'THE SHED'

Next weekend I am going to venture out into the garden. (Or 'Beirut' as my daughters refer to it). Other than doing the 'dog poo run' (a joyous pastime) I have not really been out there yet this year. It shows, big time. I dearly love plants, but, sadly, Alan Titchmarsh I am not.


Last year, for the first time, I dabbled in vegetables (the growing you understand, I've been eating them in copious amounts for a while now) It did not end well. My tomatoes were actually edible and quite nice, but, strangely, they became cherry tomatoes. I planted normal ones but when they appeared, voila! cherry toms! I also had some measure of success with petits pois, in fact a little too much success. Now I love petits pois as much as the next man but I was giving them to friends just to get rid of them (and not all my friends like petits pois......evidently).


Anyway, working full time, keeping house and trying to find time to write does not leave me too much 'spare' time, so, I thought, this year I'd set up the garden to be as easily maintained as possible, whilst still looking nice.


A word from the wise. If you intend to do anything on these lines in your garden, I cannot stress too strongly, DO NOT read the gardening magazines to find out how. Well, not unless you've just won the lottery anyway.


The people who write these are incredibly wealthy!!! They blithely advise you to 'shingle' an area that tends to be in the shade a lot, to enable better drainage. Have you seen the price of those little stones?? I think I'd sooner get a couple of goldfish and call my badly drained area a 'water feature'.


Then there's my other 'garden problem'. Insects. I am ashamed to say that I am actually afraid to go into my shed. Why? Spiders. Oh, I know what you're thinking now. But these are big. OK, I admit that I am phobic, but these really are BIG.


In fact, the last time I was foolhardy enough to venture, unarmed, into that dank, dismal interior the spider that confronted me (and I do mean 'confronted', it reared up!) was so enormous, in the brief (was it ever brief!) time it took me to vault over the lawmower, impail my left foot on the grass rake and kick over a half full tin of hideous purple paint, I swear I noticed it was smoking a pipe and sporting a tattoo. This was big.

I guess I'll end up getting my beautiful, fearless daughters (did I mentionthey are beautiful? - they may read this) to brave the perils of 'The Shed' and dust down the mower, wipe the blood from the grass rake and plant my rather good petits pois.
Anyone out there like to put their name down for a few? Anyone??

Animal magic

Its a dogs life. I think everyone's heard that comment at one time or another. I've been thinking just what that must be like - for my animals anyway. My dog and two cats all have private health insurance. (It, evidently, costs more to remove my cats tooth than it does mine!) They all get little cards through the post reminding me when they are next due for a general medical, just to check everything is ok. I dont know about your Doctor, but I dont remember the last time a Doctor did that for me. They wake, with me , in the morning and lay and doze, warm and comfortable whilst I rush about frantically getting ready for work and making sure they are all fed, watered and walked (where necessary). Weekends, I finally get time off work. Rest and relaxation? Well, if you call walking windswept beaches, throwing sticks with frozen fingers and trying to cram a distinctly reticent dog into a dog coat then I guess so.

Whilst all this frenetic activity is going on the cats look on serenely. Watching the world go by with the aloof air of one who is waited on hand and paw, and expects to be. One who is brushed, conditioned, fed, watered, medically coddled and generally adored.

So, I've decided. When my time comes, and St Peter (or whoever has the job at the time) asks me what I want to return to the mortal world as, I shall have no hesitation. 'Find me a suitably daft, preferably rich and undeniably stupid human and I'll be their pet'.

What's the betting I'll get the only little old lady that's into taxidermy?

But just maybe.......

I might be the 'Lucky Winner' of £250,000. No, really. I have a letter to prove it. In this letter it plainly states that I am, in fact, in the final stages of the competition. We are, evidently, down to the last 2% of entrants. It also advises me that I might want to sit down before reading the accompanying leaflet, which explains to me the effect that suddenly coming into that amount of money has had on other (lucky) people. Well, I sat down. I read the letter and then the leaflet. Then, rather than running amuck at my (almost) new found fortune, I went to the 'junk' drawer, into which we, shamefully, shove anything that we can't find a home for that will fit. In this drawer I unearthed photographs of the beautiful, rurally located, French cottage that I very nearly won last month. I also found details of the BMW, (the one I had to choose the colour of) that'd I'd almost received the log book for. Why? why must these companies do this to ordinary (broke) people? Isnt it enough that we've bought their magazine/ breakfast cereal/chocolate bar, instead of the supermarkets sensibly wrapped, sensibly priced version?
But I guess I answered my own question on that score. Did the old cynic in me screw up their ridiculous letter and even more ludicrous leaflet? Well, not exactly.
Not straight away. I mean, I know I havent really won or anything. Or if I have it's going to be a keyring. But some one has to actually win these mega prizes, dont they? Just maybe there's a competition fairy somewhere, and just perhaps he'll think 'mmmm, she has entered an awful lot of really dumb competitions and won nothing '- (he won't count the 123 key rings) and just possibly, well, you never know, do you?

