Two Things I Learnt From Gardening With My Husband
After Flyfour and I spent a morning working on the front garden together, I had a lot of time to think over the morning because I was building a boat.
That evening I was starting to feel stiff and sore. I thought it was because I had been crawling around on the floor building a boat (YES! A BOAT!) and because well, I'm old. Well, not really old. Just normal old.
Whilst we had been in the garden both of us trying to remember all the different tips we had learnt from watching years of gardening programmes we were working side by side as partners. Each of us with our own strengths and understandings. When Flyfour went to purchase extra bags of the slate, I moved the pots from the back garden to the front and finished laying the weed control fabric.
It was a small thing for both of us, but working together makes it easier.
So there you go. Flyfour says I should add a bonus lesson, that it pays to have a family so you can buy a people carrier and then you can easily transport bags of slate and compost... but that's not true. To make that easier, you'd need a van!
Yes, a boat.
Anyway.
Whilst I was building the boat and throughout the Church service I attended the next day I was thinking about having worked in the garden with Flyfour and I realised I had learnt some valuable life lessons, the kind of life lessons I should probably share with the world. I shared these with my husband and he agreed that these were worthy of sharing with the world, so I present these to you now.
Good things are worth the hard work.
That evening I was starting to feel stiff and sore. I thought it was because I had been crawling around on the floor building a boat (YES! A BOAT!) and because well, I'm old. Well, not really old. Just normal old.
It was only the next evening when I was looking out my bedroom window at my new garden and moaning to Flyfour about how stiff I was, that we both realised that we were both stiff and sore from all the manual labour we had put in. Digging and lifting bags of stones and compost and pots full of bulbs and soil and all the rest of the activities we had undertaken to make our garden look pretty had taken it's toll on us.
It made me think about our marriage too.
It's not that it is hard work being married to my husband, although I imagine being married to me is hard work, I'm a terrible human being! We have to work to have a partnership, a union of us two flawed beings (and boy we are flawed!), to raise our family in a positive, harmonious and loving way.
Good things are worth the hard work.
Working together makes it easier.
When I woke up on Saturday morning, I wasn't thinking about asking Flyfour to help me out with doing the garden. I did ask him to come to the shop with me, but mainly because I thought he could do the heavy lifting part and I could do the "Ooh look at these Christmas lights, we should buy them!" part.
Instead Flyfour decided to help me, to work with me to reach a common goal.
Quite a lot of the time in our marriage one of us has a "great" idea and the other one of us? Well we go along with it. We help the other to achieve what they are working towards. We do our part, whether it be making the sandwiches, putting the bins out, listening or going out on a chocolate run.
Whilst we had been in the garden both of us trying to remember all the different tips we had learnt from watching years of gardening programmes we were working side by side as partners. Each of us with our own strengths and understandings. When Flyfour went to purchase extra bags of the slate, I moved the pots from the back garden to the front and finished laying the weed control fabric.
It was a small thing for both of us, but working together makes it easier.
So there you go. Flyfour says I should add a bonus lesson, that it pays to have a family so you can buy a people carrier and then you can easily transport bags of slate and compost... but that's not true. To make that easier, you'd need a van!