The longest days…

“There is a god…”

My tormentor grinned ecstatically. Though quite why he feels the Good Lord should choose to manifest proof of His existence in the tortured screams of a perfectly good hobbit, I do not know. My son, however, was enjoying himself.

I had walked the dog, done a little housework and answered the overnight emails before arriving at my son’s home at eight. A few minutes later I was applying massage to his aching carcass… the self-inflicted pummelling he had given his body the night before had taken its toll and he was sore.

“You can thump me,” he had offered. The temptation, of course, is great. He generally gives me ample reason to take him up on such an offer. Sadly, however, he was referring to The Thumper, a heavy duty muscle massager that comes into its own the morning after the night before… when the night before has seen him doing one of the intense workouts that are part of his recovery routine.

This thing weighs a ton and by the time I have attacked his muscles, mine ache and my wrists are deeply unhappy. I could use a massage myself.

While he recovered from the thumping with tea in bed, I did his housework, cooked a ham, prepared the lads’ night dinner and dealt with the deliveries and other jobs he had lined up for me. I took his vile, green smoothie through when he had gone into the living room. He needs half an hour after drinking it for gravity to get the sludge down before we can move on to his breakfast and he had plans for filling that time.

“I’ve found you a video…” His idea was to show me his new equipment. I’m down with that… he comes up with some good stuff to aid his recovery and he had mentioned this thing. I couldn’t see what good a foam roller could do, but then, in my mind a foam roller was one of those things you use to paint the ceiling. There, on the floor, was a large sausage of solid foam, almost as big as me. “It’ll do you good,” he said, evidently expecting me to have a go.

Yeah, right…

Now, I’d woken up with tight shoulders and incipient migraine… he might have a point. He had explained that this thing was a bit like ironing muscles. It couldn’t hurt. He laughed. Apparently, it could. And he, seated comfortably on the sofa, was looking forward to it.

He pressed ‘play’. The lithe, leotarded figure, beautifully coiffed and made-up, looked a million dollars. And about thirty years younger than me. “I’ll pause it, “ he said, “so you can do each one.” The lithe figure propped herself up on her wrists and started rolling around on the sausage thing. Didn’t look too difficult. I creaked my way to the floor.

What you don’t realise it that your own body weight does a hell of a good job of getting deep into those muscles. We started at the legs. By the calves I was squealing. And I didn’t even know shins had muscles that could hurt so much.

My son, laughing hysterically at the noises emanating for the ragged heap on the floor, pressed play again. We went for the lats. He told me I could stop if I wanted…. knowing full well that is the kind of challenge that will keep me going. He gets his stubbornness from somewhere after all. And anyway… I had real hopes of the upper back… if this rolling around was this effective, it had to do my neck and shoulders the world of good!

He was grinning like a maniac by the time I howled my way through the next set. He reassured me that I was going to hurt like hell later.

And the bloody video stopped without getting anywhere near the neck and shoulders!

After half an hour I left him to his hilarity, crawling on hands and knees towards the kitchen to rescue the honey roast ham from his oven and make his breakfast. I wanted to lie down. Preferably in a hot bath. With painkillers.

We would, he said, go to the garden centre.

By this time it was actually a beautiful day with temperatures rising. I, of course, was wearing a heavy fleece… it had been cold when I left home early that morning. Heaving the wheelchair out of the boot for the second time… the first garden centre had been a washout… we set off in search of one or two plants.

For some reason the garden centre was all uphill and the wheelchair had been exchanged for a heavy duty one with a trolley attached, so it felt like I was pushing a small train. The trolley was soon filled to overflowing with everything from acidanthera to zinnia and I heaved the whole kit and caboodle back to the car and proceeded to turn the boot into a horticultural tardis. Not for the first time… his garden has, in its entirety, been shipped in my car.

Then, of course, we had to plant them. Which meant first weeding and clearing the debris from all the flower beds. “It must be heaven for you to be able to plant such nice things,” said my son. He knows my love of gardening and had commented favourably on my memory for Latin names, growth habits and soil requirements. I may have groaned quietly.

It was some eleven hours after I had left home before I finally got back… and I am told I will ache tomorrow. He may have that wrong. I ache tonight. His garden, however, looks lovely. My son and I worked together to get it done as I began to teach him how to recognise weed from seedling, how to plant, the where’s and whys. We talked as we worked, and he made plans for climbers, pots and hanging baskets. The robin flew in and out, exploring the worm rich soil as we turned it, a wren perched in the standard rose, watching events and picking off stray insects. Butterflies danced like magical petals in the air and the bees are awake and about their business. There were red kites wheeling over the garden and sparrows dashing about at top speed, whirring their tiny wings above our heads.

By the time we were done, my son had put down roots of his own, making the garden that had been created for him into his garden… one he has filled with perfume and colour, a garden he really knows, one he has a relationship with and will watch grow with an intimately personal interest as he cares for plants he put into the ground with his own hands.

Sometimes the longest days are the best.

P.S. It is still only spring here… the pictures are from the last major foray to the garden centre :) The roses are not yet in bloom.