Are you a night owl?

Do you find it easier to work with the quiet blanket of darkness shrouding the world?

Do you feel a greater connection to the universe when the stars light up the night sky, and the demands of everyday life can be ignored for a few blissful hours?

If so, you may have more in common with medieval monks than you thought.

Imagine it: an age before artificial light when darkness was absolute and utterly impenetrable. A night sky without light pollution, full of twinkling stars and a bright moon. Rising in total darkness to a tolling bell. Walking dark stone halls lit only by soft, flickering candlelight. Darkness so intense and pressing that you can see no further than your outstretched hand. Echoing footsteps. Silent prayers. Low chants and soft hymns. Feeling time slow and the universe stretch out infinitely before you. Passing the hours in deep contemplation and watching the sky gradually lighten. Witnessing the orange sunrise crest the horizon and bleed its light over the land.

To understand medieval monasticism, you must be willing to embrace the dark. Are you?

The Divine Office and Monastic Routine

Medieval monastic life was governed by an ascetic practice known as the Divine Office which was a cycle of strict daily services dividing the day and night into intervals. These intervals were often accompanied by the reading of psalms, and the singing of hymns and chants.

The canonical hours included:

• Matins – 02:00

• Lauds – Dawn

• Prime – 06:00

• Terce – 09:00

• Sext – Noon

• None – 15:00

• Vespers – Sunset

• Compline – 19:00

Of these, Matins — the night vigil — had the greatest symbolic meaning and was also the most demanding as it was performed in near-total darkness. Matins consisted of three ‘nocturns’, each containing psalms, antiphons, readings, and responsories. The service could last several hours, especially in winter, as the nights were longer and therefore the liturgy extended accordingly.

It was the Rule of St Benedict in the 6^th century that dictated this nocturnal rising:

CHAPTER 16: How the Work of God Is to Be Performed During the Day

“Seven times in the day,” says the Prophet, “I have rendered praise to You.” Now that sacred number of seven will be fulfilled by us if we perform the Offices of our service at the time of the Morning Office, of Prime, of Terce, of Sext, of None, of Vespers and of Compline, since it was of these day Hours that he said, “Seven times in the day I have rendered praise to You.” For as to the Night Office the same Prophet says, “In the middle of the night I arose to glorify You.”

Let us therefore bring our tribute of praise to our Creator “for the judgments of His justice” at these times: the Morning Office, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers and Compline; and in the night let us arise to glorify Him.”1

In winter, monks typically went to bed around 19:00 and rose at 02:00, often sleeping in dorms, fully clothed.2 The Rule of the Master reports that pairs of monks would take it in turns to stay awake the entire night to mark the hours and make sure the rest of the abbot woke up for Matins.3 After Matins they remained awake until Lauds at dawn, filling the hours with prayer, reading, and quiet contemplation.

Christological Significance

In the modern world, darkness holds many connotations, most notably of evil, sin, and danger, but medieval monks did not necessarily hold the same views of darkness as we do today. Darkness was not merely the absence of light, it was a primordial condition, an echo of the opening lines of Genesis: “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep” (Genesis 1:2). Darkness was, by nature, holy.

In fact, for medieval monks, darkness and night possessed many benefits and spiritual meanings. Darkness has no shadow and lacks boundaries, and objects lack the same clear form as seen in daylight, creating a sense of limitless space and infinite possibilities. This was likely reinforced by the lack of reliable time-keeping practices. Monks may have relied on the stars for calculating time, which would have intensified their awareness of divine mystery.4 It would have also perhaps created an existential awareness of our smallness in comparison to the great void, yet would have been accompanied by an appreciation of cosmic order and harmony, therefore further strengthening connections to God the Creator. This cosmic order was thus mirrored through the secular structure of the Divine Office and expressed through the rhythm of psalms, readings, and chants.

“Monastic nocturnal time-reckoning, far from constituting a deterrent to proper monastic experiences, would have heralded the conjunction between the ordered monastic world, the ordered physical universe, and the ordered cosmic eternity that monastic liturgy in general and nocturns most of all sought to define and effect.” 5

The night could also be interpreted through the lens of Christ’s Passion; sunset symbolises Christ’s death on Good Friday, night symbolises Christ in the tomb and the Harrowing of Hell on Holy Saturday, and dawn symbolises Christ’s resurrection on Easter Sunday. Therefore, the nightly liturgical structure further aligns the secular world with the sacred through both Genesis and Christ’s Passion.

