We were very lucky that son turned 2 during the summer. We spent a few weeks in an idyllic French campsite, parked the potty under a tree, and let him run around commando. Potty trained in days. Not an option when daughter reached an appropriate stage in November.
Not curmudgeonly, just sad. Wilma, the village pig, has died. Owned by the local builder, it lived on a grassy plot in the centre of the village and was an adopted pet of the entire village, local walkers, the bin men - tributes have been posted from far and wide.
My oldest boy is quite interested in the plants I grow. He really likes the big spikey plant that I've just brought in for the winter. To him it's part of the family. One day he worked out that it looked like the cacti he sees in books and on TV and proudly told me it was a cactus. Being a botanical family I gently corrected him that it was called a 'pachypodium' and since he picks words up almost instantly he has since called it the pachypodium. I was very impressed until this morning when he started to adlib a bit and called one of his toys the 'pachybirdy' and then finding this sounded fun he started adding the pachy tag in front of other words. It can only be a matter of time before this gets me into trouble and non-gardeners won't really understand the explaination I suspect.
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
My new electric hand pruner came with a grass shears attachment. It works fine but I can't see myself being bothered to use it. Is there anything else that they could be used for in the garden?
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'The power of accurate observation .... is commonly called cynicism by those that have not got it.
George Bernard Shaw'