Tuesday 9 March 2010

Sickness, Cuddles and an Emerging Manager

Perhaps it is a good thing that spring is appearing late this year. For the past week we have had some lovely sunshine begging us to get outdoors and start work in the garden, but hot on the heels of chest infections, Garden Boy chose the nicest week of the year to fall ill with a sickness and diarrhea bug. On the plus side, the sunshine did provide Garden Girl with a means of distraction from all the attention Garden Boy was getting and she must have cycled a marathon in circles on our patio while I changed Garden Boy's nappies and clothes, cleaned him up, carpet shampooed the rug repeatedly, washed bedding, pillows, duvets and cushions and sat pinned to the sofa by a sick boy who could only find comfort in cuddles. 

On the occassions Garden Boy managed to sleep soundly in his bed or on the sofa I would join Garden Girl on the patio and try to pull up some weeds in the cracks between the paving the stones. I soon gave up on this task however, when I started to fear for the safety of my fingers which were in danger of being squashed beneath bicycle wheels. Instead I made a start at cutting back the herbs and have managed to tidy up about half of the bed. Beneath all the 'old wood' it was heartening to see the beginnings of new growth. I was ruthless with the rosemary and sage. I took cuttings of the rosemary last year so I knew I could replace it if I overdid the cutting back, but these big herbs were suffocating the oregano and marjoram and as these are amongst our favourite herbs I would like to encourage them to spread some more this year.

Other than that the only progress made in our garden during this lovely weather was at the weekend and not by myself but by Grandma South, who tirelessy hacked away at the ground behind the greenhouse which was filled with large rocks and stones, so that we could plant our raspberry canes there. Garden Girl was initially going to help but when she saw the size of the rocks buried in the soil, announced that it was 'too hard work' and went back to riding her bicycle before deciding it was too cold to be outdoors. She would occassionally visit Grandma South with words of encouragement along the lines of 'Keep up the hard work Little Digger', returning to tell me Grandma South was doing a good job.

So once again little progress has been made but I have enjoyed an abundance of cuddles from a little boy who is usually too busy to stop for cuddly moments and I have confirmed my suspicions that Garden Girl has management potential. When her playgroup leader asked her who was boss in her house she did say 'Mummy' but I feel that this is a precarious position and I must hold on tight as long as I can!

1 comment:

  1. Oh so sorry to hear little garden boy was unwell, hope its all getting back to normal now.

    PS you made me LOL when you described the fear for your fingers re the bicycle, made me think of the many times I was afraid for my own body parts due to the marauding kids and they implements, oops! I mean toys ;)

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