Speaker 1: Welcome to bedtime stories for grown ups in which nothing
Speaker 1: much happens, you feel good, and then you fall asleep.
Speaker 1: All stories are written and read by me, Catherine Nikolay,
Speaker 1: with audio engineering by Bob Wittersheim. Nothing Much Happens is
Speaker 1: a proud member of the Curious cast podcast network. If
Speaker 1: you enjoy our stories, please share them any way you
Speaker 1: can with anyone you know who likes relaxation and good sleep,
Speaker 1: and follow us on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter for
Speaker 1: some extra coziness. I have waiting for you a tried
Speaker 1: and true method for falling peacefully to sleep. I'll tell
Speaker 1: you a bedtime story in which nothing much happens. You'll
Speaker 1: listen and let your mind rest on my words and voice,
Speaker 1: and before we get much further, you'll be asleep. I'll
Speaker 1: tell the story twice, and the second time through will
Speaker 1: be a little bit slower. If you wake later in
Speaker 1: the night, you could listen again or just think back
Speaker 1: through what you can remember of the story. We're doing
Speaker 1: a bit of brain training with this ritual, helping to
Speaker 1: make a habit of calm focus before bed, so each
Speaker 1: time you do it it will become more natural and
Speaker 1: even more relaxing out it's time to switch off the
Speaker 1: light and set aside anything you've been looking at. We're
Speaker 1: getting ready to sleep, so settle yourself into the most
Speaker 1: comfortable position you can find, Draw the comforter up over
Speaker 1: your shoulder, and feel the softness of the sheets at
Speaker 1: your skin. Sometimes it even helps to simply say to yourself,
Speaker 1: I'm about to fall asleep, and I'll sleep deeply all night.
Speaker 1: Now take a slow breath in through your nose and
Speaker 1: sigh out of your mouth. Good, Let's do one more
Speaker 1: in and out. Our story to night is called Spring
Speaker 1: at the Allotment, and it's a story about setting up
Speaker 1: a garden of herbs and vegetables with a friend. It's
Speaker 1: also about a picnic basket full of sandwiches, turning over
Speaker 1: the soil with your hands, and the pleasure of sowing
Speaker 1: seeds in neat rows on a bright sunny day. Spring
Speaker 1: at the Allotment. When I'd first seen the flier, snow
Speaker 1: was still on the ground. I'd been coming out of
Speaker 1: my neighborhood market a bag of groceries in my arms,
Speaker 1: and seen it pinned to a bulletin board community garden
Speaker 1: plots available. It was decorated with someone's hand drawn flowers
Speaker 1: and baskets of vegetables. I stood for a bit, booted, mittened,
Speaker 1: zipped into my heavy coat and wrapped in scarves and hat,
Speaker 1: and dreamed about green things and blue skies. I'd reached
Speaker 1: out with my clumsy mitten and pulled off a scrap
Speaker 1: from the flier with a phone number, and fumbled it
Speaker 1: into my pocket. A few days later, when a friend
Speaker 1: was sitting at my kitchen table for a cup of coffee,
Speaker 1: I'd pulled it out and we'd made a plan. We
Speaker 1: each of us had a few hand me down garden
Speaker 1: tools and just a little bit of experience, but we
Speaker 1: also had a deep yen for becoming successful gardeners, and
Speaker 1: we figured our zeal would fill in the gaps of
Speaker 1: our knowledge. We divvied up the work. She'd go to
Speaker 1: the library and get us a few books on what
Speaker 1: was best to grow in this part of the world,
Speaker 1: and I'd have a long talk with my green thumbed
Speaker 1: grandfather and borrow his almanac and seed catalogs. We'd both
Speaker 1: root around for gloves and rakes, spades and shears and loppers.
Speaker 1: Soon we had a stack of books with torn out
Speaker 1: magazine articles folded into the pages, charts of what was
Speaker 1: going where and when, and a dusty basket of the
Speaker 1: tools we'd need to make it happen. We had mud
Speaker 1: boots and packets of seeds and a clear sunny Saturday
Speaker 1: to begin our garden. We planned to meet at the
Speaker 1: allotment in the mid morning and start to turn over
Speaker 1: the soil. The day was bright and warming, and stepping
Speaker 1: out of the car I could smell the clean scent
Speaker 1: of freshly tilled earth. We found our plot sketched out
Speaker 1: in the soil with stakes and string, shook hands with
Speaker 1: the neighbors, tucked our hair into bandannas, and got to work.
Speaker 1: The soil was tilled and soft, but still needed to
Speaker 1: be evened out, and we broke up clumps of dirt
Speaker 1: with hands and hose. We consulted our charts and walked
Speaker 1: off the sections. Here we'd plant the herbs basil and oregano,
Speaker 1: lavender and rosemary, sage and thyme. Here we'd plant runner
Speaker 1: beans and green beans here, rows of lettuce here, tomato plants.
