Bridge over troubled water...

Last week, I allowed the husband to fulfill a long held dream of his.  You'll be slightly relieved to learn that this didn't involve me removing my vest, but instead involved a visit to the local garden centre which resulted in the purchase (after much haggling at the till) of a water feature for the garden.

The husband has strange taste where anything (except me) is concerned.  Over the years, I have gently steered him away from several things, including clothes which have words on them, three quarter length trousers, Match of the Day and trifle (actually, this is an ongoing battle which I fear I will never win).  So when it came to choosing a water feature, I knew that there might be a small chasm between what he wanted and what I felt was acceptable to grace my border.

'What about that one?

'Too loud'

'This one?'

'Too shiny'

'This one?'

'I'm not a lover of buckets and fake taps'

'Ooh, this one...'  This was said with an almost reverent voice, and i looked across to where he was staring, eyes glazed over as if he'd walked into a land where it was ok to have trifle for breakfast.

Well ladies, it took some persuasion to pull him away from this particular monstrosity which involved several copper coloured pipes.  It almost looked like someone who wasn't a brass fan had buried several trumpets in a slab of cement and then filled them with water.  It definitely wouldn't fit in with my cottage garden.

But we eventually settled on one.  A small stone waterfall which blended in with my plants quite nicely. Not too loud, although we can hear it from our bedroom window (as can Mr and Mrs R next door I'm sure) and the dogs have adopted it as their own personal water fountain.

We have other fans in the shape of several wasps who sunbathe on the stones around the water before going for a drink. Now I don't mind them doing this, as I am a great believer in helping out all wildlife where I can, but it's making filling up my bird feeders a bit of a challenge, as I have to stretch across the water feature (or Waspa del Sol as it's now called) to reach them.  On Sunday, when I wasn't overseeing him (very dangerous) the husband came up with the great idea of moving the water feature slightly to the right a bit to help.

However, it's not going to help the twenty or so daffodil bulbs who will be looking to greet the sunshine in March, only to be faced with a lump of mock concrete covered in wasps.

Well ladies if marriage has taught me one thing, it's that sometimes you just have to keep your gob shut...