The Sports Ground round the back, a week or two ago now. Today was another beautiful Spring day, warm in the sun, but a chilly breeze nipping at you in the shade.

It was the third day of the sewing retreat: an hour each day for four days putting together a habit loop to create a consistent sewing practice.

Today was about reward, how to reward yourself for your sewing practice, not specially what you had achieved, but simply about the doing. It was the most diaphanous aspect of the habit loop: what would usefully constitute a reward in this context?

• positive feedback from friends and family.
• community sharing, maybe through social media.
• the sticker book: literally give yourself a gold star.
• putting notes to your future self in a jar.
• saving small amounts of money towards a material treat (a tool or yarn).

There was a lot of discussion about the pros and cons of social media as a route to rewarding progress, and also the danger of a streak of gold stars becoming counter productive: the day you have to break your streak.

The most interesting discussion was about what we tell ourselves about why we are not able to do our practice and the guilt associated with that. The way to address that seemed to be to write down the inhibiting/prohibiting thoughts.

In some way, this externalises them, allows you to view them objectively and decide whether you want to accept them or not. We were moving into woo-woo territory again! People seemed happy with that, though, and the discussion moved on to Morning Pages, as another mechanism for clearing your head and releasing yourself to move forward.

I made a few notes while I was knitting and listening, occasionally stopping to read the chat.

The tomatoes are safe in pots at last, and resting in the porch. They’ll go outside tomorrow for the first time, I’ll find a sheltered spot for them, maybe on the balcony. Six pots of potatoes are also ready, the first soil added - you add more as the leaves grow through - and watered with the sprinkler rose on the watering can.

I trimmed the spinach and rhubarb, taking the trimmings for dinner: the spinach with wild salmon, capers and quinoa (and roast swede); the rhubarb stewed gently with ginger, brown sugar and a little water until it melts, then piled in a dish with yoghurt and grated plain chocolate, a lovely combination.

The rhubarb is an old variety, very tart, very green, goes to seed quickly, but tasty all the same with a bit of love. It seems to be settling after four years and growing from several crowns. I trimmed a few stalks, hopefully there are enough left for several more pickings.

My neighbour sent a text that her husband had been on the roof and had cleared my gutters while he was there. That was a nice surprise.

Snakeshead fritillaries among the narcissus, campanulla and daisies. It’s a wild area in the Botanic Garden. Later it will be covered in lilies. In my garden, the bluebells are making bright patches in the grass and hedges. The leaves are starting to open on the line tree and the clematis is already sending out its slightly hairy stems.

I watered everything this evening, it’s been very dry. This report was published via Actifit app (Android | iOS). Check out the original version here on actifit.io 24/04/2022 5016 Gardening, House Chores