Furthermore, during a night vigil, monks may be faced with demons tempting them with sleep, and they therefore undergo their own battle of will and faith much like Christ’s battle against demons in the Harrowing of Hell from the Apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus. Darkness thus possesses a fundamental Christological significance, of which medieval monks were keenly aware.

Dawn and Resurrection

It was not only darkness that played a significant role in monastic life, but also the dawn that comes after Matins. If the night represented cosmological mystery, creation, and spiritual battle, then dawn represented revelation, clarity, and rebirth. Lauds, the morning office, celebrated the return of daylight with psalms of praise as it symbolised the resurrection of Christ as well as the return to earthly time after a night in sacred, infinite time. The contrast between darkness and light was essential as without darkness, dawn could not carry the same theological weight.

“Since the ritual of nocturns was held each and every night, the monks regularly experienced the mystery of the divine darkness and, in addition, just as regularly anticipated the archetypical process of the first creation, the very beginning of light and life, that was replayed each dawn with the advent of the day.”6

Sleep Deprivation

The monastic schedule imposed significant physical demands, most notably, sleep deprivation. By rising at 02:00, chanting for hours, and functioning on fragmented sleep, the monastic schedule produced a distinctive mental and emotional state. While sleep deprivation may sound counter-productive, it was actually an ascetic tool: sleep deprivation can create a liminal state between waking and dreaming in which perception is heightened, energy is raised, and emotions are intensified.

This is an experience to which I can attest. I spent many late nights writing essays in my university’s library, and just when I reached that point in the night when I wanted to do nothing more than curl up and sleep, I would have a sudden burst of energy, and all sense of tiredness would dissipate. I believe this is only a glimpse into the experience of medieval monks who were no doubt more accustomed to the darkness and late nights!

Benefits In Contemporary Life

My experiences at university, and my research into monastic vigils, has led me to wonder if we can benefit from adopting the monastic schedule into our modern lives.

What are some of the benefits of rising at night?

There are fewer distractions. The world is quiet, time slows, and a lack of usual light means fewer visual distractions. Darkness can also prompt introspection. The stars, when visible, can bring us clarity by reminding us that the world is both large and small, and time is insignificant. Darkness can also unleash creativity — as a writer, I’ve found that I often have my best ideas at night, when I’m free from the confines of daily routine and free to daydream without noticing time flowing around me.

In a world saturated with artificial light and constant stimulation, the monastic night offers an alternative model of attentiveness, discipline, and spiritual depth.

How can we adopt some aspects of monastic life into our modern routines?

If (like me) you’re not quite ready to commit to the 19:00 bedtime and 02:00 wake-up call, then you could try implementing these ideas instead:

• Don’t use any technology leading up to bedtime

• Use a pen and paper for writing ideas or general thoughts

• Low, warm lighting before bed

• Read before bed and first thing in the morning

• Write a stream of consciousness diary before bed, and morning pages when you wake up

• Keep a gratitude journal

• Have a late night every now and then, and embrace the darkness

Some of you may find this way of life appealing. Others may find it daunting. But the question remains:

What might you discover about yourself in the dark?

Sources

Eberle, Luke, The Rule of the Master (Cistercian Publications, 1977)

Helms, Mary W, ‘Before the Dawn: Monks and the Night in Late Antiquity and Early Medieval Europe’, Anthropos, 99, 1 (2004), pp. 177-191.

Maurer-Dass, Sonja, ‘Time, Prayer, and Song: Medieval Monasticism and the Divine Office’, Medievalist.net. Available at: Time, Prayer, and Song: Medieval Monasticism and the Divine Office - Medievalists.net

The Oxford Oratory

Hours of Matins: The Ancient Rituals Shaping Christian Worship - CompleteEra

The Project Gutenberg eBook of St. Benedict’s Rule for Monasteries

NOTE: I have never studied philosophy. If you read this and by chance think it’s similar to any existing philosophies, then please let me know because I would be most interested in reading more! 

The Oyster and the Pearl

I’ll start by giving you a little background information on oysters, because they’re pretty cool!

