and the psychology courses I'm doing with the Open University. For those of you on the OtherLives project I had barely started (a single shoot with Clare & Ali at the beginning of the year), I'm afraid that's on hold until I'm certain I'll be able to cope and not muck you around arranging and then cancelling visits etc. I'll get an email off to everyone who signed up fairly soon.
Over the past four weeks I've been able to get more rest time and gentle exercise with the result my spine is finally beginning to feel stronger. My grass got its first cut of the year a few days ago ... and I didn't cripple myself in the process ... that's more of a feat than it sounds! Today I decided to risk making some bread and planting some herbs so I get at least something done this year.
I really don't want this to be as depressing a post as it seems. Finally getting into the garden for a couple of hours today in this glorious (if far too hot) weather and working with compost and seeds with the anticipation of how much I'm going to enjoy eating the results in a few weeks has put me into the most positive and rather happy mood I've been in for a long time. I'm going to need to continue to take things easy over the next few weeks while various muscle groups strength again, but if I can do even little bits in my garden, I think I'll be able to return to building my skills and knowledge next year.
One benefit of the amount I've had to sit here and rest is all the reading and research I've been able to do. I've spend quite a lot of time with Country Smallholding, Kitchen Gardner and Grow Your Own magazines along with the River Cottage Handbook No.3 Bread and got answers to some annoyance from my first real year of growing veg last year. I've also been able to spend time updating my knowledge of usability and working on some new services to launch through my IT consultancy for them: with a distinct focus on work which will not stress my spine!
Hopefully if I'm cautious enough the remainder of the year will prove more fruitful and I'll be able to put a lot of the reading I've been doing into practise. I'm almost ready to release a range of photographs too - something I haven't been able to find the time for until the past few weeks. So as much as I'd love not to have a buggered spine, it's not all bad
Topic: The year so far and yet more evidence on the psychological benefits of gardening (Read 8339 times)