Monday, May 09, 2016

Monday

You could not have a day as different as today was, when compared to yesterday. Oh, I don't mean to imply that today was worse, though one could argue that gray skies are by definition less colorful than a sparkling blue, especially as a backdrop to May blossoms and delicate greens. So yes, we have the gray skies and you needed a sweater if you were to sit outdoors, but I didn't spend much time outdoors -- and in this lies the great difference. (Nor did I see Snowdrop who is for a couple of days still under the care of the young parents and their visiting guest.) My planting done (except for our veggie garden, but it remains too cold to plant tomatoes), I now move into the maintenance stage of yard work -- a much more "day to day, let's decide as we go along" type of thing.

No maintenance today. I catch up, instead, with life on the inside.

Sure, I let the cheepers out.


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Yes, I admire the lilacs.


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And the cascading phlox.


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And we even eat breakfast on the porch, because it's just so pretty out there.


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(Ed claims the garden is beautiful when the crab apple petals fall to create a snowlike cover over the path...)


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But then I hide inside. (An appropriate yard analogue: Ed's mom's bronze figurine, hiding in our woodland garden.)


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By late afternoon I feel absolutely sick with inactivity. The last days were so intense and difficult (and thus beautiful), and suddenly, I am sitting in at the kitchen table all day catching up on paperwork, casting an eye at Ed who is in the courtyard, fixing, in turn, my car's shock tower, rosie the moped's starting mechanism, and my bike's tires. Ever since Snowdrop came into this world, I've biked so little, Normandy to the contrary notwithstanding, that I can't even remember my bicycle's pet name!

Time to get going!

Late, and under the threat of rain, I let go of my computer, mount my bike and pedal over to the library to return due videos (we are that rare breed that chooses library videos over a subscription to Netflix).

It's not a long ride. But it's hilly. I feel good about that. I can still wrestle the difficult. And that's a good thing.