Jumping in Muddy Puddles

There are some days when no matter how hard I try, I acheive absolutely nothing. While on others I get so much done I wonder if someone has stretched the hours to last a bit longer. We had one of the latter days today and I feel very chuffed with myself. With the help of Garden Girl and Garden Boy, I managed to change and wash the bedding, sweep the floors, remove all weeds and unwanted bugs from the greenhouse, clean the entire greenhouse on the inside, jump in a big muddy puddle, clean up two very muddy children, bake cakes for the playgroup bake sale, fill the dishwasher and clean the children's wellies. And somewhere, in the middle of all that, I drove our Little Garden Helpers to the swimming pool so they could swim with Garden Dad in his lunch hour.

The biggest acheivement for me however, was not the amount of things we got done, but the fact that, having discovered the huge quantity of spiders, snails, baby slugs, centipedes, earwigs, peabugs and unidentified insects squatting in our greenhouse, I actually did manage to clean it. It must have been the amount of fun our Little Garden Helpers were having that distracted me enough not to run away, batting my head with flailing arms, every time a drip of water landed on my head.

I feel certain that would have been my behaviour had they not been there. The fear that something crawly or wriggly might land on my head, or fall down my neck, was alleviated by the intense scrutiny Garden Boy was giving each and every insect he found. The total delight he had on his face when he shouted 'Look' and pointed to an insect, just could not be ignored. For the first time, I really watched some of these creatures going about their business, instead of flicking them away as quickly as possible and somehow it made them a little bit more bearable to be around. I managed not to jump away when, with each weed, I disturbed yet another family of insects. (The baby slugs did get a knock on the head with a stone though and the snails were all removed after being admired.)

And by the time we came to washing the windows, we were having too much fun getting wet to worry about the drips not being drips. The 'greenhouse clean' ended with Garden Girl scooping up a lot of soil into the bucket of water, sloshing it about and then tipping it up to create a muddy puddle Peppa Pig would give her tail to jump in. The most mundane of garden tasks was turned into a fun, giggle-filled morning and once again I am grateful for the huge rewards I get back from my children.