Gardeners' Question Time

A couple of posts ago I wrote about how the back garden has looked like this

ever since the builders left, after using it as a storage area, last June.  This despite the fact that the other-half used to garden for a living.  Well I'm pleased to say he finally ran out of excuses (one being 'I've got gardeners' block') and now it has been transformed.  

Behold the new garden:

Ha ha ha.  I am very funny.

Actually it looks like this:

It all looks a bit plinky plonky at the moment but once the plants start growing it'll be a thing of beauty.  We haven't replaced the grass opting instead for flowers in the hope of encouraging bees.  This may be a tad foolish as the other-half is wildly allergic to wasp stings.  He's never been stung by a bee so we've no idea how he'd react but maybe I'd better think about life insurance.  The eagle-eyed among you may be wondering why there is an unconnected shower head fixed to the shed (far left).  It's because, here at Discombobulated Towers, we are not afraid to embrace the twee.

Talking of twee I went shopping in lovely Ludlow the other day.  I meant to buy sensible things like toilet rolls and socks.  Instead I came home with a handbound notebook, a quince for the garden and an hourglass.  That's just the kind of town Ludlow is.  I've been sad enough to check and it actually takes 62 minutes for the sand to trickle from the top to the bottom of the hourglass.  Should I ask for a refund?

I had chemo yesterday and, after feeling like a dog's dinner last time, I am stuffed to the gills with anti-nausea medicine.  On the plus side I have spent the day lying on the sofa with the cat, a packet of ginger biscuits and a book about the nasty Normans duffing up the Ango-Saxons.  I've had worse Wednesdays.

Beware - mushiness alert

(These are the flowers I received today from a daft but lovely friend, ta M, you nutter)

Back in 1980 I lived in a shared slum in Manchester (for about 2.8 seconds when I thought I wanted to do an HND in Business Studies at Salford Technical College, what was I thinking). Anyway my fellow slum-dwellers and I had a party. And although the party was a good one, my abiding memory is of the two useless gits (never identified) who threw up in the house. One vomited into the spin-dryer (only discovered when I went to use it several days later) and the other through the letter box – from the outside in (OK, that was quite impressive I suppose but still revolting). This experience of 30-odd years ago was one of many that made me come to the conclusion that quite a lot of people are, at best, utter, utter twonks.

Since my recent diagnosis I have had to revise this opinion. I have had so much niceness from so many people that I don’t know whether to blush, cry or do a lap of honour. Both my and the other-half’s families have been brilliant, friends rallied round and even friends of friends of friends offered their help and advice (some having had the misfortune to have experienced this crappy disease themselves). To everyone – thank you. Thank you for the cuddly cat, for the soup, for the chocolate bunnies, for the visits, for the meals, for the flowers, for the booze, for the emails, for the phone calls, for offers of lifts etc etc etc – in fact thank you for being such all round bricks. That’s bricks with a B.

Just in case you think I’m in danger of disappearing into a vat of mushiness let me assure you that, although I’ve been sincerely touched by everyone’s kindness, I still think the mystery vomiters of 1980 are a pair of arseholes. So I’m not entirely a fluffy bunny yet.