I never use to wear gloves, and spent a lot of time apologising for the state of my hands in Summer, but I had a handful of cat crap once too often, so now I wear thin vinyl gloves for everything except seed sowing, a pair of rubberised cotton briar ones over the top for planting, and a wonderful pair of goldleaf gauntlets for attacking nettles, roses and brambles. It still didn't stop the nurse carefully questioning me to see if I was all right when I went for my first covid jab. I had scratches all the way up my arms as if I had been self harming. I had to explain that I have a garden that fights back.
Gloves & long sleeves, without fail. I seem to get a reaction to lots of different plants - the garden is full of cleavers after years of neglect, and they're one of the worst...
Since 2019 I've lived in east Clare, in the west of Ireland.
Oops fmns😱 . That makes me so angry I want to mutilate the perpetrators and I'm not at all a violent person. Slow an painful death would be too good for them. (One of my buttons. Sorry)
Despite the gloves, my hands are looking pretty desiccated. When I retired, after 30 plus years of gloves, and hand washing between four and ten times an hour during the working day, I was looking forward to soft dainty hands and long manicured nails. That was before I took on the garden, nails short again, cuticles like a manicurists worst nightmare, and fingertips I could use as sandpaper. Extra Covid measures haven’t helped, nor has having the dishwasher out of action for several months while the kitchen has been revamped. Lots of hand cream at night, plus a thin top coat of Vaseline ( other petroleum jelly products are available) to seal it in, keeping everything from totally cracking up.
Posts
That was before I took on the garden, nails short again, cuticles like a manicurists worst nightmare, and fingertips I could use as sandpaper. Extra Covid measures haven’t helped, nor has having the dishwasher out of action for several months while the kitchen has been revamped.
Lots of hand cream at night, plus a thin top coat of Vaseline ( other petroleum jelly products are available) to seal it in, keeping everything from totally cracking up.