Springtime
Spring is my favourite season. Partly benefiting from the relief of it simply not being winter anymore. But it's so joyous and hopeful. I'm looking ahead the next three months - though May has felt like full summer a lot of years recently.
Spring cleaning. We don't have the ashy residue of fires burning all winter to clean up but it's nice to feel fresh and ready for spring. Maybe later this month, maybe April, I'll take down the winter curtains. The windows all need a clean, and the back doors. After an unventilated winter everything needs a good airing. And I'll start being able to hang the washing outside. I love that.
DIY. The bathroom needs a new lick of paint and the downstairs toilet needs any paint at all - I don't think parts of that ever got more than a base coat and the skirting board got none. Once the weather is a bit less damp there's also painting to do in the front porch.
The stairs. Our stairs have been a pet project of my wife's, lovingly sanding and repairing them. Then she had to take a break. Too much stairs. Now she says she is ready to get back on them, plus she was inspired by what our neighbour has done with theirs.
Gardening! There are already lots of trays of dirt in the greenhouse and front window springing into life. This week I will be mostly sowing tomatoes.
The border. Also in the garden, I need to dig out some of the border to make more space. For those tomatoes. It's so full of decorative pebbles and in previous years I've been trying to pick them out. But it's fifty per cent decorative pebble, forty-nine per cent ivy and bramble root, and one per cent soil. There's no saving that. So I'm just going to dig it out, bag it, and take it to the recycling centre.
Birthday season. All families have those clusters of birthdays and I've got one just started, the bulk coming up. Every year I am determined to be organised. Maybe this year I will.
Swimming. Missed it last year but I've got a swim in Windermere in June and the season only starts in our local reservoir a few weeks before that. So we are redoubling our efforts at the pool - over winter we sort of ebbed to once a week.
Outdoors. As-near-weekly-as-possible trips to the woods resumed at the end of February. I'd like to get to know more walks along the canal. On the hunt for every little sign of spring.
Writing. Having given myself a big momentum boost last week I really want to keep that up. And my momentum is generally higher in spring and summer anyway.
Doing stuff. More D&D is booked at the board game cafe, games days, some quizzes, cinema trips, a concert, a show, the theatre, some local writing events.
I'll do a state of the projects report at some point later in the month.