The August Project

We have set ourselves a BIG task.

August is our month for sorting the house, the garden and the summer house.

Yikes!

We are planning to go away to the Netherlands in September but have made the commitment to stay home this August and clear the decks for the year ahead.

In all honesty we have been kind of frozen since Frank's diagnosis and have only recently been glimpsing the light at the end of the tunnel.

Nobody bounces back from this kind of diagnosis but some people seem so able to use its force for good so much more quickly than me.

I don't envy them that, I just accept that I have taken as long as I have needed.

Now it is time for me to be a bit creative and to be more IN CONTROL than I maybe felt before.
So, here is the list with photographic evidence of some progress (and going public with it makes it more likely to happen!):

This August I will:

• Get a seasonal book basket organised for Frank and sort the Nature Table
  



• make use of all the herbs, flowers and veg in the garden (see basil for pesto above. Pesto in fridge as I write. Courgette soup in freezer. Fresh herbs and flowers from garden in various vases. But no time for complacency as the quince will need care and the sunflowers will need to be used for the birds and the fig will need the fruit using.)
  
  



• Help in any way I can as Mr Muffinmoon and Mr B put up the pergola (in reality this involved me making tea, cold drinks and soup from courgettes from our garden and Tom's allotment. Oh,wait, I did help hold it steady a bit whilst they did some bashing with big hammers. It was all very Witness.)
  
• Clear out all the junk in the summer house and get it set up as a sewing studio for myself (this is almost done!! Yay! Photos to follow when it's complete).
• Reorganise the pantry so that I can actually see most of the food that we have in the house (getting there, slow progress being aided by actually eating the food; a cunning plan!).
• Sort the mass of shoes and jackets hanging in the hall and just have the ones we need there. Put others away until Winter. (Mostly done).
• Preserve as much food as I can find time for (lots of jam already made, soup made and frozen, plans for more such jolities ...).
• Sort and minimise Frank's toys and games and puzzles that litter the house and seem to have no real place. Less is more for these things and he seems to mostly play trains, paint with his watercolours, do some crafting and use his Lego. The rest gets left to trip me up or pierce my bare feet! Long way to go on this one, don't hold your breath for photos).
• Dig over one side of the garden (actually this can continue right into Autumn) for growing herbs and veg next year.

OK, this might explain why I have been absent for a few days. All the above and some weird growth hormones playing havoc with Frank's numbers at night and keeping me up to give him water and change a flooded bed far too bleedin' often. I have also been in major sorting mode as I WILL NOT BE BEATEN by this.

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So, my friends, the truth is "out there" and I am now officially accountable for regular reports of progress.

Oh, and a requested recipe for the date slices we had a few posts ago is coming up soon in all its wholewheat datey glory.

Stay tuned...