There are over 100 species of oyster, and they’ve existed for about 15 million years, and generally live up to 20 years. Despite their simple appearance, oysters have a heart and kidneys, and one oyster can filter 50 gallons of water every day.

Though oyster shells may not look like much, they are seriously incredible. They’re composed almost entirely of calcium carbonate, which makes them hard and durable — perfect for protecting the soft mollusc inside from the changing currents and threats of the outside world. But, like all things in life, the shells are not perfect, and sometimes foreign particles can slip through the cracks in the shell’s protection. A grain of sand. A fragment of shell. A tiny parasite. Whatever form it takes, these foreign particles become irritants — like having a splinter in your finger, or a hair in your eye — and cause discomfort and potentially lasting harm to the oyster.

We’re lucky enough that if we have a splinter, even if it’s particularly stubborn, we can use tweezers to pull it out. I’ll let you in on a little secret: oysters don’t have hands! This means they can’t scrape out any irritants. Instead, they do something that’s even more remarkable. The oyster secretes a substance called nacre — also known as mother-of-pearl — and over the course of several months or years, the oyster builds microscopically thin layers of nacre around the irritant, transforming it into something entirely new. A pearl. The thing that began as discomfort, irritating, painful, becomes something of beauty.

A pearl’s size, shape, colour, and iridescent lustre depend upon the unique conditions under which they were formed. Each pearl demonstrates an oyster’s response to pain and no two pearls are ever identical. This is where my philosophy begins.

The Human Oyster

Now, stick with me when I say this, imagine that humans are not so different to oysters. I know, I know, I can already hear the arguments.

Oysters live in the ocean, and humans live on land.

Humans don’t have exterior shells.

Oysters don’t have limbs.

You’ve got it all wrong!

Wait! Hear me out.

Our bodies are like the oyster’s shell: strong, durable, built to protect the squishy, important stuff within. Our bodies take us through the world, enduring illnesses, injuries, ageing, and the innumerable pressures of everyday life. But, like the oyster’s shell, our bodies repair and rebuild themselves.

The oyster shell contains a mollusc and, because this is a metaphor, our bodies contain our mind — the living creature within the shell. Our mind manages our pleasant experiences of joy, hope, and love. But just like the foreign particles getting through the oyster’s shell, we also experience discomfort and pain caused by irritants such as sorrow, fear, and heartbreak. We can either allow the irritation to become an open wound, or we can respond to it with acceptance, courage, and understanding. Those responses are our nacre, that iridescent substance we make to protect ourselves.

The Soul is the Pearl

Some believe that the soul is something with which we’re born, but in this philosophy, the soul is not something inherent, rather, it’s something we create and forge over our lifetime. Our challenges and pains in life do not create the pearl, but our responses to the pain and hardship is what forms the layers of nacre. It’s not instantaneous, it’s not perfect, and it most definitely is not formed without conscious effort. The soul is formed gradually, layer by layer, over a period of years or decades. It is the beautiful, shiny, iridescent sphere that is plucked from our corporeal forms when we die.

I don’t know about you, but my most formative experiences, the ones that opened my mind to new perspectives, the ones that taught me the most about my strength and resilience, were the most difficult and challenging to overcome. Embarrassment, failure, loneliness, grief, these are the experiences that shaped my character, my soul. I have learnt nothing from my successes, and everything from my failures. And these lessons add another layer of nacre, another layer of beauty, to my soul. Each layer is microscopic, seemingly insignificant, but together they become the pearl.

As I said, no two pearls are the same. The initial irritant is different from pearl to pearl. The conditions in which the pearl is formed are different. Some pearls develop over months, others over years. The colour, size, shape, and sheen of the pearl are all different. Like snowflakes, each is completely unique and irreplicable. The same is true for people. We all look different on the outside; therefore, it would make little sense if our souls looked identical, and, like most things, it’s their uniqueness that makes them beautiful.

Pain Is Not the Pearl

I think this distinction is critical to the philosophy: pain is not the pearl. It is often said that pain makes us stronger, but I don’t think suffering does anything by itself. Pain and hardship are merely the grain of sand that got through the shell. Sometimes we expect that a tragedy should grant us some immediate wisdom or insight, as if it can instantly transform us, but pearls demonstrate that things with real meaning, things of beauty, take time. If the oyster did nothing, then the sand would continue to cause pain — it doesn’t magically become a pearl without any effort.

