As predicted, the early hours blew a gale, so much so that I only got about 3 hours sleep. First it was up to the boys who were woken up by the wind in the trees. Then when I finally prised myself out of the bottom bunk next to my littlest one, I couldn’t get back to sleep. Not just for noise of the bluster in the branches but also because we temporarily replaced the verandah glass last year with tarpaulin and the wind was so strong it pulled half of if off to create a constant flapping.
I also realised that my studio doesn’t actually have a lock on it yet, nor do the windows have their stays, so I started panicking that all of them could potentially fly open at any moment. I thought about waking Tom to help me go and check on them but it was 3am in the morning and he is so tired anyway at the moment. I thought about venturing outside on my own but if I’m honest, the wind freaks me out a bit. And so I just lay there, feeling more and more tired or scrolling on my phone until finally I must have dropped off at around 6am just in time to wake up again.
The plasterers were also coming today to reinstall the coving in the kitchen so I spent the morning trying to make the dumping ground in the lounge less chaotic. By the time I’d finished I realised I was on a classic mission: the Spring Clean. Not quite the same when you can’t actually make good of any rooms but at least I could see floor again and could find the plates, cutlery and food under the piles of coats, shoes and homeschooling stuff.
Once finished in the lounge, I was on a roll so headed out into my studio to tidy up the chaos there. Basically we’ve been decorating the whole of downstairs for months now, which entails moving things in a circuit from room to room. I kept it together until now but am suddenly desperate for it to be finished so we can all just relax. Also I’m not sure I can fit any more books, herbs or art stuff into my shed.
We did devise a clever storage system in there at the end of last summer, which fits loads of boxes under a bench that stretches around one end of the studio. I envisioned it with cushions on, sitting drinking a glass of wine with friends, maybe pulling up a table. So far that hasn’t happened (hopefully soon!) and thus the bench has been masquerading as a shelf. Today it morphed into greenhouse staging as my actual greenhouse plan fell through (delivery lead times too long), I realised that it would be a while before anyone visits anyway, and to be honest this glass and timber structure is kind of a greenhouse anyway complete with greenhouse heater (that’s how I keep warm).
And so the great sowing finally began! Seeds trays and root trainers laid out with sufficient water catchment underneath; compost in one bucket, vermiculite in the other and some gravel to hand; lolly sticks and indelible pen tracked down; seed packets sorted into ‘sowing indoors’ and ‘sowing out’. I didn’t have time to get any further as I had to pick up the boys already (how is it always 3pm so quickly) but I cannot wait to get stuck in tomorrow.
I’ll also be ordering my shortlist of shrubs and grasses for the front garden. Now we just need the wind to drop. Hoping for a calmer night tonight.