I should call this a week of serious annoyance.
The weather has been wonderfully annoying for gardeners, one of which I would call myself if there was anything left which hadn’t been washed away in the rain or eaten by the slugs. I planted two sets of four rows of peas out of which exactly two weedy pea plants have struggled up through the monsoon. The poor peonies which were so glorious last year have been beaten into the mud by the down pour and there are so many four inch slugs, if you hold your breath, you can practically hear them chomping.
On the plus side I have grapes! (No, not another thrilling disease of middle age involving knees, wrists, ankles and vast doses of indigestible glucosamine, actual grapes. On a vine) The grape vine is now about five years old. I would tell you the variety but it was a cheap rescue from the chuck-out table at the DIY store and had no label but three leaves, which is good odds in my book. Last year it did a proto bunch of grapes for the first time, which came off in my hand while I was admiring it. So this time I am leaving them alone and hoping that the holly tree next door, which hangs over it will protect it from any birds left in the vicinity.
The cats continue to be very challenging. Russell, after lurking for a week, smiling ingratiatingly, reverted to type and brought in a sparrow. Worse than this, they have both brought in fleas.
I saw them scratching and then observed something actually crawling on Cleo, who was sitting on my bed at the time.
Horrors!
Naturally, I was up so early the next day I practically had to hammer on the door of the supermarket as they were opening. I invested in flea spray, new collars and everything going – £20s worth of stuff. Upon my return it took the entire day to strip the bed to the mattress, turn out the room and wash everything in sight, ending with three quarters of an hour in the launderette drying the underquilt thingy, because of the torrential rain.
So the S&H had the cats in his room and got bitten, naturally.
As I see the cats still scratching, when I have finished writing this, I think I may dig him out of his pit and award him a flea comb.
After which, I think it may be time to send our member of the boomerang generation on his way again, complete with cats.
It may be a middle aged attitude that matches the knees but my generation were no trouble at all. The majority of us left home. lived our own lives and did not go back. All right there were rock stars and the swinging sixties and all that but it was making money by working, hard and being self sufficient, sensibly.
I think the thing I can discern upon the event horizon, is my tether, the end of.
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JaneLaverick.com – scratching a living.