Winter joy list fails

what have I learned for summer?

I’ve just got back from a weekend away to the Chelsea Flower Show, so I’m all in a guddle whilst I catch up on laundry, settle back to normality and sort through my whirlwind of thoughts, feelings and inspiration images from the show. It was INCREDIBLE and my brain is overflowing with ideas and plans. I want to take some time to truly process what I’ve seen, and how I can apply it to my own garden, before I write about it here, but believe me, an epic photo dump newsletter is coming!

This post was supposed to have been scheduled to go out to your inboxes on Sunday, but with wrapping up at work and packing and organising to go away, it never happened. Apologies friends, I hope you enjoy this random Wednesday newsletter!

You may recall I wrote about my Winter Joy List plans here and I thought it would be worth returning to this post to see what I managed to do, and what fell by the wayside. Even the failures are learning experiences, asking me to evaluate why I didn’t prioritise the time or activity. Perhaps I didn’t really want to do the thing? Maybe I was too caught up in ‘productivity’ activities that I didn’t make the time? It’s all good data.

First up - it was interesting to me that I didn’t make a Spring joy list. I appear to have completely forgotten this activity 3 months after writing the winter newsletter. March was fairly busy, in that my mum came to stay and I had a girls weekend to North Berwick (where we booked a sauna overlooking the sea - bliss, would 100% recommend) but otherwise looking back at my diary it was just the usual work shifts, life admin, boring appointments and dates with friends. There was no specific reason, other than absentmindedness, for me to have overlooked this task. Perhaps it’s time to build a rough editorial calendar for myself? I noticed, looking back to find my winter joy list post, that my podcast episodes have also fallen by the wayside, and I’ve yet to finish my series on the Bare Minimum Artists’ Way. None of these are due to lack of enthusiasm, I’m constantly thinking of new ideas for the newsletter, but more due to a lack of a good organisational structure. I’ll have to ponder how best to integrate this into my normal calendar, so as not to feel overwhelmed but also not to forget to follow through on these plans and series.

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Back to my Winter Joy list, these were the goals:

1. Take Rosie on a 10km run

2. Take Badger on a solo adventure

3. Cast on Vest No. 1

4. Top up the raised beds ready for the growing season

5. Spend my Christmas vouchers

Looking at this list, I’ve basically only managed one of them - topping up the raised beds (interesting that this is also a bit of a ‘productivity’ goal, not wholly for joy). I used a combo of compost from my compost bins plus topsoil dug out from the site of a new patio we’re building. The patio is currently a hole in the ground filled with stones, a project I would like to aim to complete this summer. On the plus side, the raised bed went from this in February (sheep wool mulch around my rhubarb):

to the same corner in May:

I’ve started harvesting rhubarb and radishes, plus coriander and parsley. I think I’ve got some figs ripening in the greenhouse as well, very exciting!

Full disclosure: this Garmin image is from October, apparently I haven’t taken any photos of Rosie on a run this year!

Running with Rosie has been a fairly regular occurrence, we go out together around once a week and I run my other sessions by myself. The furthest I’ve been since January is 9.4km, but I didn’t take Rosie with me. This is definitely something I would like to do over the summer.

Badger asleep on my raised bed in the greenhouse

Similarly, a solo date with Badger also hasn’t happened. We’ve had a lot of days pottering in the garden, whilst I’ve been busy with raised beds and patio building, but we haven’t been out together for a while. This is one I definitely care enough about to roll over onto my summer list.

Casting on Vest No. 1 was a bit of a catastrophe. I started this one, and got as far as joining for the body, when I realised the second skein of mohair I was holding double with the DK yarn was a different shade of white and a different weight to the first skein I’d used to do the neckline and upper back. I ploughed on, thinking it wouldn’t be noticeable once I had a few inches of knitting done, but it sadly was quite obvious. After stashing it for a week or two to consider my options, I decided it would annoy me enough to warrant ripping it out. I managed to frog it and separate the DK from the mohair without too much drama, but I’ve shelved this project for now. I think I’m actually more likely to wear a vest with a V neck, rather than a round neck, so I’m back to the drawing board with deciding on a pattern. In the meantime I’m correcting my Oslo fail hat and knitting a baby hat for a relative, plus continuing with my Seaglass Sweater.

Last but not least - spending my Christmas vouchers! I managed half of these, I bought myself some beautiful secateurs from Niwaki, my favourite source of garden tools. I also bought the kit for cleaning and sharpening them, and spent a pleasant evening cleaning my Niwaki hori-hori knife and shears. This isn’t sponsored (I wish, that would be incredible) but I love their minimalist Japanese design and how small and light their tools are. I find a lot of garden and DIY tools are clearly aimed at men, with hand grips that are too large or weights that are too heavy to make them practical for me. I really like that Niwaki tools are more delicate and light, but still tough and durable, with an emphasis on replaceable parts.

I'll be having a think about my summer joy list plans for another newsletter, including a 10km with Rosie and a trip out with Badger. I hope wherever you are summer has started (or winter if you're in the southern hemisphere!) and you have some lovely plans to enjoy.