July To-do List

A couple of summers ago, planting these dahlias was on my To-do list for an eternity.

I got around to do it, but well into the summer. It was too late, by any gardener standards. They ended up flowering in autumn. I think some didn’t even get to fully bloom before Halloween.

But I over-wintered them, and the following spring they got started nice and early. That spring we got the whole allotment going early. We planted tomatoes in March.

In June, we were having tomato feasts daily while admiring the various dahlia varieties that got planted late the previous year.

So I guess one could say we didn’t plant them late, we actually planted them very early…

This works with perennial plants, but with annuals… not so much.

This year, the tomatoes were planted late. I sunk into a novel sometimes in February / march, right when I should have got started in the garden… I guess, I just follow my own seasons, and my garden simply reflects my life and where I am at.

The cherry tomatoes are getting ready to harvest about now… the bigger ones are at various stages, between flowering and being green, still.

Around here, people often say : ça va se faire.

Meaning, it will get done, when I’ll get around to it.

And that’s exactly how I manage my To-do lists these days.

Some things get done, some stay on the list for what feels like ever. But I don’t really stress about it:

“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.” ― Douglas Adams.

Sometimes it also feels like things on the To-do list are cursed. As soon as they make it to the list, they are even less likely to get done any time soon.

A few weeks ago, I added:

→ Go swimming in the river every day.

I only did it twice. I have tried to convince myself to go and do it pretty much daily, but all the things that are not on the To-do list always get in the way!

And then there are days when I just tackle a lot of things from the list in a flash, just like that. For no particular reason.

Here are a few examples of the list long time residents, that finally got to manifest into my reality recently:

→ Switching my laptop to Linux – that was on the winter To-do list, and I was dreading it a bit. But it turned out it was a lot more straight forward than expected. And it’s great. I just wish I had done it sooner.

→ Putting up a wardrobe that I bought flat packed over Easter weekend. I finally found it in me to do it on Bastille Day (2 days ago). It’s a huge improvement in terms of mess management in the bomb site I call home.

Here are a few things from the gardening department that I am off to do next, hopefully today!

→ Prune and trellis the late planted tomato plants – the ones who are only starting to flower now… I think they will need all the help available.

→ Looking into doing something with all the plums, before they all wither away with the heat.

→ Check on the artichokes.

This will be a nice, manageable list to tackle, while procrastinating the other stuff from the dreaded work / admin list.

Hopefully, the church bells will ring the Angelus – aka the starter pistol for all the evening chores – before I even get a chance to attempt to catch up on these…

But then, I probably won’t have the time to go swimming in the river either….

Tomorrow. Tomorrow, I will do it.

A listless good luck to you all, may you free your busy heads with To-do lists.

Noémie.