Speaker 1: In the back row. We'd have a line of sweet corn,
Speaker 1: a section of zucchini, a few broccoli plants, cabbage, cucumbers,
Speaker 1: and a small section of potatoes. We warn't sure about
Speaker 1: the potatoes, they seem tricky, but we'd in our reading
Speaker 1: and had a container of cut seed potatoes ready to go.
Speaker 1: In growing, anything I supposed was a gamble, an act
Speaker 1: of faith that rain would come, that sun would shine,
Speaker 1: that the natural processes buried in the cells of our
Speaker 1: seeds and seed leads would activate and polyulate. It seemed
Speaker 1: worth the gamble, meriting the faith to try. So we
Speaker 1: dug trenches, spaced our seeds and plants, and carefully patted
Speaker 1: the earth down around them. By the time the sun
Speaker 1: was high above us, we'd shut our jackets and our
Speaker 1: faces were smudged with dirt. I stood to stretch my
Speaker 1: back and saw my friend, her hands on her hips,
Speaker 1: looking out at the work we'd done. Ready for a break,
Speaker 1: I called out, Yes, please, she said, stepping carefully through
Speaker 1: the rose to wash her hands at this spigot. I'd
Speaker 1: packed us a basket for lunch, and we'd carried it
Speaker 1: over to the picnic table and opened it up. I
Speaker 1: had a thermis of earl gray tea still hot and
Speaker 1: a little sweet. I'd made a mass of sandwiches, thick
Speaker 1: slices of sour dough spread with mustard and a tasty
Speaker 1: mix I'd made of mashed garbanzos, soft avocado, diced cucumbers
Speaker 1: and pickles TAHENI a bit of dill and lemon, and
Speaker 1: pl tea of salt and pepper. I layered it onto
Speaker 1: the bread with sprouts and tomato slices and wrapped them
Speaker 1: in tea towels. I had a few apples for us,
Speaker 1: and a whole batch of my date bars, topped with
Speaker 1: a cardamom crumble, tucked in wax paper in an old
Speaker 1: cookie tin. It was more than we could eat, but
Speaker 1: I'd planned to use the extra to make some friends.
Speaker 1: In fact, a few minutes after we spread out the lunch,
Speaker 1: the family from the next plot over sat down to
Speaker 1: share our table. They unpacked their own basket and we
Speaker 1: chatted about our seeds as we ate. They had two
Speaker 1: little boys who ran around in the sun, coming back
Speaker 1: to the table for a moment or two to take
Speaker 1: a bite out of a sand or a piece of fruit,
Speaker 1: and chasing back to play. They'd been planting in the
Speaker 1: garden for years and promised to offer advice as the
Speaker 1: season progressed. They poured us some of their lemonade and
Speaker 1: happily took some date bars, and then we all got
Speaker 1: back to work. By the time we were done and
Speaker 1: gathering up our tools, our little plot was a tidy
Speaker 1: patch of neat rows, careful mounds protecting seeds that would
Speaker 1: sprout soon, and evenly spaced plants that would eventually meet
Speaker 1: cages and steaks and strings to hold them up. By
Speaker 1: the end of the summer. We stood and proudly admired
Speaker 1: what we'd done. We'll have vegetables coming out of our
Speaker 1: years in a few months, she said, I guess we'd
Speaker 1: better learn how to can. I laughed. The next great
Speaker 1: adventure spring at the allotment. When I'd first seen the flyer,
Speaker 1: snow was still on the ground. I had been coming
Speaker 1: out of my neighborhood market a bag of groceries in
Speaker 1: my arms, and seen it pinned to a bulletin board
Speaker 1: community garden plots available. It was decorated with someone's hand
Speaker 1: drawn flowers and baskets of vegetables. I stood for a bit, booted, mittened,
Speaker 1: zipped into my heavy coat and wrapped in scarves and hat,
Speaker 1: and dreamed about green things and blue skies. I had
Speaker 1: reached out with my clumsy mitten and pulled off a
Speaker 1: scrap from the flyer with a phone number and fumbled
Speaker 1: it into my pocket. A few days later, when a
Speaker 1: friend was sitting at my kitchen table for a cup
Speaker 1: of coffee, I'd pulled it out and we'd made a plan.
Speaker 1: We each of us had a few hand me down
Speaker 1: garden tools and just a little bit of experience, but
Speaker 1: we also had a deep yen for becoming successful gardeners,
Speaker 1: and we figured our zeal would fill in the gaps
Speaker 1: of our knowledge. We divvied up the work. She'd go
Speaker 1: to the library and get us a few books on
Speaker 1: what was best to grow in this part of the world,
Speaker 1: and I'd have a long talk with my green thumbed
Speaker 1: grandfather and borrow his almanac and seed catalogs. We'd both
Speaker 1: root around for gloves and rakes, spades and shears and loppers.
