What to do when you have a deadline.

I have a significant deadline looming on Monday 31st July. A report that needs to be submitted as the final part of the requirements for a Higher Diploma in Enterprise Development. There's a significant amount of work to be done. Most people are fine with deadlines. They work to them. I try to ignore them. Here's the list of things I've been doing to try to ignore my impending deadline.

1. Drew up a list of all the things I’d like to knit.

2. Looked through my stash.

3. Drew up a list of possible knitted gifts.

4. Searched internet and knitting books for inspiration and patterns.

5. Chose a design/pattern, found needles and yarn and started knitting.

6. Repeated step one to five at least once again.

7. Took a walk around the garden.

8. Admired my lovely blooms 9. Freaked at the increasingly problematic strawberry plant.

Not only are the birds having a great laugh at our attempts to keep them away but something else is attacking the leaves. Unfortunately I’ve enough experience of vine weevils to recognise their trade mark notches. These are different. Almost perfectly rounded semicircular lumps missing. A little time spent watching (ok, a lot of time but it was research) reveals a wasp like insect taking great big lumps out of the leaves in a very neat fashion and then making off with his/her loot.

I spent some more time in the garden and noticed that our rose climber had the same telltale semicircular chunks missing from the leaves. Back inside to the internet and discovered a bee called the “leaf cutter bee”. Can you believe it? Read all about them and read that they like rotting boards to make their nests in. Went back out into the garden or rather the dumping ground at the side of our house where we have some old doors which DH has been cutting up for firewood (old meaning taken from our house over three years ago) and in these salubrious surrounds I caught sight of a wood cutter bee – making a home no doubt.Pondered what to do about wood cutter bees.

Pondered some more.

Knit.

Decided to wait until DH came home to make decision on bees.

Still no decision on bees.

Did I mention I have a deadline? I may have distracted some of ye, even me, but the guilt will always bring me back. Ok, I’m onto it. I have 10 days though, right?