Pacing Not Racing

credit: Boaz Yiftach freedigitalphotos.net

Zzzzzzzzzzz.  I need to pace myself;  Franciscan simplicity is in short supply just now. This Myers-Briggs Introvert and Enneagram 6 is badly in need of a good dose of "get up and go." I've had a run of perfectly worth spirituality type events over the last few weeks with more in the pipeline. Loads of input all needing to be processed with much output, too. It's the latter which really drains me: this was the second Saturday night  in a row when I was so exhausted  I was in my pyjamas by 7.30 pm!  I can pussshhh myself outwards  quite convincingly; love it even,  but, boy, do I need my time back in my shell to recover. So I spent this afternoon curled up with a blanket, hot waterbottle and our latest book club read - CJ Sansom's Dissolution: blood, gore and sinister goings-ons in Reformation England. I don't think I'll be able to visit a monastery ever again without checking over my shoulder every five minutes for  cowled figures slinking about in the shadows, secret passages, sinister spyholes and falling masonry!

Why Greenpatches??

Well, I did say this blog was about gardening, didn't I? Though not the kind that features in Gardener's Question Time as any of my family will tell you. No, back in Lent 2007 I was after a  suitably greeny-tinged blog title  in keeping with the St John's Nottingham module I was studying: Sustaining The Earth. Inspiration struck as I gazed out over our perfectly manicured, lush green lawn (not). As most of you who have a resident Fido will know, (if you don't then your pooch is obviously too goody-goody for words and would the two of you kindly take yourselves off elsewhere), canine Number Twos scattered willy nilly bring out your grass in nifty little green clumps. Patches of Potential Promise in amongst the p***

(sorry) the arid desert effect brought about by Greenpatch dog's leaky bladder. My Myers-Brigg's INFP intuition antennae went all of a quiver as I spotted  the spiritual analogies and Green Patches was born. 

I've spotted more than a sprinkling of my own Greenpatches on my  journeyings since that day five years ago; not all either recognised or appreciated at the the time but hey - I'm older, greyer and wiser now...I think.

Oh and my gardening skills are much better than they used to be, too.