Grow Your Own Magazine

a day (well, 5 hours actually) on my plot - still faffing with the fencing but that is now complete - runner bean trench dug ready for my slops, base for shed skimmed

Happy girl

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Suzie

Isn't it just the best?

I don't know if I have anything as dramatic as SAD but spending this afternoon on my plot with all four kids behaving and helping out in the sunshine... just made my soul sing

Deffo makes a huge difference to have the sun shining! Hope it stays a while!

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smiling is infectious....

http://www.thehudsonallotment.blogspot.com/ updated 28th May 2008

I really can't see you as an SAD sufferer SH - well, no more than the rest of us plotters yep sun on the back and actually working is the bestest

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Suzie

I think today must be the day that everyone on the Grapevine "gets going". I started digging and planning - KK tidied up one of the outbuildings to make a workshop and the sunset was spectacular. Potatoes now set to chit in the "shed" and a good bit of the garden has been dug ready for them.
You're right Piskie - better than Prozac

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A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot! (Thomas Edward Brown)

There's now an increasing realization among health professionals that growing your own is actually beneficial. There are projects springing up all over the place to provide 'Eco-therapy' (in English, gardening) experience for people with depressive illnesses. Makes you quite smug to realize that we'd figured this out all for ourselves. But if it helps people - which I'm sure it does - then I'm all in favour.

Wonderful to have a couple of dry days in a row and get outdoors and do something.

I have CFS (or ME) and took up veg growing to encourage me to take gentle exercise - there are days where I would not do anything if I didn't have plants to check! It keeps me moving when I would rather not bother due to pain and that is great. And of course there is the wonder of planting those tiny seeds like the calabrese I sowed today and knowing that you will get a meal from it in the future!

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

yaay for shirl - my pal has CFS (ME) and I believe your approach is the best, not that I know of what I speak, but I am constantly trying to get him involved in 'gentle' gardening things - I hope he comes through it

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Suzie

The main problem (for someone who was previously as active as me anyhoo) is adapting to not doing too much. When I get a 'good' day I have to be very careful not to do the things I want to catch up with. The doctor said to look at it that if I wanted to do the whole pile of ironing I should throw that idea away and manage a quarter of it. If you do everything you can on that one day then you suffer for maybe weeks after. Better to do the quarter and have an okay day when you can do a little more.

That kind of explains why my garden expands by a few feet a year compared to others who take on an overgrown lottie and get it all producing in the first 6 months! Boy is it frustrating!!

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

I like your doctor!

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Hazel
www.hazelandjanesallotment.blogspot.com
update Sat 04/10/2008......sorry, Keats......

So do I - he looks way to young to be a doctor though!

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

no hun, it is all subjective, it matters not how much you get done compared to others - compare yourself only with yourself, that is where true growth/improvement happens

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Suzie

That's so true but it is hard to do as well. I don't have CFS/ME but I do have a chronic illness that means I'm not always as I might be. The temptation (pressure?) to 'get a grip' or 'be normal' is intense... but definitely not always (or ever) the right thing in the long term.

So totally agree. My dad just can't understand why I have days where I can't do anythihg but I look fine.

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

I too couldn't understand it in my friend, but having known the man before the illness - I can only watch and think how cruel it is.

I hope my words above didn't read as 'get a grip' cos that was nowhere in my mind when I wrote them.

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Suzie

Shirl, I see several clients with ME, and Reflexology seems to work really well for them. Particularly one friend who just over a year ago found every movement of her body painful and couldn't stand up straight, she had reflex from me, weekly for about 5 months, massage from a mate of mine several times and developed the attitude that she was going to be well. Amazingly she is well now, she has full range of movement and is pain free and has lots of energy.
What I'm trying to say is the Drs paint such a bleak picture with ME and because of the chemical imbalances it causes it must be really hard to get in a positive mind set about things, my freind has amazed her Drs with her recovery and it just proves that it is possible. Doing something as positive as GYO can only be a good thing, fresh air exercise and good food and like Suzie says it really is better than prozac. I know I get a high every time I go down the lottie!

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Imagination is everything, it is a preview of what is to become.

Told you to stay away from "those" plants, I know they're reported to have "medicinal" properties, but still...

Anyway on a serious note, I'm sorry I know nothing about ME but I do know pain unfortunately, and just how much it can get you down, so you have my sympathies shirl and Seahorse.

Being outside does make you feel great though doesn't it!? Mange tout, after yesterday my knees hurt and the heels of my hands are sore from all that metal bending and bashing I did yesterday.

Come on spring!!!

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A simple dude trying to grow veg.

http://haywayne.blogspot.com/ - Tuscany update - 27th September

http://tickers.baby-gaga.com/p/dev036pr___.png

Deffo with you there lainey lou. I wish I could afford to have regular massage - Madmax does what he can but with him working away 'tis tricky.

I am not crippled by pain or anything, I think I am fortunate that it was diagnosed early before I made it worse by trying to cope. The frustration of it is the worst thing for me. I used to be able to carry a bale of hay across the field to my horses, now I have to get mk1 son to push it in a wheelbarrow! There are other folks with ME who are much worse than me. It is such a tricky thing to describe to people coz everyone gets tired don't they?

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

indeed they do shirl, but from what I've understood, the tired related with CFS/ME is all-consuming, there is no option to push through it.

The pal I mentioned above was an ex RAF Copper, 6' 3", rugby player, always strong and doing things, when this hit it hit hard.

We found it really hard to understand why he was always sleeping, getting up in the monring, eating breakfast, then having to sleep again. He isn't better at all, although there appears to be some slight improvement.

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Suzie

I hope he finds a way to cope with it. I have spells where I can go to bed at 7pm (have to stay up to feed the kids) sleep through till 7 next morning (have to get the kids up for school/college) and could go back to bed but don't. Fortunately I haven't had that bad a spell for about a year now - I think having to do things for the boys helps with the motivation. You are right on the pushing through it thing - but trying to do a bit helps, even if it is a walk round the garden. Maybe coax your pal to try growing some spuds in buckets - not too strenuous but if he has the incentive to walk to check if they are sprouting or need water every day it might help him through it.

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

Tee Hee Hee!

Shirl it might be worth checking with your local college, sometimes they do cheap reflex/ massage etc cause the students need to practise, you might even be able to pursued a student to take you on as a case study and thereby get some free treatments, benefit to you both!

BTW did you know, they now think ME may be caused by a stomach virus?

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Imagination is everything, it is a preview of what is to become.