I always thought that my garden looked rubbish after the middle of June because we spent so much time away, and the containers were not watered regularly, the fuchsias not deadheaded, and everything became overgrown, leggy and unloved. However, this year, we have spent all of the Summer to date at home, and it looks exactly the same as always. So perhaps it wasn't due to the kids dereliction of duty after all. Every year, I always have a reason why it doesn't look spectacular, aside from the kids. The year we had a blackbird nesting in the greenhouse, so I couldn't get in there to start off the broad beans and tomatoes, or to get my secateurs or the flower pots and twine. Last year was the year of the rat, which meant that I avoided the garden like the plague for a whole year just in case any relatives of the dead one I found on its back came to reclaim the body. They would have had a wasted journey anyway, as the bin men took it away. I'm not sure whether the dead one was related to the first one I saw, who came sniffing around the bird table during a particularly cold snap in January. I thought it was a squirrel initially, and then noticed its tail and wondered whether it had been maimed in a fire, or suffered from a tail hair depleting condition, before the horrific penny dropped that it wasn't a squirrel at all, but a rodent with a long thin tail. That rat died in a trap, which is still set up in the garden, baited with peanut butter, in a place that is inaccessible to the dogs, just in case another long tail should ever come into the garden again. It sounds a bit like the tiger who came to tea, but with a far less happy ending. Or middle. Or even beginning. The upshot was that the garden last year was devoid of flowers, other than the amazing everlasting sweet peas which just kept growing, no matter how many I cut, and which lasted from May until September. This year, sadly we have discovered that they are not everlasting if you have a husband who thinks that the early shoots are weeds, and pulls them out of the ground. Why couldn't he have done that with the stinging nettles, the buttercups and the rogue grasses you might ask. He won't reply, because he doesn't know himself. Fortunately, a few stems manage to evade his beady eye, so there is a smaller display this year, but it is glorious, and I have little jam jars full of bright pink, white and mauve stems in the kitchen.
Mr C is currently out of action with a bad knee, so I thought I would have a go at cutting the lawns. We have a wireless (is that right) lawnmower, with a rechargeable battery. It took me rather a long time to work out what goes where, but I got there in the end, and did a good job, cutting front and back garden lawns. Our neighbours have a narrow strip of grass on the other side of their drive, so I thought I would save them the trouble of getting their lawnmower out just to do that little strip (we share a front lawn.. The strip was bumpy and course and the grass was thick and long, and the mower made funny noises, a bit like when I hoovered up the sheepskin rug and it got sucked right inside the Dyson. I emptied the grass box and tried again, but it made a bit of a mess of the grass - ripping up some bits by its roots and still sounded really angry. I wondered whether the battery was almost empty, so tried to put it back on charge (it was rather hot when I removed it from the mower), and when I attached it to the charging unit, it flashed red angrily, so I took it off, thinking it might be about to explode.. I called over the fence to my neighbours in their back garden, ready to apologise for ripping up their grass and leaving it in a state, but they said it wasn't their land, it belongs to the lady the other side. So I kept quiet but still feel a little bit guilty each time I drive past the unevenly mown strip. But not that guilty as she really isn't very nice.
My mum was always in charge of lawn mowing. She had a hover mower, and she drove it like a demon - in much the same way as she drove the car. I think she liked her mowers how she liked her cars, in her words - big and heavy so you can throw them around without worrying they might tip over when you go round a corner. I wish I had her approach to machinery. I like it with safety guards and circuit breakers, and preferably steel toe caps and a hard hat. I wince every time I see Mr C cutting the lawns in his bare feet, although I think the lawn mower would struggle and grind to a halt if it ever did encounter his talons - which is what we affectionately call his toenails. After a spot of gardening, he likes to sit and have a cold drink with his feet up, and I am always horrified at the bright green under sides of his feet, which he then traipses through the house. We often say he has troll feet, and I think he is just enjoying them being the correct colour, to match the shape and style. I think he needs to follow my mum's example and wear proper shoes, just to be on the safe side.
It's about this time last year that my friend Hairy Mary and I did the Colour Run, along with my youngest daughter L. And as a suitable amount of time has passed, I now feel obliged to make a small confession. My recent blogs have portrayed me in a somewhat bad light, the Vosene survey which I falsified, the failure to own up to the bad mowing of a neighbour's lawn, and I would not like anyone to think that I am a bad person. In fact, I am the opposite - I very rarely lie, stick rigidly to the rules (to the chagrin of my children and Mr C) and I always try to help others if I can. But when it comes to running, I am less honourable, and need very little excuse to do the wrong thing.
The day of the Colour Run arrived with drizzling rain and reports of flooding and slippery conditions. The Facebook Page was inundated with people asking if it was cancelled, but the organisers assured us that it would go ahead. Mary and I had run together at Park Run a few weeks before, and were fairly similar in speed (which I feel is the wrong word to use, but will carry on regardless). We had brightly coloured sunglasses, face jewels and bags of powder paint, and our bright white Colour Run t shirts. We were ready at the starting line. when the klaxon sounded and off we ran, hand in hand, bombarded with powder paint which managed to evade our protective glasses and went straight into our eyes. We ran daintily down the slippery trail to the pond (in my head, I could hear my dad saying 'like a tom tit on a quart of hoss flesh') , and made our way around the perimeter of the park, mostly running, although we did perhaps walk a little bit until we got our breath back. We stopped holding hands eventually, realising that nobody else was, and carried on, with more paint being thrown at us by marshalls who were more than a little sadistic in my opinion. We passed a small tent with a table filled with cups of water, and I wondered out loud how much further there was to go. Mary thought we were still miles off, but then I suddenly spotted the finishing line, and headed for that, ignoring an annoying man who was trying to tell us something. Mary kept saying 'I'm not sure we are going the right way', but how could you mistake a finish sign that big? We did a last minute sprint, totally surprised Mr C who failed to capture us victoriously running through the barrier completely because he wasn't expecting us for another half hour or so. He had one job.....
We got our medals and our goody bags, and looked for my daughter L who had sprinted off ahead of us at the start, leaving us for dead. She was still running; we were superstars, and had run 5K in 20 minutes. Of course we hadn't. We had actually gone the wrong way and had missed the second smaller circuit completely, which was probably what the man at the water tent had been trying to tell us. I looked at Mary, she looked at me.
'What do you want to do?' I asked her. 'Should we go back and do the rest of it?'
'We've got our medals anyway, we did most of it'.
'I dont think there's any need, do you?'
And that was that. We were a bit cagey when we were asked about our times ('We didn't really notice, it's not really about the times anyway, is it?'), and apparently it had always been an option to do the shorter run, for those who didn't want to do the full 5K. So we didn't cheat anyone, in fact the only person who was at all bothered was L. She was furious with us because we had beaten her, and by the time she finished (in super quick time as she is a very fast runner), all the goody bags had gone. I felt guilty at that point and gave her mine, but she still thought I was a cheat and wasn't any less cross. I don't care though. We completed the Colour Run, it was good fun, although I did have green and red hair for months afterwards and my fanny pack is still rainbow coloured. I don't feel the need to do it again, it's like any run I have ever done. Didn't particularly enjoy it until it was all over, and then I felt MAGNIFICENT.
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