July is a Busy Month… But I’m Still Trailing Behind

The sun is actually shining and I think I spy some blue sky… which begs the question why I am sitting inside hunched over my laptop. Well, it’s work. I have work to do. In fact, I’ve had quite a lot of work to do lately, and although I can complain about the extra financial benefits, boy could I do with a break.

In between my office work days and my extra freelancing, my online e-commerce store and the boring humdrum daily stuff that I have to do (housework, bills, finding time to eat, and vacuuming up copious amounts of animal fluff), I’ve also taken on trying to help organise what we hope will be a big conference in a couple of years, PLUS a new website… and I’m sure there’s about 3 other things that I’m doing at the moment that I’ve forgotten to mention. And I’ve got more planned. Spreading myself too thinly? Possibly… but you know, if I don’t do it now I’ll never get around to it. Rich is busy too. We’re both floating around neglecting the house, the gazillion repairs and renovation jobs that need doing, and are living surrounded by piles of stuff and things to do. And things like the TV blowing up keep happening, so we’re not actually managing to save much money, despite the extra work.

My sleep patterns have gone awry and I’m being lazy with my cooking, which is such a shame. So I look a bit undead and the teenage spots have returned. It’s not a pretty picture. Yesterday we had cause to celebrate simply because we found the time to MOW, which we haven’t been able to do for literally weeks. I haven’t even harvested my Charlotte potatoes yet, and then there’s the onions and garlic that need harvesting soon (and finding somewhere to store them where a pile of stuff won’t fall on them), and somehow getting the weeds under control in the Mediterranean eating area, where the freshly dug ground is providing perfect growing conditions. I’m not even going to mention the bindweed. It’s ok. It’s ok! The bees like the flowers. It’s really OK.

The greenhouse looks like a jungle – I never got around to properly planting the squash plants in the straw bale that I’ve put in the greenhouse, but I think the extra insulation has really helped, as the squash plants that I left on open ground in there have rooted through the pots, and are flourishing. They’ve literally taken over, but everything else is growing on the greenhouse staging – tiny tomatoes and tiny chilli peppers. Everybody I’ve spoken to who are growing chillies and peppers are saying that they’ve got a rubbish crop this year.

GEESH.

SO. MUCH. TO. DO.

The massive Harry Potter fan that I am, I haven’t even managed to see the film yet. But that’s more out of choice. I don’t like massive crowds in the cinema.

But I’m OK. Honestly. I’ll schedule a week off soon and plough through it all, maybe just sort through the stuff and get rid of the clutter and file my paperwork and everything else in between. I might even manage to squeeze in a holiday. We live near a Go Outdoors store and managed to get a big tent at a steal, so we’re hoping that we’ll get to go camping by the sea or in a forest at some point. Maybe.

It just always seems to go that at the point in the year when I should be gearing up for some serious Smallest Smallholding stuff, I never seem to be able to have the time. But at the moment my priority is paying for things and trying to save… so it’s just the way it has to be, and I’m really OK with that right now.