Category Archives: #MyTime

#MyTime Week 14 – Having a plan!

Slow-flowing honey

I’m always a little late in the season by the time I get round to finishing off spinning honey and bottling it.  So, it’s not unheard of that late October I am bottling the final jars of honey from that season and that was my job for today.

I’m working during the week so don’t always get enough time in an evening to do those sorts of jobs and so, last weekend, when I put the last bucket of honey into the settling tank, ready for bottling, I should have planned to bottle it very soon as it had already started to set.

Well, it wasn’t really a big surprise, when I came to bottling it today, that it was pretty slow to flow through the tap.

I thought I would have to resort to scooping it out but, after a little coaxing at the tap-end, and a lot of patience, I ended up with 15lbs of “semi-set” honey.

It made me think.  If my time is precious, which it is, then I need to plan properly to make the most of what time I have.  I still managed a few domestic chores and sowing the broad beans today but I really hadn’t expected to spend most of the afternoon encouraging honey to flow.

So, for #MyTime week 14, it is to make sure I have a plan to make the most of #MyTime even if maybe I won’t always stick to it.

#MyTime Week 13 – Gentle Veg Gardening

What a wonderful sunny October day it’s been today.  The weather both yesterday and today has been a really good extended Summer treat.

And this weekend I have enjoyed a little gentle vegetable gardening, clearing one end of a raised bed to discover a few hidden potatoes missed at the last harvest, tidying up the tomato bed and harvesting the last of the french beans.  I had planned to remove all of the tomatoes but there are lots still to come so a little tidy up has made them a little easier to harvest.

So tonight’s roast dinner will include home-grown beans, carrots and potatoes – yes, that is certainly something I want to continue for #MyTime.

And an added bonus in the garden (tweeted from my other account) was a wonderful display from a hummingbird hawk month – a frequent visitor to the garden this Summer.

#MyTime Week 12 – Crafting Stories

This week’s #MyTime theme has been a little elusive.  In previous weeks, I was able to select things that had presented themselves to me during the week past or for the week to come.  But this week, well I’ve been doing many of the things that I’ve already noted – seeing family, reading, singing, bottling honey – so I wondered if some of these weeks in the countdown to 60 might be revisiting themes.  That may well be true as I go through the process but I think there is something else that is important for me to capture as a #MyTime theme, and something this website had been established to fulfill.  And that is crafting stories.  I did a year-long Twitter project (#Talein10) to write a tale in ten words each day in an attempt to keep open the story door within lots of time constraints and I haven’t done as much as I would have liked since then but now is the time to set out that intention.

When I have time, I’d like to fill in some of the gaps in my grandfather’s story of The Long Walk and there are many more stories for me to craft, re-discover and tell.

So, #MyTime at minus 29 weeks of my countdown is “Crafting Stories”.

#MyTime Week 11 – Reading: Novels

Having spent the summer months finishing a few great reads – by novelists Diane Chamberlain, Joanne Harris, Christina McKenna and Adam Croft and now fresh into a novel by Ruth Dugdall – I have resolved that reading is definitely a pastime I want to continue and use any spare #MyTime I have available.  And it is novels I enjoy immersing myself in most of all.

Quite often other things take up precious time and any books I am reading are visited fairly infrequently but of late I have dipped in at any available moment and been happy to spend a snatched ten minutes or half-hour which in turn has made me want to dip in again, soon.  So maybe I have found a way that I can read a lot more and more often even if only in short spans of time.  But, hey, that’s OK.

#MyTime Week 10 – honey production

honey spinner

Honey pouring from a radial spinner

Yes, I can see that honey production will continue to be a theme for me in #MyTime – not so much when I have the time, but rather as I need to make the time!  This year I managed to get the bulk of the honey spun fairly early – for me at least – back in June but there remains a few supers still to sort so that’s what I’ve been doing today.  It’ll take me a few days and then there’s the bottling but the reward is worth it.

I think #MyTime might feature a few more products of the hive but honey is a pretty crucial one.  It’s my regular hay-fever cure (a spoonful of local honey each day throughout the year) and you can’t get much better than your own back garden for “local” honey.  Plus I manage to keep the family supplied as well as selling jars from the door (as well as from a little shop in Beaminster).

So, yes, #MyTime includes honey production.

#MyTime Week 9 – time for song

#MyTime for Song

I’m looking forward to getting back to a weekly choir session this week after our summer break.  Learning new songs and singing with others makes it even more special.

There is definitely room for song and singing in #MyTime so I am pleased to bring song into my countdown.

Collecting seeds for #MyTime

Yes. Had a day off today and gathered some cosmos seeds for germination in the Spring. Still plenty of flowers yet though so will probably add to the supply in a week or two. So that’s lavender and cosmos in the bag (literally). What else should I try I wonder … ?

#MyTime Week 8 – greenhouse gardening

greenhouse

Still plenty of tomatoes in the greenhouse

Plenty of tomatoes left in the greenhouse and the sun is still shining so they are ripening well.  It’s been a great crop this very sunny Summer and I’ve mostly kept up with the watering in there so have had good quality fruit too.  (OK I admit I get some rogue leaders as I’m a bit lax at pinching out the side shoots.)

I’ve been running a greenhouse for quite a few years now and, as well as a regular tomato and chilli crop, manage to germinate early seeds too – lavender and cosmos from seeds I gather from the garden and other flowers and vegetables too.

I’d like to get a bit more clever with the timings though so that I am using the greenhouse throughout the seasons and not just overcrowding in the spring and, if I’m honest, using it as a bit of a dumping ground for the rest of the season!  So, for one of #MyTime intentions, I’d like to get clever with my greenhouse gardening – a little light research over the winter will come in handy I think!  And, in my general sorting, I could lose some of those plastic pots and sort the potting shed out to house some other stuff that takes up the staging space.

 

#MyTime Week 7 – health and wellbeing

After all, I’m not getting any younger (isn’t that what this is all about?)

After a summer break, I restarted with pilates this week.  I’ve only been doing it for a few months and have had some really good results.  My aim was to build some of that core strength and re-energise muscles that don’t get enough attention in my sedentary life and it’s working.  My back, knees and general move-ability has improved and I’m able to walk much further and easier.  So, that is certainly something I want to continue.  The pilates is just one of those building blocks to enable me to be more mobile.  So, I’ve been really please to re-engage and keep reminding myself the importance of general fitness.

#MyTime Week 6 and it’s family contacts

My regular trip to Birmingham this weekend – an opportunity to get my hair cut and visit my Mom.  (I know, there must be a hairdresser closer but I am a creature of habit and I know what I like!)

I always enjoy a trip into Birmingham’s city centre when I visit but this time I didn’t stay around the town.  Instead, I headed to Bewdley and made a call on my brother and we had a very nice lunch and catch-up by the river before I continued the journey home to Dorset.

In fact it had been quite an unexpected family visit as nephew and family were visiting from Canada so I not only got to briefly catch up with my other brother and his wife, my nephew and his wife but also meet my grand-niece for the first time and my grand-nephew for only the third.

That’s made me think about family contacts.  I have quite a separate life from most of my family but I do want to maintain ties, and so #MyTime, when I have some to spare, will definitely include reaching out to family members to say hello.  In this technological age, that doesn’t need to be racking up the road or air miles but I do still have one grand-niece I haven’t yet met.