Crap. I don't know what I'm doing

So today, I thought I would try and cut some planks to dig into the clay to make a makeshift retaining wall for the terraced beds. I cut them all right; the planks are thin and skinny so each took a few minutes, but when I tried to get them into the hard clay, they wouldn't go in more than a couple of inches. I tried sawing a point into the bottom, but that didn't work. In the end, I managed to make a thin line with the spade, but I'm just not strong enough. I need to get some proper garden stakes, those things with the pointed bottoms, and attach the planks to them. But fence posts, or any post, are far more expensive than the free wood I have lying around and there's still a part of me that worries I still won't get them into the ground. Difficult to believe this is ground that has been covered over all this time. So much for the no dig method. What I'm going to do with the rest of it is quite beyond me at the moment. Ho hum.

Also, I cut about 90% of the brambles on the plot down with secateurs today, when I know I'm still going to have to get rid of the roots somehow. I just got sick of tripping over them and walking into them and getting scratches all the damned time. But I know I haven't dealt with the problem, I've just delayed it. Brambles love being pruned back, after all. I confess that I did buy some glyphosate weedkiller today, very reluctantly, on the advice of this blog and some of the other stuff I read on the internet (hah, I read it on the interwebs, it must be true!). There are pros and cons to glyphosate, I know, And this has made me feel sad - I didn't ever say to myself that I would have a completely organic plot - and I may not use it. But I feel like some of the problems are insurmountable today. And my back aches. And my ass and legs ache.

So, I feel a bit despondent. I'm going to have the day off tomorrow - it's going to rain anyway,and I fancy doing some exercise that doesn't involve struggling with mud or roots. Then I'm going to have a fire.Sometimes you just need a bit of distance from the problem to understand the answer. I hope so. Or it's napalm.