Mel loves Peonies. We all have problems. But like, she REALLY loves them. And they’re only around for a short season. So the cynical, demand-driven, bastard flower-sellers make them expensive. But not so expensive that if you love them you won’t buy them anyway. You’ll just eat less in peony season. I like them too. Possibly because its such an easy way to make my wife happy (I am the BEST fucking husband ever created), but also because they are one of the greatest inventions of the gods. (Along with peanuts, bananas, eggs and locking wheel nuts). You can watch them transform. The buds ‘open’ within hours. Ok, yeah, they’re on their way to death; I get that. But what a fab journey they have. Well, we have, on their behalf.

So when Mel heard of a farm where you actually go around cutting your own peonies, it was simply a ‘must’. Especially when I learned that they don’t have these sort of farms in, like, Elephant & Castle or Islington. No. They’re miles away. In that green bit. The countryside. This particular bit was just in Cambridgeshire, on the Hertfordshire border. So far ‘up north’ you can almost smell Andy Burnham. Basically, drop the roof on the car, get on the A1 and relive every car chase you’ve ever seen, every F1 you’ve ever watched and harness your inner ‘Fast and Furious’. Mel enjoys this sort of ride. And even lets me deploy the ‘sport button!!!’, as long as I do it without her seeing.

You arrive, in the middle of fucking nowhere and there’s the farm. With a massive, 500 car car-park, almost full. Ok, lots of people go there for the super looking cafe or to visit the ‘farm shop’. Which, like all ‘farm shops’, doesn’t sell farms. Nor really do they sell much of what grows on farms. Ok, bit’a cheese, few pork pies to upset the vegans, otherwise its just overpriced kitchenware, barbecues, wooden toys and crockery.

We cut loads of peonies, some other… errrr… flowers, and it only cost 15 quid for the lot. What price happiness. And both in the literal and metaphorical senses, ‘it was all about the journey’. Great afternoon out.

Which took my mind off the football, although by the time we arrived home, West Ham were 2-nil down, which is just brilliant.

Now, ‘all we need’ is 1 point from 2 games. ‘All’ we need… shoot me now.

Happy Monday,

A xxxx