Get a hobby!
Guernsey Donkey2
Posts: 6,713
As most of you will probably know, I am virtually housebound through illness, which means that I spend as much time as possible in the garden, but don't have the energy or health to venture much further. Car trips are limited to perhaps once a month or even longer intervals. We are lucky enough to have a huge garden and a couple of fields and I potter about outside and luckily my OH does most of the heavy work like lifting pots, refilling water cans and general digging.
The garden is a real pleasure for me, and I try to spend a few hours in it every day at this time of year. We feed the birds, the hedgehogs too and grow many pollen producing plants and trees and have a few wild flower patches too. I don't expect everyone to enjoy gardening and until you get down to actually doing it yourself, you can wonder as to why other people derive so much pleasure from producing their own fruit and vegetables, pretty flowers and trees.
So imagine my dismay when relatives visited us this week and suggested that I get a hobby so I don't spend so much time doing "nothing", this after I had given them a tour of our garden. They must think we have some sort of garden fairy who waves fairy dust and everything looks wonderfully cared for as if by magic. When I think back to my late father working tirelessly in his beautiful garden, I knew that it was such a joy to him to see it develop over the years, but I don't think I appreciated the effort it took to keep it looking so lovely - but I do now.
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It is on a slope so has been "layered", has borders, island beds, rockeries, water features, scree, woodland, serious potager, alpine house, greenhouse, arbours, lawns, terraces, pots..................
Can't tell you many people, even keen gardeners, don't believe they don't have help and always ask how many hours of work it takes each week to maintain it. They also don't believe the answers - it isn't work, it's our pleasure. Time spent depends on the season and what else they have on as they have many other interests but so many people only see a garden as work.
Don't get me wrong, she loves to come round and look at the garden, and appreciates it. It's nice to see it through someone else's eyes, and l know what she was saying, but it's my hobby. I have no skills in the crafts department, my art teacher at school despaired of me and although l can knit (after a fashion), it holds no pleasure for me. My only other hobby is reading and l suppose you could say watching TV (although naturally l only watch really highbrow stuff 😎).
I find it a strange suggestion @Guernsey Donkey2, that you should get a hobby, but then there's now't so queer as folk as they say !
I think GD should have explained that her hobby was garden design! Very on trend