GARDENING , THE CURSE OF MAN....GETTING OFF HIS ARSE TO MAKE OLD MOTHER NATURE LOOK GOOD!

Whenever the rain and thunderstorms ease off slightly ; The snow and frost melt and you can see your hand ahead of you in the blizzard.......When theres a 15 foot gap in the bulbous grey, grotty  cloud drifting menacingly 10 feet above the roof of your house, a gap able to allow a few cosmic rays and about half a dozen photons of sunlight through to reach the sodden ground below, this illicites an amazing response from the ladies of the houses.....It's summer and its time to do the gardening!!!!!.......We are dragged kicking and screaming out towards the garage door and thrown into the musty darkness to dig around for shovels, lawnmowers, strimmers and other items of gardenning paraphenalia that you had almost forgotten existed and wished to god would cease to exist yet again. Its time to make your little garden of Eden beautiful again(?) ,do your best for your little lump of OLD MOTHER NATURES  wonderfulness that occupies a little square in front and back of the house, its only a little bit, but why can't MOTHER NATURE  keep it looking good, why do i get dragged out to make her look good? 

THE NEW LAD HE'S NOT FROM ROUND HERE IS HE?...


To a fellah the summer is sitting outside a traditional 'Ye olde English' boozer slurping his 8 or 9 th  'ye olde foaming pint of ale', watching the cricket on the green or morris dancing at the local village fete watching scantily clad sun loving ladies wander by. Even though theres nothing like that in Warrington ,we can still dream.

But, as ever real life and the ladies 'It's summer! reflex' is always around to screw everything up. The LOVELY LYNNE starts to poke and prod plants and 'weed', her having 'green fingers', whereas i have stubbly splinter and muck riddled fingers from my stint on the wrong end of a shovel , i know my place.I come from an Irish farming family and shovelling and shifting muck and shit is in my genes as well as all over my jeans. THE LOVELY LYNNE has always appreciated my skills and talents and is happy for me to work to my strengths. One of these 'strengths' in her considered opinion is my ability to remove fresh and fossillised dog turds from within the long grass. Wrapping my hands in 20-odd layers of plastic 'poo-bags' i set to the stomach churning ,teeth grinding ,,back breaking task of clearing up after the dog...Man's best friend?...Do me a favour!!!!......The scruffy little tyke has a TARDIS stomach , he's a lot bigger inside than out ,his capacity for 'crap' is totally awe-inspiring. When this oderous task is completed at some point i must mow the lawn.

"SHE USED TO BE A STRIPPER BEFORE SHE BECAME A STRIMMER!


                      When you mow the lawn the smell of freshly cut grass is a very  fresh healthy smell, that is until the blade hits a missed fossillised doggie 'do' the blade hits the stoney outer layer exposing the inner soft core releasing an age old smell of 'dog'!...The knees wobble ;The stomach does a back flip attempt to leave your body  and the eyes cross as far as the opposite ears. In addittion to this joyful event ,as the grass is long and soggy it congeals under the mower outside the spin area of the mower blade, but you have to scoop the grass and 'extras' within with your hands ,aside from the all-consuming thoughts of 'doggie 'do's'contained within the mush is the possibility of the starter button getting knocked and the blade removing your fingers. Then is the raking of grass, muck, leaves etc and trying to force it all into the garden bin(The green one)....This takes some doing as tamping down forcefully with a heavy shovel is required to get all MOTHER NATURES(And the dog's) waste in there as the council, or whoever only empty the bins roughly whenever HALLEYS' COMET is seen in the west.

My knowledge of the seasons is fairly limited , i know the winter is cold and wet ,and so is the summer. Even i know various plants, bushes and blooms bloom forth , but i know its summer when all of a sudden i'll sit outside in the sun to relax and have a read when the air is filled with lawnmower engines and buzzing strimmers, but worse is the horrendous mass sounds of rusty metal springs twanging and boinging as every kid within 15 miles starts bouncing on trampolines in the bottom of the garden so their snotty little heads keep popping up and down behind the rattling panel fence. My snarling expression slowly turns to a smile at the thought of the 'little bastards' landing on the trampoline at the wrong angle sending them flying onto the rockery or rocketing over the fence into somebodies porch......Ah if only!

                                                                                  People often say the best garden is a concrete one which has a major drawback, whereas in the natural habitat of grass and soil ants will happily live at the far end of the garden or prefferably next door, but if you have a patio chances are the ants are under those concrete flags and have easy access to your house to go on holidays during the summer ,oh we're having so much fun with those clever little devils.