Things to do this week in your garden- 24th December 2023

Mindful Gardening and Floristry activities to calm your mind and soothe your soul

Bloody hell, it’s here. Christmas eve! You may have noticed this is a little late today. I had every intention of writing this first thing while the kids played, but instead the baby woke the whole household up at 5am. So we decided to just get up, pack the car and get to my mums in Dorset before the roads got busy.

We were well rewarded with ghostly quiet roads as we sped along singing Christmas songs and Arwen had a strop about losing at car bingo.

So i’ve squirrelled myself away at my Mum’s house to write to you.

I’m a little anxious this Christmas because I know the expectation to be constantly present and having an excellent time is at odds with the little pockets of time alone that I carve out for myself in a normal day to soothe my mind and stop me feeling overwhelmed.

This year is the first year I feel confident enough to take those mini breaks to just be on my own and recharge. But I know me taking them will ruffle a few feathers to say the least. Damn its hard being neurodiverse in a neurotypical world, but also going against society’s expectation of women to be present, perfect and performing 24/7.

If like me you know you would benefit from taking this little snippets of time for you over the next few days- here’s a big dollop of permission from me to do so. (Not that you need it, but a gentle nudge from someone else often means that we actually do the thing we know will help us. In fact that’s the entire reason I set up this Substack to be able to give you that nudge regularly.)

And if you need some inspiration for what to do in your garden to help soothe your nervous system, then upgrade to paid (if you haven’t already) and try some of this week’s mindful gardening activities.

It would be remiss of me to not mention the ability to purchase a gift subscription to the Seed for someone you love or yourself (I’m a huge fan of a self-gift, I wrote about why here).

Click on the big pink button below and enter the intended’s email address and a delivery date of tomorrow and they’ll have a wonderful year of gardening for self care activities landing in their inbox every week from tomorrow.

This is also my first Christmas without my lovely Dad so I know i’m going to need to lean in to my time in Nature over the next few days to help me ride the inevitably rough waves of emotion. If you are missing someone dear to you, then i’m sending you so much love.