I had a word in his ear yesterday. ‘The front garden needs a proper sprucing. It’s making a pure show of us in front of the neighbours’
Himself looked up from his coffee. ‘That’s the most Protestant thing I’ve ever heard.’
I ignored this. ‘So I think we should go to a garden centre.’
‘Now THAT’S the most Protestant thing I’ve ever heard,’ said he. ‘And on St Patrick’s Day too.’
He has a pure hatred of garden centres, has my husband. That is, until he enters one, and starts buying all round him. Case in point, earlier, when we traipsed down to Homebase, spurred on by some unsatisfactory time outdoors yesterday afternoon.
He had given in to my griping, (ALL I AM ASKING FOR IS THIRTY MINUTES OF YOUR TIME) and out he came, having donned appropriate footwear, because in 2019 we went to Majorca and I’d had him out digging a flower bed and a creature had worked its wily way into his shoe and devoured his foot. He said it really compromised his holiday enjoyment, and no antihistamine seemed to quell the itch so he took to the beer by way of distraction instead.
Anyway, no sooner was he out when he started questioning the tools at hand. In he went to the shed, but no amount of rummaging revealed the ‘Pokey’ device to dig the pesky weeds from between the paving stones. ‘It’s a patio knife we need,’ said he, having done a cursory Google search.
So it was down to Homebase this morning and poking devices were purchased as well as lavender and rosemary so we can be greeted by olfactory pleasantness at the front door. ‘While we’re here we may buy drain buster for the bathroom sink,’ he said, so off we moseyed and met Cruikshanks the Homebase cat on route, curled up on a padded chair, all supine and ginger and gorgeous. Cruikshanks has a perfectly good home in the housing development behind the store, but Homebase seems to hold a particular charm for him.
In the detergent aisle I was excited to see a storage device for organising saucepan lids. Into the trolley it went, quickly followed by a Super Powerful Toilet Cleaner and a Citrus Plughole Freshener which apparently ‘cleans and deodorises.’.
As I sit here typing this, I am treated to the sound of the power hose, while the Patio Knife and Pokey Device remain in a bag, while he blasts away merrily while wearing his new manly garden gloves. Our own cats are livid.
Never say we don’t know how to live it up on a Bank Holiday Weekend. Welcome to middle-age, everyone.
