Nurturing thyself

One of the lessons from the parenting course I attend is about nurturing ourselves. We give so much to the family each day we sometimes forget about ourselves. But it is also important that we nurture ourselves. Things like reading, listening to music, gardening, having a nice, slow shower etc. Part of it is to keep us sane. We can't be doing chores and looking after the children all day long and not do a thing for ourselves. We need to have sometime to relax and unwind.

After a bad week, I went for some 'therapy' today. First stop was my favourite garden centre, Long Acres. I arranged to meet Anne, my family-support friend there. Upon reaching there, I went on my own to browse while she took Lavigne with her to other parts of the centre. I could shop in peace but had a hard time deciding what to buy. I was tempted to buy more but due to my *bad experience with the university's gardener, I'd decided not to do anything to my back garden this year and instead, plant my flowers in pots and put them in the tiny front garden. Might as well since I've got bad hayfever this year. The flowers will cheer me up when I go out of my house and when I come home. I need some gardening therapy to tide over my low mood. Anne brought Lavigne to the cafe and we had a chat there before leaving to meet Emily for lunch. I did a little bit of retail therapy as well. Though my therapy today wasn't good for my wallet (I didn't spend that much), it cheered me up a little. I'm looking forward to gardening over the weekend. Hope the weather won't be as bad as it was in the forecast.

*The day after I came back from Cornwall, I realised the university gardener who mows our lawn and cut the hedge has removed all the weeds (big as plants) on my back garden bedding including my perennials! He'd used a motorised cutter and hacked away everything, not stopping to check what was a weed and not. I'd neglected the garden since Winter so dandelions were everywhere. I had planned to move the perennials to the front when I come back from the trip. The really big plants like the lavender he left them intact. But other plants I'd bought last year were beginning to flower and now they're all gone. It was not the first time he'd done it. In my second month when I was here, he'd mowed over my skimmia. One of 2 plants I'd ever bought. It wasn't a tiny plant but bigger than a basketball. I was in the bedroom and saw him going over it. He claimed he didn't see the plant and few days later replaced it with something else which I didn't like. Strange though he'd said he didn't see my plant when he went over it with the mower but could replace it with something similar. Whenever he trims the hedge, the cuttings will be all over my plants. The back garden incident nearly put me off gardening altogether. But I love flowers too much to give it up. What I'm going to do is to plant them in pots and when he comes and cut the hedge, I'll move them out of the way or hope that he'll do so if I'm not around.