Speaker 1: Soon we had a stack of books with torn out
Speaker 1: magazine articles folded into the pages, charts of what was
Speaker 1: going where and when, and a dusty basket of the
Speaker 1: tools we'd need to make it happen. We had mud
Speaker 1: boots and packets of seeds, and a clear sunny saturday
Speaker 1: to begin our garden. We planned to meet at the
Speaker 1: allotment in the mid morning and start to turn over
Speaker 1: the soil. The day was bright and warming, and stepping
Speaker 1: out of the car, I could smell the clean scent
Speaker 1: a freshly tilled earth. We found our plot sketched out
Speaker 1: in the soil with steaks and string, shook hands with
Speaker 1: the neighbors, tucked our hair into bandanas, and got to work.
Speaker 1: The soil was tilled and soft, but still needed to
Speaker 1: be evened out, and we broke up clumps of dirt
Speaker 1: with hands and hose. We consulted our charts and walked
Speaker 1: off the sections. Here we'd plant the herbs basil and oregano,
Speaker 1: leavin are and rosemary, sage and time. Here we'd plant
Speaker 1: runner beans and green beans here, rows of lettuce here,
Speaker 1: tomato plants. In the back row we'd have a line
Speaker 1: of sweet corn, a section of zucchini, a few broccoli plants, cabbage, cucumbers,
Speaker 1: and a small section of potatoes. We weren't sure about
Speaker 1: the potatoes, they seemed tricky, but we'd done our reading
Speaker 1: and had a container of cut seed potatoes ready to go.
Speaker 1: In growing, anything I supposed was a gamble, an act
Speaker 1: of faith that rain would come that sun would shine,
Speaker 1: that the natural processes buried in the cells of our
Speaker 1: seeds and seed leans would activate and polulate. It seemed
Speaker 1: worth the gamble, meriting the faith to try. So we
Speaker 1: dug trenches, spaced our seeds and plants, and carefully patted
Speaker 1: the earth down around them. By the time the sun
Speaker 1: was high above us, we'd shut our jackets and our
Speaker 1: faces were smudged with dirt. I stood to stretch my
Speaker 1: back and saw my friend her hands on her hips,
Speaker 1: looking out at the work we'd done. Ready for a break,
Speaker 1: I called out, yes, please, she said, stepping carefully through
Speaker 1: the rose to wash her hands at this pigot. I'd
Speaker 1: packed us a basket for lunch, and we carried it
Speaker 1: over to a picnic table and opened it up. I
Speaker 1: had a thermis of earl gray tea, still hot and
Speaker 1: a little sweet. I'd made a mess of sandwiches, thick
Speaker 1: slices of sour dough spread with spicy mustard, and a
Speaker 1: tasty mix I'd made of mashed garbanzos, soft avocado, diced
Speaker 1: cucumbers and pickles, tahini, a bit of dill and lemon,
Speaker 1: and plenty of salt and pepper. I'd layered it on
Speaker 1: the bread with sprouts and tomato slices, and wrapped them
Speaker 1: in tea towels. I had a few apples for us,
Speaker 1: and a whole batch of my date bars, topped with
Speaker 1: cardamom crumble, tucked in wax paper in an old cookie tin.
Speaker 1: It was more than we could eat, but I'd planned
Speaker 1: to use the extra to make some friends. In fact,
Speaker 1: a few minutes after we spread out lunch, the family
Speaker 1: from the next plot over sat down to share our table.
Speaker 1: They unpacked their own basket and we chatted about our
Speaker 1: seeds as we ate. They had two little boys who
Speaker 1: ran around in the sun, coming back to the table
Speaker 1: for a moment or two to take a bite out
Speaker 1: of a sandwich or a piece of fruit, then chasing
Speaker 1: back to play. They'd been planting in the garden for
Speaker 1: years and promised to offer advice as the season progressed.
Speaker 1: They poured us some of their lemonade and happily took
Speaker 1: some date bars, and then we all got back to work.
Speaker 1: By the time we were done and gathering up our tools,
Speaker 1: our little plot was a tidy patch of neat rows,
Speaker 1: careful mounds protecting seeds that would sprout soon and evenly
Speaker 1: spaced plants that would eventually need cages and stakes and
Speaker 1: strings to hold them up. By the end of the summer,
Speaker 1: we stood and proudly admired what we'd done. We'll have
Speaker 1: vegetables coming out of our ears in a few months,
Speaker 1: she said, I guess we'd better learn how to can.
Speaker 1: I laughed. The next great adventure, Sweet Dreams,