I do have more than two pairs, as is happens - they last me a long time. No, today's title is because I now have two pairs of shoes that need cleaning....

I have felt extremely lethargic this past week - covid booster reaction? or was I tired? Did I have a cold?

Today was a sprakly kind of morning, and as I sat there reading the November chapter of Emma Mitchell's book 'The Wild Remedy' 

her words struck home, how being outside lifts your mood, and how much she loves to search for colour in the autumn.. So I got up, put on a coat, and we went 'down the back', which means through the back gate, through the dense laurel hedge which screens the gate, down the steep slidy  bank onto the cycle track/footpath which runs behind all our gardens. 

What a great idea that was! I felt so much more alive after the walk; watching joyful dogs racing in and out of the stream and through the trees, stopping to peer at the amazing lichen growing on the trees, standing in the sun with a gentle shower of beech leaves drifting upon us...

So that's the first pair of shoes drying off in the hallway before being cleaned and polished - some sections of the paths are a quagmire after the recent wet weather.

Later, after lunch, I stirred myself into action again and planted up more tulips and crocuses and narcissuses (narcissi?)

I am have several half-barrel planters, but I like to use them for beans and climbing vegetables in the summer. This year I have bought a lot of bulbs to try 'lasagne planting', where you layer up the bulbs in a fairly deep pot; some earth, some narcissus, more earth, some tulips, more earth, and crocus, and finally, you've guessed it, more earth! So my idea is to do 'lasagne planting' in a number of tall narrow pots, and then sink these into the half-barrel planter, so that when they have finished flowering I can just lift them out and leave them to finish the season somewhere else.

While excavating the half barrel to the very bottom we came across numbers of 'mystery bulbs' already trying to get going, so they have been rescued and replanted. I have no idea what they are - probably ordinary daffodils. What with one thing and another I have ended up with the half barrel full of tall thin pots of lasagne planting, another earthenware pot which has stood empty all summer also full of lasagne bulbs, and two pots of 'mystery' bulbs. Surely something will manage to flower?

Meanwhile that is another pair of shoes looking slightly the worse for wear!

I'm catching up with the 30 days of creativity drawing...

I'm not that much into 'colouring in', but I do enjoy drawing.