I can resist no longer...
My drooling garbage has run its course...
I have to write about pretty things, like flowers and gardens and not angry stuff. Well most of the time at least.
To the right you will see some daffodils. These are examples of the simple pleasures you can create by pottering around the house with a pair of secateurs and a trowel - you also create a lot of pleasure for your neighbours and random passers by because the look at me and think what a wonderful husband I must be. The truth is I am obsessed and neglect my duties as a husband at the first sight of a weed, and the first sniff of a snail trying to ruin my garden. My wife thinks I am weird and really quite annoying with my cuttings of lavenders and camellias clogging up her laundry. She thinks my habit of packing myself up with a few beers, a camera and a tripod and heading off on some sort of Hemmingwayesque expedition in a manly search for the prettiest flower even weirder.
I don't really care for her opinion because I think she is damn weird for marrying me. I am more of a tool than a rusty spanner.
(Back to what I was saying) The bulb for the daffodils (yes I started with one) came from my parents house in Canberra - where I grew up. When I was about 20 or so I saw them growing in the area next to my bedroom. The next year I saw a heap more growing around that same area. Me being the thoughtful, intelligent planty type person decided it would be a wise idea to dig them up and replant them in a pot. I did this, met my (now) wife and forgot about them for a few years.
I remember waking up from another uni-induced haze (a little more than drunken) staggering out into the courtyard of our little Lyneham flat and going 'whoa what is that smell' before lighting a fag and cracking a tin of dog hair. I worked out that the smell was me, a pub, 73 cigarettes, 17 beers, two tequilas and some daffodils that were sitting next to me. After having an early morning nap, I went back outside, this time with sunglasses on so I could actually see and discovered the garden for the first time. Ever. I also discovered the pretty little daffodils singing like angels with their happy yellow faces.
I made some monumental decisions that day. I smelt really bad, but daffodils smell so good that it didn't matter. Putting something in the soil and leaving it there for a few years is kinda cool, especially if it grows into daffodils. That gardens are good for the soul, and benders at the uni bar were not good for the mind. I mean, the daffodils were really singing.
