There was a time when I worked in London and my son was young, when seconds seemed like jewels.
I would park at my local ASDA and mow a trolley down the aisles, grabbing groceries for the week: fresh for now, frozen for later. And I really mean grab, and sling, no pausing to compare prices or anything ridiculous like that. I work hard, surely I can afford a bag of bloody frozen peas whatever they cost. Grab. Sling. Pay. Sit in an hour of traffic to travel what would have been a twenty minute walk. Get home and traipse back and forth to unload fifteen bags of groceries from the car, after hugging the love of my life, the dog. Only kidding. Well, sort of.
Time can’t be saved up for use later, and the idea of time well spent is completely subjective. Now, when I have the time, I choose to water my garden with a watering can rather than the hose, so it takes me two hours rather than twenty minutes to get the job done. Lunacy isn’t it? Wonderful lunacy.
Lugging a full watering can up and down a slope is a great exercise. I’m quite shattered by the time I go indoors. It feels good. I also have time to look at each plant, and find the little new buds growing. I really go ape over that – new babies! It must be a primal thing. I’m sure my son is thankful I’m not like that with him.
I’m much more passionate about the growing process than the end result. By the time they’re well established, I’ve almost lost interest.
Then there’s the wildlife. I don’t know anything about animals, but in the middle of gardening, I love to sit down with a cuppa and look around.
Pretty easy to see how I can kill two hours watering a small garden. Maybe I should blow my melodica out here and expand it out to three. Time. The luxury of it.
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