Shhhh It's 4.30 A.M.

Gardening on the balcony

One thing I am determined not to do this summer holiday is to let DD and I waste the whole nine weeks doing nothing. By doing nothing I mean eating, sleeping, and watching screens. DD's last day of school was Friday. She finished at noon and went off to her youth club for a couple of hours (the final meeting of the year). She came home to throw her shoes off, scrutinize her end of year report card (it was fine) and then crumple into the back of the sofa with her tablet where she marveled about how she could theoretically stay there for two months.

I let her have Shabbat to wallow in a false sense of security and then I burst her bubble. But in order to follow through with my dastardly plan I had to also get myself ready. On Saturday night I did the dishes in the sink, folded and put away all the clean laundry, and generally tidied up the whole apartment. This should be a nightly activity I know, I've seen all the You Tube vlogs. Trouble is, these You Tubers are full time, professional You Tubers. All they have to do all day is wash the dishes, fold the laundry and tidy up and then they sit at the computer for eight hours editing the footage. When I'm working I just about get some supper on the table for DD and I'm done for the night. Every three days or so we run out of dishes so I have to wash up.

Anyhoo, back to the holiday. On Sunday morning I woke up to a clean and tidy home which meant I was ready to hit the ground running rather than spend all morning doing the previous night's chores. DD was home for the day as her Summer School starts tomorrow. (It's a day camp till 1 pm for three weeks.) I did have some work to do on my own summer course (facilitating not taking) and trying to get my year course students to finish already by issuing a final final absolutely non-negotiable extended time. And then I dragged DD out to the plant nursery.

Remember those celebrations and projects I embarked on in January? No? Oh all right then. Well April was supposed to be making the balcony bloom. More about that another day because DD had actually made a start on it, but we combined the continuation with the first project of the summer and off we went.

Two 'trees' waiting for permanent housing.

I'd popped in earlier in the week to ask if they make deliveries and they do. Like kids in a toy shop we picked out what we wanted and I didn't even look at the prices. I collected all the planters, chose a 'tree' for inside (now that I have so much space to fill), and found out how much soil we needed to buy. DD went forth with a cardboard box to collect the plants she wanted. I let her get on with it. Apart from being told by the man (what is he - the horticulturist?) which plants are suitable for a west facing balcony in the Middle East, she had free reign to choose any 10 plants she fancied. We have room for so many more but we also have seeds and we want to try growing our own as well as just using transplants *giggle*.

Having walked in the heat of the day to the plant nursery we were more than happy to accept a ride home from the delivery man. And then we got to work. I say we, but I had some emails to attend to and DD was more than capable. I commandeered a few of  the planters for specific things and she dealt with the rest. We've not finished but DD has done her bit and she had a swimming lesson to go to so we left the rest for me to do today.

We walked to swimming. DD had a private lesson because her swimming partner has broken his arm. I'm only mentioning this because it's much more exhausting to have a private lesson than to share a lesson. We walked home via the felafel shop and bought supper. DD was starving as apart from all the exercise, I suddenly realized that she'd only eaten a bowl of watermelon for breakfast and a banana before swimming. We seem to have forgotten about lunch.

And then we couldn't keep our eyes open We both got into bed at 7.30. Suddenly we weren't tired at all so we laughed about that and five minutes later DD was asleep. Ten minutes later it was 3 am so I guess I also fell asleep. I rolled over and went back to sleep for a while but eventually got up at 4.30 feeling ever so virtuous and Miracle Morning. It's now actually 6 am. DD is still asleep. I'm going to finish this blog and then ...... well I have to do last night's dishes in the sink, finish gardening, do some work on my Summer Course, get DD off to Summer School at 8, and meet a friend for coffee at 10.

So summer so good.