I'm really out of shape

On Thursday, I spent an hour working in the garden. The lawn really needs some TLC after winter, and some damage caused during other work we had done, so I made a start while the weather was nice but I didn't get very far.

The forecast was for rain overnight so I wanted to get everything done before it turned wet but boy did I overestimate how much I could actually get done.

Let me set the stage.

Our lawn is about 36 square metres (around 43 square yards). It's never been in great shape but had gotten worse lately due to my lack of effort. We don't use the garden much but we should so I'm trying to get the lawn into decent shape. I've previously bought some seed and food for it but kept putting off using it because the time wasn't right. How little did I know, grass doesn't care about your stupid schedule. When we had our recent work done we were left with a narrow border around the edge and the guys had just put down a sprinkling of top soil and some random seed.. "That'll never take, not in October" I thought to myself. Well, how little do I know. We had new grass sprouting up before the end of November..

So, here we are, at the start of spring and I'm trying to get the lawn into some sort of shape. The plan for Thursday was simple.

• Rake over the lawn to wake it up a bit and remove any soil or building waste using the big de-thatching rake
• Give the lawn is first mow if the year
• Aerate the lawn with my cool spikey shoes
• Spread some grass seed and fertiliser
• Bask in the glory of a great looking lawn (eventually)

Simple enough, but how far did I get, I hear you asking.... I made it to a bit less than halfway through task one, raking it over. I was rushing as the rain later would have been a perfect start for the new seed but after an hour's work I had no strength left in my arms or hands and my heart rate was up in the 150's according to my Fitbit so I had to stop. I was rushing, which didn't help, but come on this is just ridiculous. A few years ago, I would have been able to finish all this in a couple of hours but not this week.

I'm realy out of shape.

So, the new plan, looking at the weather forecast for the weekend, is to finish over the weekend in stages. We have a few errands to run, including a trip to the garden center for some new plants to put in our planter boxes and in between I'll get the work done in stages. I still plan to get it all done this weekend but it's going to happen in slow time or not at all.