Feeling like a wet weekend…

My fiercely proud to be from London mum used to tell me to stop moping around like a wet weekend’and it’s another of the things that I resented at the time but now understand and try not to do because it doesn’t do any good, does it? My Dad was a great proponent of the sock drawer theory where you tidied your sock drawer if you were fed up or in doubt, He reckoned that doing something routine and useful often made ideas pop into your head, and if they didn’t, then you had a tidy sock drawer and proved that you could control something.

I need both those pieces of wisdom at the moment because this wet, windy weather seems to have been going on forever, with occasional windy and wet weather to give me a change. It doesn’t do me any good physically or mentally, so little things become big things, and then my emergency tin of chocolate starts calling to me. It says ‘one little bit won’t hurt’ and then ‘while you’re here, don’t you deserve to have two pieces? Or maybe three would be better to save you the trip?’

I don’t want to do that because I need to maintain my weight for my joints' sake, so I need to get a grip and stop moping around like a wet weekend, especially since it is one and next week doesn’t look a lot better. Instead, I’ll focus on the positives, no matter how pigheadedly awkward most of the people I’m dealing with seem determined to be.

So, here is my list of things to be grateful for.

I don’t live in a war zone

My house isn’t going to flood and the garden will dry out someday.

It may hurt all over but it’s not going to kill me

I have a warm home and a mostly wonderful family (and my daughter is being featured on the OCA university virtual open day, which makes me incredibly proud because she’s overcome a lot to get there.)

I can escape through writing

I’m darting out between the showers to get on with the garden, and it’s starting to look how I want it to.

I have a new sign which reads ‘You can talk to these plants. They’ll understand.’

Because isn’t that what all of us need in the end? Someone who will listen and understand. In this case, they’re my growing sedum collection. I like sedums. They’re pretty much indestructible, they’re pretty colours and shapes and taking cuttings is no harder than breaking a bit off and sticking it in some gritty compost.

Some of them have posh names too, which is nice because if I’m talking to them, then surely they should have names. Now all I have to do is work out a good name for my new xrobrutinctum because that’s a bit of a mouthful. Its common name is the jellybean sedum, so it could be jelly, but think of the sense of achievement that I’ll feel when I casually manage to say ‘Oh, that’s my xrobrutinctum.’ I don’t want them to have labels, because you don’t label your friends, do you? And all my plants start very small, so they do become friends. I keep a list of them, with a brief description, including the ones who failed to thrive and taught me so much before they went to the compost heap, which I suppose is plant heaven. Even then, they became part of the compost I used to mulch all my pots and borders, so they’re still there. And here’s what’s currently my favourite bit of the garden, apart from all my other favourites! So of course life is good.

And thanks for listening to me wittering on, because I feel better. Yes, it’s been a tough month, but it’s February now, so winter is losing its hold and the days will get longer. My snowdrops will come out, and my bulbs now have lovely green leaves and the start of buds, even though they’re running late. And if it doesn’t stop raining soon, then I’m going to take up woodwork and build a raft while I work up to building an ark. Do you think I have to have a pair of slugs and another one of snails?

So have a good time till we meet on Tuesday, and please, let me know what tactics you use when the world feels dark and dreary…