The first hurdle.
I had a feeling that I would fall at this particular hurdle when I read one of Bovey Belle's blog posts recently and she spoke about buying plants ... gosh she even called it Temptation at the Garden Centre. I thought to myself straight away, while I was still reading it ... I didn't really think about that one did I?
Alan loves to go for a coffee and a meal out and of course I had worked that part of it into my No Spend Challenge rules by saying every time that happened I had to repay his paying the bill for both of us by providing either a home-cooked meal for him, done or a sweet treat or snack ... also done, out of my food supplies.
What I had forgotten to consider is that two of the places we regularly go to, one of them where the dogs are welcome even inside on these cold blustery days, are two of the best places for glorious plants, garden accessories and colour ... and boy oh boy have I been missing colour in the garden.
I didn't realise how much until I saw this photo that I took last week. It looked so brown and dreary. Yes the little Tete-a-Tete daffodils in the small pot have opened up now and that has helped enormously, and the Snowdrops look so pretty now that they are all out, but I wanted colour ... no I needed colour!!
So on Wednesday one trip to the
Daisy Clough tearooms and garden centre just up the road from us and next to where I had The Van, was all it took for my hurdle to come crashing down, my blinkers to come off and some glorious Spring colour, a black wooden planter that was reduced to £7.50 and a plant support in my shade of green to come home with me.
Fail number one.
The next fail I hadn't even considered ... Alan's need for sunshine and a complete get away from it all holiday. Because of lockdowns, moving house and my bad health we haven't even been able to consider getting away for the last few years and it's actually over ten years since we jetted off for some proper sunshine. He's really feeling the need to chill for a good ten days with nothing to do but sleep, eat, drink and bask in the sunshine. So how could I say no when he's been working so hard with our company for so long. Being company owners we just don't get fixed holidays, we just take a day here and a day there in amongst all the work days.
So as of the start of this week we have a holiday booked for ten days in Alcudia, Spain.
So officially ... fail number two!!
In everything else I am going to continue trying not to fail, my food money is the same, my not wanting to buy anything unnecessary is the same but I have relaxed my rules somewhat in a bid for this Challenge not to fail completely. After all it's my Challenge and my rules so if something comes up I must try to adapt and continue rather than just throwing in the towel.
Now if it would just stop these intermittent and very heavy hailstone showers I could go out and plant the last couple of pretty plants in the apple tree barrel and spread a little bit more joy around our garden. I'll try and take a better photo once it's all done.
Sue xx
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