Gardening, seasons and knowing its three years

At our previous house I'd done the manual labour in the garden and some weeding (once the other half had shown me which were the weeds and which weren't).  

Planting stuff and pruning were all jobs beyond my expertise and so my wife did those.

As it was our own house I guess we put a bit of effort in as we had in mind we'd be around it for some time.  And we were.

Now we've moved into the curate's house - which is a fantastic perk of the wife's Rev job - we have a much smaller garden.  So gardening duties at the moment are more about doing the minimum to keep it tidy and make it a nice place to sit out in as the weather is better.

In deciding what plants - if any - we buy for the garden I've noticed in myself a tendency to pick those that can be grown in pots - and so can move on with us - as well as focusing on plants that you see results on in a year or less.

As you can tell from the direction of this story - after only a few months of being the curate's husband - what I've already noticed is how the knowledge that we'll probably be moving on in 3 or so years effects how I view things.  I'm not saying that I engage with the local life less enthusiastically.  Its something more subtle than that.  

The nearest feeling I can match it to was when I went to university.  New town, new people, new things to do, new place to call home.  And at uni of course I engaged fully in the student lifestyle.  (Mind you this was in a pre-internet, pre-mobile, pre-always connected  age where you really did feel unconnected from home when you went to Uni.  Contact with home tended to be limited to queuing at the phone box to shovel money as you talked to an anxious Mum and Dad back home)

But in that Uni experience  - at the back of your mind  - you knew that it was a three year gig - a temporary (but important) peculiar island on the trip forward to some unknown destination in your life.

And that is kinda what it feels like it is now for me in the wife's 1st year as a curate.