We are just past the middle of February, it’s getting lighter in the mornings, the weather is an improvement on the weekend but I have to be honest, I’m not feeling it.
I’m tired and mostly grumpy, even though I have nothing to be grumpy about. It’s like I’m on overload, lights are too bright, noises (and people) are too loud, everything is too damn difficult and a week in room with a bed, some books and a radio sounds heavenly.
All that to say, I feel this month like I do in November. Which sucks, but the cure is the same, I just have to grind it out and eventually I will be happy and less irritable, for now though, this is where I am.
In November, I practice being cheerful and grateful, because I know that helps me reset my brain so here is a mini grateful list to remind me that I’m doing ok.
I have been at work every day at 8:30. So weather, SAD, PMT and GWR be damned, I am getting out of bed and doing what I need to do. Also the flat is more or less tidy. So I’m functioning and therefore cannot be nearly as useless as I feel.
It’s getting lighter in the mornings
I got to Grace this month, which I really needed. I’ve entertained people that weren’t my mother in my house, been out to dinner and a birthday party.
Seedlings, which is a very cheering thing, new life and growing etc
I woodchipped the allotment in the snow, so well done me for both physical effort AND a tidy plot. 
Also hurrah for the garlic and onions surviving winter and the broadbeans germinating and coming to life.
This was send to me yesterday! I don’t do Valentine’s Day at all but my friends know me well!
Whatever else is going on a glass of wine and some chocolate are good for me!
So that’s where I am right now. Grinding it out. It will be Spring soon….
The plot was looking a bit sorry for itself. However, the rhubarb and broad beans were coming up and the onions and garlic and chard were doing all right. 
So we walked to the main gate and saw a huge pile of woodchip. I knew that the woodchip had been delivered on Wednesday but that stuff never stays around long, so I didn’t think that it would still be there on Saturday but the dark nights and cold weather had put people off and there it was. I borrowed a wheelbarrow from the community plot and Ma filled up the buckets.
I other news the seedlings have started to emerge. This is the cavolo nero
It’s all very exciting, I’m so pleased with everything we’ve done so far but really want the weather to improve so we can get going with some actual work on the plot!
See that stodgy bit in the middle. Raw dough. Which is not what you want to see. This was towards the edges of the loaf, right in the centre was a hold formed by heavy unsunk dough sinking to the bottom of the bread. Not my finest hour.
Took out the raw bits of the rest and made breadcrumbs with the cooked edges. 
What was cooked, was good and will make great breadcrumbs but it wasn’t quite what I had in mind. Next time, I’ll have more patience and a lower oven temperature!
Everyone seems to have a different idea about when and how and where to start sowing seeds but the general consensus seems to be to ‘hold your horses’ and don’t try to grow everything all at once. I don’t have a shed or a greenhouse or a polytunnel or even a cloche and so I’m going to have to be a bit patient about what I start off indoors but there are some things I can do this month.
In March, I’ll sow more cavolo nero, the tomatoes, summer squash and cucumbers indoors and towards the end of April, the winter squash. The beans, peas, salad, beetroot, chard, carrots and flowers, I’ll sow straight into the ground like I did last year, although I’ll probably start a little bit earlier than May for some of them!
I also potted some cuttings I took from the lemon scented geranium in the bathroom. I’m planning on planting them at the bottom of the plot in the summer. I still have a plan to plant lavender to mark the divide between Joe’s plot and mine but that will be quite expensive and these smell nice and were free. They won’t survive the winter but the bathroom plant is a beast and I have to give it a good haircut at least once a year so I’m not hung up on wasting cuttings.
Monthly. I printed off these monthly grids and added birthdays, bank holidays and other significant dates, I keep them in the back of book in case I need to add things to them but only stick them in as the month starts.
The other side of that monthly lay out is for monthly goals. This is a page in development as I think it will change as I work out how better to use it.
Weekly. I have a two page spread that works exactly like my diary pages used to. I put appointments and daily tasks in and use it in all the ways I used to use my diary, the only difference being that I set it up the week before I need it.
Menu planning also gets a weekly page but it usually gets set up in the week prior to me using it. My food weeks go from Sat to Friday and I tend to plan and put the shopping and food prep to-do list on one page.
The BuJo things that don’t work for me are the symbols for tasks, ideas and so on. I’m just not that organised that I need it and remembering what was what wasn’t helping me feel in control. The other thing is the index, too much effort to fill in, the one provided isn’t long enough and looking it up just took too long. Instead, I make tabs for the monthly spread and the blog and I guess for anything else I’ll keep going back to at the moment that’s just the allotment plan/to-do/plant growing list. I cut off the monthly tab when the month finishes.
The weekend was unexpectedly full. I was out at a birthday party on Friday, out for dinner on Saturday night and booked for the cinema on Sunday afternoon. Which is a lot of people, if you’re me. Something had to give. For me that was Saturday morning volunteering at the allotments. I wanted to go but I also knew that I couldn’t do that and be ok come Sunday night. As it goes, I’m writing this at 7pm on Sunday and then going to bed because my head hurts and I’m tired.
I’m sad that I missed the volunteer day but I needed some alone time. People are draining. There in a misconception that I’m an extrovert because I really like people. While some introverts are anxious in social situations, I’m not but I find other people exhausting. So sometimes the right thing to do is not to do something…
I use the Delia Smith marmalade recipe as a base except I just use granulated sugar instead of preserving sugar. For this batch I made a dark marmalade by subbing 500g of the white sugar with dark brown sugar. This idea came from 
I find the shredding part quite therapeutic…
And there you have it, my first batch of 2017… There are lots of other ways you can play with the flavour, a glug of whiskey or gin would work well, but I think I like it best like this?
Nic Dempsey 