hmmpf

**pulls out a fresh tissue**

I am soooooo over this whole MS thing. It pisses me off no end that it bites so hard at just doing ordinary things.

I brought home a very large and very dead punga the other day from my sister (in 2 pieces, it was too big and heavy to handle in one). It's been on the list of things to do for a while, even though at the time I said I'd take it I had no idea where the hell I was going to put it.

Since then, I had decided I needed a new garden, having not "created" anything for a while and feeling rather bereft for the lack, so I had started planning it and the arrival of the punga (and some baby agaves) prompted me to get digging and just do it.

So I did. Now I have a neat new garden bed outside my bedroom window with the pungas in pride of place and so far populated with a couple of red flaxes, a hebe (grown from cutting), a ponytail palm (thanks Shaz), a variegated yukka (thanks Vic), a bit of this and a bit of that and approximately half of my calla lilies. Next to go in will be the best part of a hundred irises, some daffs and lots of marigolds (when I sow the seeds, they germinate and grow big enough to transplant). By then, I will have decided where the next garden is going.

I should also have made a list of changes needed in the vege garden next year - less veg (just basics like spuds, pumpkin, toms, corn, shallots and cucumbers), more fruits (white alpine strawberries, boysenberries and raspberries) and decided which method to use to carry the berry fruit vines I want to focus on and where to plant the tomatoes all in one spot instead of 4 separate locations. I should also have figured out which annual type flowers I want in (less californian poppies, more carnations and other poppies), planned where to put a huge plot of sunflowers and found homes for all the cuttings of various kinds I have coming along.

Just thinking about it makes me tired. More tired. Thank God Sequel mowed the lawn.

When I was at my sister's the other day, I admired her compost bins and wished I had one like them. This afternoon, my neighbour the lawnmowing man came over with a 240l compost bin that one of his clients didn't want any more, asking did I want it? Cool, eh! What else could I say but "fuck, yes please!"

So I did. Well via Adam in a half asleep, partially coherent fashion - it was nap time, after all.

Now the contents of my compost drum has a real home, a rotting one to be proud of. I also have a new green waste compost pile at the other end of the garden, made from the top skimmings of my new beds. It should be nicely composted down by next spring when I need it.

Am I boring you? Surely not! I bet I'm amusing the hell out of my bloody mother, the real gardener and inspiration for my efforts- I'm not a gardener's arsehole lol

But I am sick and I am tired and I am pushing my weakening arms and legs to harden up and get some bloody muscle tone going (even though it's pretty damn good anyway); that old "use it or lose it". I'm very scared I'm going to lose it - I've been a bit too sedentary the past couple of months.

Today a compost bin, tomorrow, maybe a backpack spray unit. Next week, a Crossfire would be nice and the month after that, that really really big thing I want.

Yeah, don't I wish.