Sorry, what was that?

Writing this I should, be sitting in the calm, peaceful atmosphere of my dining room. Unfortunately I have a tumble dryer. Not one of your new, shiney, space age tumble driers. Oh no. Mine is old. Oh, lets not be coy here. Mine is ancient. My tumble drier wouldnt look out of place if it featured in Time Team. Now, owning a gerictric kitchen appliance would not normally cause me one iota of concern. Except today. Due to the attrocious weather we've all been having, (and the fact that, well lets just say 'domestic goddess' I aint, if you catch my drift) I have accumulated an outstanding amount of washing. I only realised how bad it had got when I witnessed an argument between my two daughters this morning about who was going to use the very last clean bath towel. OK, I thought, I really must tackle this.
That was the start of my problem. Now I know the tumble drier is old, and as such, not going to be as quiet and efficient and sleek as new model (are any of us?) but this is something else.
The noise is unbelievable. It whistles. Not Green Sleeves or the theme tune from The Bill or anything, but more the way I would imagine a parrot would sound, having a vasectomy sans anasthetic. It does this constantly. The whole time it's on. Now I am not in a position to rush out and purchase a new one at the moment, so, as I explained to the girls, we will just have to get on with it, stiff upper lip and all that. I thought they were taking it rather well. They didnt say much, just smiled and nodded. It was then that I realised I'd been left to it. They were'nt hearing me or the apocalyptic din of the satanic drier. They'd plugged in to their MP3's and were completely oblivious. Well, if you cant beat 'em, as they say. Anyway, if anyone reading this was thinking of popping round for a coffee or anything, I'd advise against it. Unless you bring your MP3. I can recommend Beethoven's 5th, anything by Metallica is good too. Oh and if you can lip read that would really be a plus.

It only hurts when I laugh

Splosh. That was the very undignified sound I made this morning when I slipped over in the ice/slush/snow. Thunk, that was the other sound, caused by my elbow rapidly coming into contact with the ground, only marginally later than my bottom. I was wet, I was cold, I was in some pain. I was also somewhat embarrassed, fortunately there were only two, rather startled, cats to witness my ice dance, but they have that aloof air, dont they? So whats the first thing I do? Pick myself up, check for broken bones, cuts or scrapes? No. Maybe it's my peculiar sense of humour, maybe I'm just slightly unhinged, I really dont know. I laughed. Not a giggle or an embarrassed grin, I howled. I actually couldnt get up for laughing. It took me a good two to three minutes to get myself under some sort of control for goodness sake.

Why? I imagined watching myself. Saw, in my minds eye, my legs, shooting out before me, my arms pinwheeling to try to regain my, obviously too far gone, balance. But most of all I imagined the suprised look on my face. Just writing it down has got me started again. I am battered and bruised, hobbling and limping, but oh! how I laughed.

I suppose the moral of this is, if you should happen to fall down in the icy weather, I hope you dont hurt yourself too badly, I also hope there arent too many people about to make you feel silly but, secretly, I hope I'm there!

Press to delete

Another Saturday of overtime behind me. Sunday spent cleaning, washing, ironing and generally tidying up. I, once again, find myself at my keyboard attempting to write at least one or two paragraphs that I will not end up deleting. That is the problem, the delete button. What, I wonder, would life be like if there was a delete button, for real? Would any of us survive for long? The guy that pulled out on me in Hamlet Court Rd for instance, well, he would have been instantly zapped. The woman in the ridiculously long checkout queue in Iceland who decided she wasnt going to see me, patiently waiting my turn, and plonked her basket on the counter in front of me - erased. Fans of opposing football teams....you see where this could lead? Of course some of us would be OK, it would only be the really annoying people that would have anything to worry about. The rest of us are just occasionally a bit daft, I seem to remember, several years ago, I inadvertantly washed my husands wages, nestled safely as they were, in the back pocket of his jeans. Oh, how we laughed. Well, eventually. I say, its got very dark in here has'nt it?....hello? .......... Is anyone there?.......hello?