Spring is here

There have been a few flowers in the garden since January, but they are tucked away in the borders and are not always easy to see from the house.
Two months later we have lots of brightly coloured spring flowers, and to make sure that I can see them from the kitchen window when I am washing up the dishes or preparing vegetables, B has come up with a solution  - put some in pots, on a garden table outside the kitchen window.

We cheated a little. The hyacinths and pansies B planted up, but we bought the daffodils and snowdrops ready planted from the clearance section of the  garden centre.  I even managed to get myself in this picture.

These spring bulbs were planted at the front of the herb patch, which is opposite to the kitchen window, so there is plenty of colour still to come when the tulips are ready in  a few weeks time.

F did the major pruning jobs taming the larger shrubs and cutting the Apricot trees to a manageable size.  This year we are hoping for fruit - we lost last year's crop to a late frost.

G mulched the rhubarb patch with leaf mould last autumn to protect the crowns from the worst of the winter weather and the rhubarb s almost ready to harvest.  Some will have to be frozen as it is producing lots more stems than usual - I think the leaf mould fed as well as protected the plants.

We are looking forward to a more settled summer than in 2016, so that the plants don't get confused. B has made good use of the small greenhouse and it is filled with flower and vegetable seedlings ready for planting out in a few weeks time - hopefully. 

Taking Stock

I am always surprised that being retired seems busier than when I was working full time. One of the many ways my time gets consumed is  studying with the OU, and the last two years have been demanding of more time than I can find so I have decided that I will take a break from my studies.

In trying to find more study time over the past two years I have cut down on taking part in the book club at the local library - I can find an hour once a month for the meeting but reading the chosen book from cover to cover is something that I did not always succeed in doing.  I meet up with colleagues for a pub lunch once a month and I've managed less than half the meetings in the past twelve months.  Other friends , I know I am neglecting, because I don't contact them for a chat or to meet for coffee.  I haven't attended all the concerts this season run by University of Keele Concert Society, even though I have a season ticket.

The things that take up my time are looking after home and family and that is too important to cut down on.  I also have a volunteer role delivering library books to housebound and that also matters to me.

So,taking time out from studying is my way of achieving a better work life balance.  I hope to read more novels, garden, meet up with friends, have more hours sleep, and post on the blog more often.

It may sound perverse, but the day after I informed my OU tutor of my decision to take a study break I enrolled with 'FutureLearn' to study for three hours a week, over the next six weeks on the topic of the six mass extinctions, a free course run by the University of Cape Town.  It somehow fits in with the studying I have been doing since 2009.