The good things about gardening are:
1. Your garden looks lovely
2. …
3. Errrr
4. …

And that’s what I’ve been doing. (Fucking) Gardening. And its… great!

Normally I limit gardening to using very loud and powerful devices. If ya can’t fill it with petrol it ain’t fer me. But sometimes the rules need to bend a little. In the interests of marital harmony and a pretty garden.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my garden. Front and back, both beautiful and gorgeous and flowering with… flowers… an’ shit. But when Mel says ‘we need a few border plants’, my heart sinks. And my back starts aching before we’ve even reached the garden centre. Where we buy little packs of flowers in disgusting polystyrene cases (very environmentally friendly they are too; and you know how much I care!!!) and they’re such good value that you can fill a car boot for 40 quid. Hundreds of plants. Purples and whites and blues. Never red. Mel doesn’t like red flowers and I find anything in Arsenal colours offensive. Even a pansy. Interesting choice of flower…

And that’s ‘job done!’ But of course its not. Because every one of the little fuckers needs to be dug in, composted, protected, loved, nurtured and watered within a centimetre of drowning. Every fucking day. And as I’m in charge of all ‘dangly things that spray all over the place’, the hosepipe becomes my own cross to bear. My own ‘bete noir’. (And if you’re familiar with French euphemisms for ‘nob’, mine ain’t black).

I rose out of bed this morning at a strange angle. I didn’t have a protractor handy but guessing, I was listing by about 30 degrees from the vertical, just from the waist up. I walked past our mirror and saw a bent up old git looking back at me. Which is a depressing way for any young man to start the day. However: I did what I do every Sunday, when the toll of Saturday’s physical excesses reduce me thus, and have a soak in a hot bath. That makes the problem simply go away! And then, once I’m on the tennis court, the movement improves it back to 100% very quickly.

But ten minutes bent over a flower bed with a fucking trowel and I’m Groucho Marx once more.

Therefore I need to spend much more time on the tennis court and way less doing gardening. Doctor’s orders.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx