It has been a frustrating year in many ways for me, in that I am trying to set up new contacts and clients for my consultancy, and at the same time have been wanting to spend as much time as possible with my little girl, who is new to primary school and has needed support settling in, and with my little boy, who spends a couple of days a week at the super local nursery and who is a pleasure to keep entertained on the other days.
What this has meant is that I am spending a lot of background time building up contacts on and offline, but am finding that time just trickles away as I try to focus my efforts on both children, work, running our home and the garden which we have been setting up as a colourful and productive mixture of fruit, vegetables and flowers.
I spent a lot of time on my knees in our front garden this past autumn and winter, removing weeds and stones from the thin soil, chatting to people who walked past and probably thought I was mad, spending so much time sifting through rubbish, then carefully adding in green and brown manures over the season. Nothing seemed to happen, instead of a border full of weeds we had a border of thin soil and uprooted green manure, covered in black weed suppressant.
Then the seeds were planted and nurtured in the coldframe and transplanted after the frosts; we watched the weather forecast for a while in case the plants needed rescuing; our weather was great so they didn’t, but we sat back and soon the border, and the rest of the garden, has gone mad with flowers and vegetables, mostly big fat peas and swelling courgettes.
The garden needs frequent but not constant care, we are blessed with frogs to counter the slugs and the birds take care of the snails, bashing them out on the stepping stones before they can make a dint in our produce.
When I look back at the effort of jobs and lists and things that needed doing with no visible reward, I can think differently about setting up the business and getting through the tasks that need doing before I can fully launch myself into work and being fully productive.
Where it works best is when I set myself contained and achievable tasks that can be done in a set time, then I can see some form of progress – if not the whole picture. As the days slip away now in a series of sports days, end of year picnics and preparations for the long summer holiday, I will be squirreling away time and actions, building up in the background, enjoying the summer but also waitig for the time when my working life can blossom like our current garden and the results will be as visible and as productive as our happy courgette plants.