Gardeners learn by trowel and error..

Springhas sprung and suddenly I want to spend all my time in the garden.  However, following a recent op I'm not yetable to lift our steamroller of a lawnmower. So I asked Mr V to do the lawn.  Iwas a bit twitchy about this request. The garden is my domain after all. I don't have OCD for nothing and prefer my blades of grass to pointupwards, and the finished lawn to have that manicured criss-cross chessboardfinish.  Mr V assured me it wasn't aproblem, so I left him to it and set about digging over a flowerbed andplanting 180 mixed bulbs.
One hourlater I'd finished planting.  Mr V hadlong since disappeared.  He'd put thelawnmower away but left an extension lead out. It resembled a ball of tangled wool.

            'What happened to the extensionlead?' I asked incredulously.
            'I haven't the faintest idea,'Mr V scratched his head.  'It somehow gotall knotted up.'

Such is the way with MrV.  He does one job and makesanother.  Fifteen minutes later I'dsorted out the extension lead and put it away in the garage.  And that was when I discovered all the bags of grass cuttings dumped on my little ornamentalwheelbarrow.  I lifted the heavy bags offto find the wheelbarrow – awaiting a tray of seedlings to bloom – quite broken.

My husband runs acompany, is logical about money, wise about teenage tantrums and rarely loseshis temper.  It never fails to amaze mehow some people can be so good at certain things, and...well...not so good atother things.  I'm not the cleverest ofpeople, but like to think I'm practical – that what I lack in brain power Imake up for in common sense.  I tried notto let irritation get the better of me, took a deep breath, told myself the extensionlead was now useable again and possibly the wheelbarrow could be repaired.  At least it wasn't like the time when Mr Vhad taken a video tape from my bedside drawer and used it to record a footballmatch.  And erased every single filmedmemory of the children growing up. Feeling a bit more soothed, I walked past the lawn and stared inamazement.  Yes, quite moth eaten.
I decided to go in and make acup of tea.  The door to the kitchen hadbeen left open as it was such a beautiful day. I stepped into the kitchen and encountered my dog, an awful lot of mud andseveral flower bulbs.  Turning on my heelI went back to the flowerbed I'd not long since finished working on.  Yes, completely dug over by my pooch withbulbs all over the place.

Gardens are lovely places but notnecessarily Paradise.  I sighed and wentback to the kitchen to make my cuppa...