The pearl is not made from pain, it’s made from the response to pain, the things the oyster chooses to build around it. Pain can make us bitter, fearful, untrusting — and these things do not add to our souls. But, by acknowledging the grain of sand, we can begin to build around it. We can begin to develop our souls.           

The pearl consists almost entirely of nacre, not the initial irritant. Likewise, a beautiful soul is made not from the wounds themselves, but from the countless ways we try to overcome them.  

Becoming More Beautiful

Pain is not desirable, but it does not have to become suffering. Every hardship offers us an opportunity to add another layer to the pearl. Even if the world only sees your shell, you can know that inside you there exists a beautiful, shining pearl just waiting to add another layer. By looking at life through this philosophy, challenges are not obstacles but opportunities and we can meet each one with an awareness of what we will gain from it.

The purpose of life is not to avoid every grain of sand, but to learn how to turn them into pearls, how to use our challenges to strengthen ourselves.

I hope that you’ve found some sort of comfort from The Oyster Philosophy and that the next time life throws something difficult your way, perhaps you might remember the oyster and the beautiful process by which its pearls are made.

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The one thing Agatha Sinclair loved more than working in her garden, was admiring it. Rain or shine, she was out there. In the morning she worked; pruning, weeding, planting, watering, so that by mid-afternoon she could sit and admire her handiwork. Agatha had no children, and her husband, who had been a recluse most of their married life, died suddenly the year before. At least she had her plants to keep her company. She cared for, and nurtured, each plant, leaf, and flower as if it were a child to be cradled and adored.

She had a certain eye for colour and shapes, texture and scent, knew exactly which plant should be paired with which. She’d walk down the path in the morning and smell the delicate perfume of dewy roses. By night, the jasmine and honeysuckle would come alive with fragrance, and she’d listen to the nightingale’s serenade. She’d run her fingers through the rows of plants and feel the soft lambs-ears, or the prick of thistles. She’d stop and listen to the bees buzzing around the apple tree, and taste the sweet, ripened fruit. Her garden was a wonderland of the senses — or so said the magazine that featured Agatha and her garden last year. Despite the admiration, she was never fully satisfied — there was always more work to do.

Golden rays of the afternoon sun fell on her garden and softened the bright hues of the early spring flowers. She watched from her bench as the light drained away and a purple twilight blanketed the sky.

Admiring her handiwork was usually anything but relaxing; she discovered small weeds that needed pulling the following day, or a plant with brown leaves that would surely need pruning before the flower competition next week. Or even, to her abject horror, there would be a dry flower head; petals drained of colour, curling in on themselves with shame, and leaves withered like crispy, mummified fingers.

Agatha looked at her garden and saw it growing defiantly between two rose bushes: a weed, unlike anything she’d ever seen before, climbing and reaching, seemingly right before her eyes. She could pull weeds from sunrise to sunset and come the end of the day she’d still find more.

This weed had a twisting, coiling stem, and was white like bone.

It looked particularly stubborn and so, instead of leaving it until morning as she usually opted, she stormed across the lawn to the flowerbed. Using her trowel, she dug a little way around the stem and pulled it up from the root. There, her garden was perfect. Perfect enough, at least, to finally permit her to rest for the evening.

The morning was cold and misty, and her garden was adorned with a gentle dew, turning spiderwebs into strings of pearls and glass beads, and glazed petals into stained glass. She walked through her garden as if through a dream, slowly, languidly, relishing every detail and indulging every sense. Her breath billowed out in soft, curling tendrils. Her fingers glanced across the surface of damp flower petals and waxy leaves. There was always some new marvel to discover in her garden, she wondered what that day would bring.

She remembered the days when they first moved into the house and her husband would join her in the garden, sitting in the summerhouse with a newspaper or a book, enjoying a cup of tea, and informing her of any encroaching weeds. Then the garden became too much for him, too daunting, and he resolved to sitting inside with a puzzle or the radio. He would wave at her from the window, but then he stopped doing that too. He envied the garden, and she knew it. She spent more time outside with her trowel than with her husband — he even told her so. But he didn’t understand. The motherly instinct is not so easy to curb.

