I MADE A PLAN....

Friday morning was supposed to be sunny until 9.00. Thinking of all the good advice I give people about planning their day [see The Back of an Envelope and an Eyebrow Pencil] I made a plan. I wrote what I had to do down and attached a time limit to them, and then ranked them in order of importance urgency. Note: this generally entails getting up early so it might put some people off.

6.00am Get up, have breakfast, clear up, make bed*, get dressed. Pack boot of car with bean plants for my allotment and Althea officinalis for the herb allotment. Plus a boot full of cardboard because Charles Dowding told me to, in preparation for 2 tonnes of compost.

*[If husband not still in it].

7.00 Drive to allotment, unpack car and plant bean plants and Althea officinalis plants, do some weeding, tie up some canes. Try to avoid glances from other allotmenteers who are probably wondering where I have been for the last three weeks. Easy to avoid glances if I hide behind weeds…

9.00 Head back home. Shower. Hair wash. Oh, divine! Clear up kitchen and answer emails. Put a wash on.

10.00 Work on assignment for college. It’s about resources. I’m nearly at 3,000 words and I must say it is not inspiring. Two hours should crack it…

12.00 I’m a good girl. I spent 2 solid hours writing and researching and I’m ready for a break. Have an early lunch. Clear up kitchen and make a plan for Alice to follow so she can cook dinner for 17.00

13.00 Out in the garden, hanging up wash, potting on courgettes and squash into bigger pots, writing a ‘sowing and planting’ list. Whatever month it is I always have just missed something. When I first look it is too early, so I wait and then it is too late. How does this happen every time? Take carrots and parsnip; I avoid the frost, then I miss the opportunity – where did it go?

14.00 Tidy office/pharmacy and dispensary ready for students at the weekend

15.00 Spend an hour writing part of a module study guide for the herbal medicine course.

16.00 Make a spelt bread sourdough and a rye sourdough and feel like I’m ‘back to basics’ in a rustic kinda way. Just don’t ask me what happened to my chickens last week.

16.30 Tidy garden room, just a bit.

17.30 Have dinner. Organise clear up. Work day is done. Now I get to relax with a book or laptop feeling smug that I have motored through the day getting things done. It works because I don’t have to make choices, the list tells me what to do. If I don’t have a list I get distracted and don’t achieve so much.

TBH, the smuggest feeling is that 2 hours at the beginning of the day. …