Leafmould joy
We get fresh manure, woodchips and very occasionally leaf mould delivered to our allotment site. You have to be luck to be there when there’s still some left – especially during Covid where deliveries have been much less frequent than before.
Today was a lucky day – there was a huge pile of steaming leaf mould when we got there this afternoon. Gorgeous, dark, warm crumbly stuff – gold dust for no-dig beds on clay soil like ours, as it will add lots of lovely organic matter to feed the soil life, conserve moisture and protect the soil. We piled 2 barrows high (the limit for each allotment holder) and spread them on one of the no-dig beds as a mulch about 2 inches thick, burying the remnants of last year’s nasturtiums around the edges, now killed off by the frost.
I’ve covered the bed with tarpaulin weighed down with bricks and planks so it can dry out and warm up a bit over the next few weeks. I’ve found that helps provide a nice cosy environment for soil life to start incorporating organic matter and aerating and nourishing the soil nicely ahead of spring. In 6 weeks’ time it should make a great bed for the first sowings of beetroot, kohl rabi, spring onions and radishes.
A new mini greenhouse
This weekend, I’ve ordered a new mini greenhouse. We don’t have much space in our garden (one day I really hope to have a garden big enough for a big greenhouse…), but I’ve worked out that I can fit a 4ft by 2ft victorian tall wall greenhouse in against a fence.
It will be quite shaded in winter, standing against a north facing fence, but in the spring and summer it will get decent light once the sun is higher in the sky, and anyway it will protect seedlings and tender plants from the elements. I’ve ordered a little paraffin heater too, so that I can get a few tender plants going good and early in March.
I’m hoping this will open up some new opportunities to grow more and better things – it will allow me to get more seedlings going earlier and grow a handful of tomatoes, aubergines and peppers (both sweet and chilli) under cover for the first time. I’m really looking forward to getting it in place 🙂
A new diagnosis
I finally had the formal letter this week confirming my diagnosis of ADHD plus autistic traits (with the latter still to be investigated to see if a formal diagnosis would be appropriate). Turns out it was written in September but not copied to me, so I’ve now called the doctor to arrange the necessary heart checks before I can try out the ADHD medication and see if it helps my concentration and focus.
Although I knew it was coming, and had self-referred for the assessment, it still felt like a big deal to see it written down in a description of me. It’s like there is a whole part of me that has a different explanation, whole aspects of my life that are cast in a different light by the knowledge that my brain is indeed a bit different. My inner monologue is on over-drive working out what it all means and how I feel about it.
The reason I sought an assessment is that I want to understand whether my feelings of being a misfit, which I’ve had all my life, are grounded in my brain being wired differently. Having read a bit about both ADHD and autism, and reflecting on the things I find difficult in life and the things others find difficult about me, I think they are. I have a theory that the reason I’ve suffered from anxiety and depression all my life is that I don’t fit in, because my brain doesn’t work in a typical way.
For me, interacting with people, much as I might want to do it and enjoy it, is exhausting. It doesn’t come naturally; I have to think about and moderate my behaviour, and think through other people’s behaviour, motives and expectations, all the time. If I don’t, I say things that are too direct, I find myself interrupting people, and I am completely baffled by people playing office politics or other games.
Although I love my friends (I have a close circle of friends I’ve known all my life, and a few other lovely people I’ve managed to connect with and keep in touch with along the way), I find it difficult to maintain regular and meaningful contact. I don’t like large groups, and I find unstructured social interactions awkward and stressful. I am absolutely hopeless at sending cards and presents to people, because I am overwhelmed by the complexity and uncertainty of choosing things people might like.
At home, I’m sensitive to noise, I need time on my own to decompress, and I get easily overwhelmed if there’s too much going on. It can take months to get around to a straightforward housekeeping task, whereas at work I manage multiple competing priorities and make progress with them every day.
I used to drink alcohol so that I could keep up. I was often the last person standing, fuelled by the disinhibition and elation alcohol gave me. I was good at playing the joker in a group. I enjoyed it, in a way. I felt a kind of connection I couldn’t get when sober. But then I’d be anxious for days afterwards, trying to process the complex social interactions, fixating on things I’d said and worrying about how I had come across when not carefully moderating myself. It wasn’t worth it; I stopped drinking 5 years ago, am much more stable and happy without it, but I found that some of the people I thought were friends in those times could only ever be friends in the context of the pub, and I lost touch.
I find work much easier, and always have. I’m good at it, and I think people would describe me as outgoing and confident. I think it’s because there are much clearer rules and expectations, and I have a specific role to fulfil. It also helps that I’m in a senior role where I can set the rules a bit myself, and I’ve been very fortunate to be able to find an environment where I can thrive and feel accepted as a reasonably honest and true version of myself.
I can use the plus sides of my brain wiring to manage a lot of different things, marry them all up together and see the wider picture. I’m not afraid to make decisions, I think logically and clearly even when under pressure, and I can get things done. I can learn how to thrive in a work environment, and I do – I really enjoy my job. But the social aspects of it are exhausting, and finding the energy to do my job means there isn’t much left for anyone or anything else outside work.
Because of this, for the last 2 or 3 decades I’ve poured my energy into work, because that’s where I’ve been able to find acceptance, a sense of belonging and community. There was a long time where I also socialised with work colleagues, whilst drinking, to keep that sense of connection going out of hours. I came to realise that wasn’t real, and the price was too high in terms of my mental health. And now I find myself here, in my mid-40s, wondering whether work is all there is. It can’t be. There must be ways to balance work and other things, to find space and bandwidth for other meaningful social relationships and activities.
I’m really hoping this diagnosis, and the medication that I’m going to try out to mitigate it, along with the reading and learning I’m doing about what ADHD means and how to live happily with it, will help with that, a bit. Meanwhile, the allotment continues to keep me grounded and calm, and I don’t know what I’d do without it.
Keeping the Plot 