Silver ribbons of snail slime glistened in the cold morning light, sparkling like sunlight through cracked glass, leading Agatha toward the back corner. It was a natural hub for slugs, spiders, centipedes, and other creepy-crawlies, with plenty of dark and dank corners in which to hide. She tried to fight it, tried to plant bright flowers and shrubs, but that corner resisted. Thankfully, it was mostly obscured by the greenhouse and a bulging hydrangea, so the critics and newspapers never discovered it. With time, Agatha grew to be secretly fond of the darker corner of the garden; there was no pressure to be perfect, tame, or otherwise pleasing to the eye.

She turned over a ceramic pot and several shy snails tumbled out onto the path. Scooping up the shells, she considered them with disdain and cast them over the fence to eat away at a neighbour’s garden instead. One snail was left behind, and she almost trampled it with the heel of her shoe. She picked it up. It was quite a large shell and fit neatly in the palm of her hand. Smooth, shiny, brown and dappled with white. So thin, so fragile, like an eggshell. Snails could do such damage to a lovely garden like hers; eating away at leaves and flowers, leaving their nasty trail all along the path and up the fence.

She closed her fist and crushed the papery shell, sprinkling the fragments into the breeze. The husk was empty anyway.

It was a typical day in the garden.

Working clockwise from her starting point, she pruned, dead-headed, and watered. She dug several shallow rows at the front of the flower beds and planted marigold seeds that would burst with colour in the warm summer. By the time Agatha worked around to the rose bushes, the high sun told her it was lunchtime.

Flower heads turned on their stems to watch her walk back to the house, like a thousand unblinking eyes. She spotted something out of the corner of her eye and stopped. It was the weed, growing back in the same spot as the night before. It must have been taller than the one she pulled out the previous day. She knelt down and quickly dug it out before going inside to make a cup of tea and a sandwich. From the window she looked out at her garden, surveying what needed tackling next.

How could it be? She blinked and rubbed her eyes, but, yes, it was still there! The weed, the one she’d just dug up, was growing between the rose bushes, white and strong like a sturdy spine, or reaching arm. She put down her tea. She hadn’t imagined it, had she? Armed with her trowel, she went back out and dug down through the dark soil, down until she found the end of the roots, and then wrenched the stubborn weed free like a rotting tooth.

The next morning brought rain. At first, a light drizzle, and then heavy sheets and dense, impenetrable clouds. Fat droplets rolled off the waxy green leaves, creating muddy puddles in the wells of the flowerbeds. Agatha stared grimly out of the window, hoping she’d planted the seeds deep enough to withstand the force of the rain.

She went out in her long wellington boots and her floral rain mac, and spent the day in her greenhouse, transferring plants into bigger pots to make room for new bulbs. The rain lashed against the glass, disfiguring her garden into an oil painting.

There wasn’t much else to be done in the garden that day, so at lunchtime she hurried out of the rain and into the warmth of the house. Her husband had always loved the rain and would even turn off his radio to listen to it. The rain would force her inside, away from the garden. She’d do a puzzle with her husband but could never concentrate, not when she thought about the mess she’d have to clear up the next day.

The rain refused to relent, and continued its downpour well into the afternoon. Agatha had watched several re-runs of Alan Titchmarsh’s ‘Love Your Garden’ when she finally dragged herself away to the kitchen to wash her teacup. The window had fogged up, and she used her sleeve to wipe away a circle just big enough that she could survey the damage to her garden. She gasped and dropped the teacup which shattered in the sink.

Through the lashing rain she could see it.

The weed.

Long white tendrils climbing up the stem of a rose bush, squeezing, choking.

Without stopping to grab her coat or wellies, she rushed out into the garden and took up the trowel and secateurs. She snipped at the thick stem, ripping it away from the rose bush.

Thorns bit into her skin and blood trickled down her fingers. She hacked away at the soft ground. Her clothes were soon soaked through with water and dirt, and her face was streaked with mud.

Eventually she discarded the trowel and clawed at the soupy earth with her bare hands. Her fingers wrapped around a thick twiggy root, and she pulled with all her strength. At last, the twig relinquished its grip on the ground and sprang free. The roots, she noticed, were almost black and tinged with red, like dark veins full of clotting blood.

Her jumper was ruined, her flesh torn to shreds, but it was all worth it.

It was all worth it for the garden.

The rain continued through the night and into the following day but died off to a light patter. Agatha drove to the garden centre which was usually a hub of discovery and an opportunity to explore the variety of plants that would compliment her garden. But she was not going for pleasure, she was going for a purpose. Never before had she used weed-killer in her garden, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

Weeds should not be tolerated.

