Bottlebrush and Clover

How do you get joy and laughter?  By growing a bottlebrush?  Does the bottle brush seriously think it brings all that to your life just by growing? All these plants, trying to make themselves more important, spinning fairy tales about themselves.   

I lie on my back watching clouds and wonder what to do with my day.  The sky is full of swallows. They got back from Africa no problem, so some international air travel still works. Then phone buzzes with Australians calling. Thank god for Zoom, so we can talk about whether we can see or hear each other. An 8am person is not always as perky as a 10pm person, but upside down chat is magic. 

The lawn is covered in clover. Time to stop mowing and watch the bees at work. Clover is a symbol of good luck, so I’ll let it grow and believe in that fairy tale for now.

This enforced sabbatical is pleasant but, with wages fading away, there is the interesting conversation of how replace them. This is best held after at least half a bottle of wine when just about anything seems possible.  These are the ideas so far.

10pm plan. Start a tea garden! It’s blindingly obvious. Plenty of room for spaced out tables, doilies, cup cakes, cream teas. The ancestors left boxes of bone china teacups upstairs. Oh the tinkle of laughter and soft conversation blending into the gently pouring tea and silent racking up of cash on a card reader.

8am thought.  There is a chicken finding crumbs in the kitchen, a cat on the table and that hole in the wall is mouse shaped. Silver fish, grease, awful scenes behind the cooker, live salmonella crawling around the fridge. The imaginary food hygiene inspector is issuing a fine. The imaginary customers leave the garden via the single path, where I forgot to put any spacers. They are all crowded together and one of them is coughing. There isn’t a toilet either.

10pm plan. The house is crammed with stuff that might be useful one day. Bone china cups for a start. Ancestor’s portraits, silver cutlery, guitar amps, Nat West pigs, books, spare tools, toys, interesting old furniture and a rocking horse. SellitonEbay! and clear the house. Why use one stone to kill a bird when you can club two to death at once?

8am thought. How much bad feedback will I get for a load of old chipped cups, tarnished silver plate, pigs with missing ears and a rocking horse with a loose head, that is guaranteed to catapult a child 6 foot? How can I post stuff if I don’t even go near the post office these days? Who can be bothered to sit around all day taking photos of absolute crap and then remember to answer emails about it?  Not me.

10pm plan. The chickens keep giving eggs.  Instead of 4 we could have 200.  200 eggs a day at 30p an egg is £21,840 a year. Maybe even get a small cow. Quick, google small cows.

 7am thought. I forgot to lock the chickens in last night and I’m too tired to feed them. Never mind. They can dig worms or catch flies. I’ll make some tea. Why is that one in the kitchen again?

Meanwhile, outside the garden. Leicester is locking down, everywhere else is opening up, Scotland says 2 metres, England says 1 metre, some of us are wearing masks, some of us don’t like them and nobody can remember which shopping needs washing any more.

Here is a bee, working on clover.