I learnt a very valuable lesson this weekend. One that I feel the need to share with you before any more people are lured into this madness. Gardening… is very, very bad for you.
How do I come to this conclusion you ask? Well in a nutshell, my bum feels like it is in a vice, and as for my legs… well… let’s just say I have for the past 2 days been dropping myself on to the toilet because my muscles they doth protest too much. The pain, the agony, the torture! I lay on the couch last night begging someone, anyone to just put me out of my misery. Just put me down.
See now, just because the universe is such a bitch and made my Garden Service go out of business. To be honest, I don’t even know quite how that happened anyway, as our garden has more than enough of a jungle like quality to keep anyone in business for the next 10 years. People go in with gloves and mowers and small little garden forks, and come out 2 weeks later, filthy with long beards wearing loin clothes and brandishing machetes looking dazed and confused mumbling things like “Jumanji” and “the spiders… the spiders got him….” (usually followed by some violent eye twitching).
So anyhoo, they went out of business and there we were again, back to square one. A garden that needs to be cleaned and weeded, and Dalekins and I just wanting to sloth away the weekends rather.
My idea of gardening is to throw the leftover ice in my now empty gin & tonic glass out onto the grass… “There we go grass… grow, grow like you mean it” and then I usually walk away mumbling about what a fantastic green finger I have. (Usually the middle one that I raise when someone says to me “My God you really need to get someone into this garden, is that delicious monster meant to be holding up your patio table like that?”
So after weeks and weeks, of just ignoring the garden completely, hoping that when I open the curtains this morning, the garden gnomes would have swept in during the night and hacked and chopped away all the rubbish and left us with something out of that lick-arsey House & Home Magazine. But alas, no.
So on Saturday morning, something overtook me (Upon hindsight, I now realise it was something evil). I waltzed into the garden and declared “Today! You shall be MY biatch!” – and then promptly roped my mother, my nephew (for his small hands) and Dalekins into some manual labour. I wasn’t going to do this alone are you high?! So I cleverly mouthed things like “nature… fresh air… exercise…. I’ll pay you….” And they all seemed to be lured in *evil grin* Yes, yes I know… I’m a bad person.
So after 2 hours, the garden was looking pretty good. We however, were not. I was sweating like a miner, and covered in sand that had mingled with my sweat and become MUD! (Why is it that when you use a small garden fork to get some stubborn roots out, the roots will not just give way slowly… oh no no no, they will come loose with a violent snap and end up spunking the sand all over your face!)
I may need to point out here as well that I was still in my pyjamas. So, muddy, sweaty, slightly sunburned and in stripes. Too sexy!
Also something new I learnt this weekend: Palm trees are the trees of the devil. They drop their fruit all over the place. In the beginning, they look like fat juicy delectable berry type thingies. But, when they have fallen off the tree, been lying in the sun and under all your other plants (because they’re crafty that way) and gone all rotten, they start to lose their charm… quickly. Also the fact that every insect living in your garden thinks you’re throwing them a personal shmorgasbord and they all converge on these smelly rotten thingies at the same time… I can assure you it leads to a skin crawling experience when trying to pick these things up. A spade, does not work. So we resorted to Woolies packets over our hands to pick them up.
But when the 30th disgusting little bug crawled over my foot and Dalekins shouted out “God what’s that crawling on youuuuu!” for the hundredth time, followed by much snickering from him (I was ready to use my garden fork to see if his prostate was still…. healthy) I decided enough was enough! That, and the fact that my legs were shaking so much I was starting to look like I was having a fit, and my mom was starting to look like a hunchback…. Poor lady… remember the fresh air and the exercise you got mommmmmmmmmmmmmmm (Please don’t cut me out of your will – I know not what I doooo!)
So anyhoo… here I sit. And sitting is all I’ll do for a while because using any form of leg or bum muscle right now is just out of the question. So heed my warning… just don’t do it.
Gardening… is for other people.