They should be ripped up from the roots, doused with poison, and shown no mercy.

A weed’s only purpose is to prevent the healthy growth of flowers, to steal and leech unapologetically. People, Agatha once learnt, were also a lot like weeds.

She’d had a weed once, a stubborn one, like the one in the rose bush. Agatha knew exactly what to do with a stubborn weed.

By the time she got home, the rain had stopped and a clear blue sky peeked through the breaks in the clouds. Out in the garden, she crouched beside the rose bush, and surely enough the defiant weed was back again. She unscrewed the lid and doused it with the herbicide.

Days passed but the weed remained. The bottle said the leaves should start yellowing and wilting, but nothing was happening, in fact, Agatha thought the weed was bigger and thicker than before. She went out to inspect and saw another weed sprouting in the flowerbed a few paces along.

And then another weed.

The more she looked, she more weeds she saw.

They were everywhere, clinging to the neighbouring plants, coiling around the stems like bony hands around a tender neck.

Agatha went along with her trowel, digging up the weeds and stuffing them into a plastic bag. She tried planting bulbs where the weeds had been, but the next morning the bulbs had been pushed up through the surface by the returning weeds.

She went to the library and frantically perused the gardening books, desperate for a clue about what the weed could be. Bindweed? Nettle? Creeping buttercup? Chickweed? Japanese Knotweed? Perhaps it was a parasite. Mistletoe? Dodders? Ghost Plant? Witchweed? None fit the description, nor could explain its seemingly alien regenerative capabilities.

Agatha doused the weed-killer on any plant she didn’t recognise, and when that made no difference, she went back out with her trowel and started digging.

One night she awoke from a dream. The weed’s long arms were reaching out to her, gripping her by the neck. She woke up breathless, and lay awake in bed, staring at the window. The blinds were closed but she could imagine the carnage outside. Weeds winding around her perfect plants, choking and clinging, sucking away the nutrients, killing them slowly.

She always looked after her plants, cared for them like they were her children.

What would a mother do if someone were killing her darlings?

Last year, when her husband didn’t want her to buy the expensive fertiliser anymore, she stopped, but then her plants started to wilt and die and so she had no choice.

She had to do something to help her darlings.

So, she found a different fertiliser. Her roses bloomed like never before.

Agatha climbed out of bed and went downstairs. Still in her nightdress, she pulled on her wellies and her rain mac. She left the trowel on the kitchen table and took the shovel from the shed.

She started with the back of the garden. Plunging the shovel into the earth with a satisfying crunch, Agatha began to mutter to herself and attack the ground with greater passion. After pulling the first weed free, she moved to the next. The shovel pierced through the gritty ground, striking loose stones and thick roots. She got down on her hands and knees and gripped the twiggy stalks, tugging at the weeds like working a decaying tooth.

The night wore on but her energy didn’t wane. Bright, twinkling stars filled the sky, dotted like white seeds on dark earth. Agatha became more frantic and frenzied, striking blindly at any root or stem.

Finally, she came to the last weed, the one that started it all. She planted the shovel into the earth and threw the dirt over her shoulder. The moon was her only light as she worked the soil between the rose bushes. Her shovel struck stones, and the earth fell away.

No, not stones. Bones.

Thin stripes of white ribs, like a birdcage. Knobbly, round joints, and a smooth white skull like a snail shell.

The dark roots of the weed had wrapped around the bones like veins. But weeds didn’t give life, they took it.

She struck at the weeds with the shovel, metal cracking through bones, splintering them like papery eggshells. She cast the shovel aside and used her hands, stripping the weeds away from the bones. At last, she pulled away the final thin arm of the root and sat triumphant with the weed in her lap.

She looked at her muddy, bloody hands, and then at the bones. She filled in the earth again and, as if waking from a dream, she saw what she had done to her garden.

Not a single flower remained.

Her fury hadn’t differentiated between flower and weed, life and death, health and decay. She’d torn them all away, pulled everything up from the roots, even her precious rosebushes had splintered.

Sometimes it was good to start fresh, to see the ruined work and reconfigure it in a different way.

Tomorrow, she’d be off to the garden centre, and thought she’d start with some rose bushes.