Earthly delights

My garden is rather like an unruly teenager.  I love it to bits, and it can be beautiful and amazing; a constant surprise and delight.  But most of the time it just throws its stuff all over the floor and annoys the neighbours.  I don't think it's decided yet whether it's an Emo or a Goth.

I believe it will eventually respond to love and good sense, so I spent some time on Saturday picking autumn leaves out of the lavender.  Then I realised that my back was going again, so I wandered round with the secateurs, feeling rather like Morticia Adams {but less elegantly dressed} snipping dry, straggly brown stuff off the hanging baskets.

My beloved takes a different approach, imposing a somewhat strict regime on his garden.  Enforced good conduct and discipline is the order of the day there.  {Get your hedge cut, you horrible little bush.} I must admit, his garden is much better behaved than mine, but I can't help worrying that it's just biding its time waiting for the chance to rebel.  I know that my garden will have a wild party whenever I go on holiday, but he can never be sure about his.

In case you were wondering, yes, I do have gardening gloves.  At least, I have gloves that I wear in the garden, which I suppose isn't quite the same.  Proper gardening gloves all seem to be made to fit the Jolly Green Giant so, having rather small hands, I can't pick up anything when I'm wearing them.  At the same time, they're so short and loose round the wrist that they keep filling with earth, which rather defeats the object.  I wear ordinary thermal gloves with elasticated wrists, but perhaps when the weather gets a bit warmer I'll try the full Morticia and wear my long satin evening gloves.

All I need is gloves

I've just bought a pair of rubber gloves. {I can feel my 'inner Adam' starting to snigger at this already.}  I'm not normally worried about protecting my hands, but I was treated to a manicure last weekend and it seemed churlish to respond by ceasing to do the washing up.  Anyway, having invested a modest 69p in a pink, fleecy-lined pair I was surprised to find an instruction sheet in the packet.  In four European languages.  How hard can it be to work out what to do with a pair of rubber gloves?  {Shut up Adam!}   More complicated than you'd think.  Click on the picture, and see for yourself.

I'm quite prepared to "carry out a visual inspection prior to use, to detect major defects", but when it comes to "Avoid using to handle liquids"  I am somewhat perplexed.  Why else would anyone be wearing rubber gloves in a domestic situation, if it doesn't involve liquids of some kind?

{My metaphorical Adam is now giggling helplessly, but is also quite puzzled.} Most household chemicals are liquids, after all.

I was prepared to take the risk with hot soapy water, since the maintenance instructions say that's what I should clean them with, after use.  I'm sure my argument would stand up in court if the gloves disintegrated and I sued the manufacturer for a refund of my 69p.  However, I was distressed to realize that I wouldn't be able to produce the evidence, as I had already rashly disposed of the original packaging... how was I to know I should retain it for transporting them, it just looked like an ordinary plastic bag!

Bring me flesh and bring me wine

They said on the radio recently that red wine, in moderate daily doses, can help prevent Alzheimer's.  This is good news!   I'd been feeling somewhat tired and forgetful for a week or so and was getting rather anxious about it, but here was reassurance.  I'm back on the Atkins diet again and, in my less hypochondriacal moments, I'd assumed that my lack of energy was due to lack of cake; but no, it was simply lack of alcohol.  Purely for the sake of my health, I reluctantly took a glass or two at the weekend, and now I feel much better.  At least I can remember where I put my work trousers now, even if I'm still too big to fit into them.

 One good thing about the Atkins diet is that you can eat quite a lot of meat, and we had some particularly nice sausages the other night.  When I remarked on them though, I was told, "These are the same type as we've been having for breakfast for months."  I protested - they couldn't be, the breakfast sausages were nowhere near as tasty as the ones on my plate.  "Ah well," I was informed, "your taste buds do react differently at different times of day".  That can't be right!  And if it is, then it's no wonder I thought I was getting Alzheimer's.

Another news item that's caught my attention this week is the one about horsemeat masquerading as beef.  Obviously there are serious issues involved here, like whether it's fit for human consumption, and the whole trades descriptions thing.  But that aside, I've eaten horse meat in France, and very nice it is too.  I've even eaten donkey sausage.  {I know how that sounds.  I mean actual salami.}  I wouldn't go out of my way to eat it again, but I wouldn't spit it out either.  Or perhaps I would, if it was offered at breakfast with scrambled eggs and a cup of tea, rather than in the evening with olives and a robust Beaujolais.  I think this calls for serious research; in the interests of scientific enquiry maybe I should consume sausages and wine of all kinds at various times of the day, and report any impressions that I can subsequently recall.

The dog wrote it

You may be familiar with the phrase, "On the internet, nobody knows you're a dog"- meaning, for the more innocent (or less politically correct) among you, that what you read may not have been written by a human being.  I'm human, although it usually takes several cups of tea to get me that way in the mornings.  I'm starting to wonder, though, about the authors of some of the emails I've been receiving.

If you're a real person, and you've written a comment on this blog that hasn't been published yet, please forgive me - I have 498 (yes, honestly) items that have plopped into my 'spam' folder, that I'm conscientiously checking, in case they're from genuine readers.   I also fear that I may have accidentally deleted some comments that weren't spam at all.  Incidentally, I wonder why we call it 'spam'.  Is it an acronym?..... Silly People Answer Machines?  Spaniels Produce Acceptable Mail?  Senseless Perverted Automated Messages?  Oh dear, I'll probably get more now, having used the P-word.  Maybe I should include a password in each post, for people who feel moved to comment - you know, like online shopping codes that get you a discount.  (Damn, that's probably triggered a few automated responses as well!)

Sometimes it's very difficult to work out if messages are authentic but, on balance, I'd rather include comments from metaphorical dogs than leave out ones from actual people.  Life is too short to worry about looking gullible.