Achieve or Do?

 Checking out the roses.
Puppy in the Orchard

Here's an idea to guarantee a hands-off gardening day. Take the early cup of tea outside and, while still waking up, ask the following question : What do I want to achieve today? Achieve? Aargh! Scary word, 'achieve'. Well, it certainly put me off.

Friday 21st November

Far too scary! So I took refuge in making mental list of all the things I wanted to 'do' instead. Garden maintenance tasks were inexplicably absent. Instead I had some lovely things like reading, playing piano, taking photographs, lunching with my friend, taking the dogs to the dog-park - I even thought of doing some sewing. Losing my wallet (which I managed to do before lunchtime) was not on the list, however...

Anyway, we went to the dog-park, after explaining sensitively to Fluff-Fluff the cat that he had to stay at home and wait for us. Cats did not go in the car to the dog-park. You see, Fluff-Fluff thinks of himself as an honorary dog, always coming for walks around the garden. Winnie the puppy is enjoying her dog-park experiences, gaining in confidence meeting the other dogs and socialising.

Then, after losing my wallet and ringing the bank, I did some piano practice. My friend and I have found some Schubert duets with which to enlarge our repertoire. They make a nice change from the gallivanting goblins in 'Night on Bald Mountain'. Perhaps Schubert is more 'in tune' with the pianistic passions of two deeply mature women?

Then the dogs and the cat and I went for yet another walk around the garden and I took lots of photographs. The garden looks really beautiful. The aquilegias are just finishing, while the lupins and foxgloves are tall with flowering stems.

The Roses...

Mixed in with all the lovely annual flowers, surrounded by still-fresh greenery, are the roses. Some are high in the trees, others are flopping over archways or sitting neatly in the front of a border, waiting to be noticed - all colours of the rose-rainbow.

Two memos to self :

  1. Please resist all temptation to bend down and pull out old forget-me-nots while wearing new apres-gardening shirt.
  2. Please pick some roses for the house vases. Don't forget the bathroom!

And the final thought for today. It's much more fun just to 'do' things, rather than trying to 'achieve' them. Hee, hee...