Second Helpings

A Bright Idea

Should I start writing about hospitals, care of the elderly, understanding for lone carers, rules, regulations, red tape and frustration I could probably write a blog entry of novel proportions. So I won't.

If I decided to expose the farce we call a national health service, which claims to be caring and sharing and the events of the last week which leave me a jibbering wreck ready to shoot someone I'd probably end up in hospital myself or in jail after committing several murders. So I won't.

Instead I'll relay a little personal tale of success. Every spring without fail it is my duty to clean our greenhouse. Not a task I look forward to and frequently question why I have to do it, when it's my other half who creates the chaos in there. But this is the way it is. He makes the mess - I clear it up.

Last week I set about the annual task of chucking out useless items he's stored in there, sweeping up all the compost and debris, wiping away mould and cobwebs, disturbing massive spiders and other creatures I have no intention of harming and trying to leave the impression this should be an organised, tidy and cared for place. I fail every year.

After hospital visiting today we called in a store where hubby needed to pick up a few paving slabs for his mother. I noticed there were items designed to help organise gardening activities. Right up my street. I actually enjoy gardening if time ever allows it, but am a much neater, more organised and green-fingered soul than hubby.

Whatever I buy for or do in the garden, he will eventually take over, ruin or put his stamp on, so I've almost given up. But today, my purchase of buckets, containers, plant pots, kneeling mats and tools all in a beautiful, bright shade of PANK will hopefully ensure he wouldn't touch them with a barge pole.

I give thanks to the designer out there, most probably female, who came up with a possible solution to controlling male dominance in the garden. Now I need to find someone to sort out these damned hospitals - I never thought I could be a nurse, but by God I could do a far better job of it than those who sit chatting in corridors ignoring their patients.

But as I said, don't even get me started on the topic of hospitals...