Dead flowers...

I broke the land speed record last night.

There I was, carefully de-seeding the dog (note to self to keep dog out of metre high grass) when the heavens opened.  It started with a slightly ajar kind of opening with a few small drops of rain, but progressed to a full slamming of the door against the wall with a loud announcement of 'Ta Dah' kind of opening as the wet stuff hurled down.  

All my cushions were still out on deckchairs, patio chairs, chair chairs etc etc, and I ran round the garden at breakneck speed gathering up as much as possible, throwing it into the kitchen and then going back for more.  All the time, getting wetter and wetter until I was almost ready for a 1980's wet t-shirt competition (so would have lost that with my meagre bosom).

And where was the husband while I was doing this?  Well ladies, he was supervising, having just taken delivery of his new toy (more of this later) and as I threw the sun lounger cushions in, he very kindly said in a most supportive tone, 'You missed one'.

He was right, naturally, and as he said, 'You might as well go and get it,  No point in me getting soaked too'.

Like you, I am very relieved to see the rain.  It effectively gave me three hours of my life back last night because I didn't have to water my garden, the neighbour's garden and my allotment.  The neighbour's garden is a tricky one, as I only remembered on Saturday that she wanted me to water while she was away.  The lightbulb moment was exactly a week after she left, and with the tropical weather these last few days, you can just imagine the state of her begonias.  There was quite a lot of heavy cutting back, but after three days of heavy watering, there were some signs of recovery last night.  So Mrs B, if you are reading this,  don't expect Kew Gardens when you return.  Any garden would be a bonus...

Going back to the new toy, this is a portable barbecue for the Wobble Box.  You probably guessed that whatever it was, it would either have a plug on the end, or need a packet of Swan Vestas to fire it up, and this definitely falls into the 'stand back love, this is men's work', category.

I'm not saying it's small, but I have calculated that there is room for one large sausage diagonally with a burger either side.  Either that or he has to learn how to cook an upright chicken breast.  If anyone visits us when we are away and they are expecting a home cooked meal, I reckon that they are going to be mightily disappointed when they get a sausage with burned ends and a raw middle. I might suggest taking his blowtorch with us to finish off those 'hard to reach' places.

Talking of finishing off, I only discovered Mrs B's hanging basket on Monday night.  

I'm sorry to say that this was past all help, and a few words were spoken reverently over the wicker basket before emptying the crispy leftovers into a Hippo bag.

Not to worry, I'll buy her a bottle of gin when she gets back to make amends.

She likes gin...