Gardening can only be enjoyable in wellington boots. If it’s too hot to wear wellies, then Don’t garden - you’re just asking for steamy exhaustion, tiny, vicious critters that fight back when disturbed, and a knotty jungle of green that actually grows as you watch.
Not to mention Ticks, which in fact, I have mentioned before… http://doloresdays.blogspot.com/2007/05/tick-trauma.html
Gardening in wellingtons is quite pleasant! It’s satisfying to slash away at What Once were Plants, to simply tug off that curly weed thing that in summer coiled like a metal spring round your roses, to boldly go behind the gas tank and be able to See what you’re treading in…
George also donned his boots and, deciding those pesky leylandeii weren’t too bad really, we sallied forth for a walk. We’re lucky to live on the edge of a village, close to forest, field and vines. I will now attempt to insert photo of Vines!
When we first visited this region, I was astonished at what vines looked like –I’d imagined tall, willowy trees, wafting their alcoholic scent for many miles around. Instead, they’re short, knobbly things that you could picture getting up when bored,to wander round muttering at each other...
(Were their rows not so well-regimented for ease of pruning and picking).
Anyway - Wellies add so much to a walk, don’t they; the joy of sploshing through muddy puddles, (particularly having grazed some mountainous residue of recent dog), of charging fiercely through bracken, of skilfully kicking an aerodynamic pebble to watch it land eighteen whole inches away. Of caring not of scuffed leather or snapped heels…
Oh! Black of hue and tractor-treaded
Wherein all sorts of crotte embedded…
To boldly bound through mire & hedge
Is what we Love. Though p’raps a Wedge
Heel… built-in corn pad, GPS…
Could just refine their rubberness
A bit…
PERISH the thought!
32 comments:
I used to have a pair of designer wellies (well, not actually designer label...just the same as regular ones but bright blue and with a bit of soft lining).I loved them. They are long gone now, and much missed, but I left them in the humid garage all summer and they grew fungus.
I am now wellie-less. A good old pair of knee-length British wellies would be just the job right now to wade through the snowbanks. Next trip home, I plan on buying a pair in basic black...or maybe save for those swanky green jobbies the Royals wear.
Dolores, your poem is AWESOME.
Wow, Expat - those wellies sound Fabulous! Can you fabricate a cartload or two? - you'd be instantly rich and celebrated on all Red Carpets!
(Thankee about the poem. I always Knew I could pen a romantic sonnet if I tried)
It’s ironic, isn’t it, that bootless (i.e. useless) people often get the boot? And that others react by putting the boot in? But there’s booty in bootlegging. It’s a way of pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps, and putting the boot on the other foot. But you’ve got to give it some Welly.
(Tobacco here is 10% of the price in the UK, so bootlegging is rife).
:-)
PS. Our lemon tree is flowering! Bootiful!
Those are jolly good vines! Is the pruning your own work?
I have no wellies in any colour than green, which is a shame because I always fancied cutting a dash. But there is no-one here to notice.
Magnificent, CI! And who can forget the thrill of school trips to Bootle Baths?
Yes, Jon, all my own pruning! (Well I bet I could if I wanted)...
Why not add Dash to your greenboots with a selection from the 'Creative Hobbies' shelves at your local supermarket? (Imaginative application has rendered our neighbours' postbox Unrecognisable)!
Dolores
A blog about wellies and a poem to boot as well. Smashing!
Expat's pal Billy Connolly made famous an old Scottish song. "If it wisnae fur yer Wellies." I can't put videos in comments but you can find it on that little known website YouTube.
Do the trees mutter to themselves? Now I am paranoid when I pass them, they go quiet as if they've been talking about me.
:-)
Adds another dimension to the term "shake your booty!"
Our lemon tree came from a car boot sale, so maybe we'll fill our boots with lemons this year.
JW, maybe trees mutter about mutts barking up the wrong tree?
Paranoid JW - Scottish trees, particularly, are known for their muttering. And if Clint Eastwood is around, you just can't shut 'em up.
Yes! I remember Billy Connelly's ditty - shall rush immediately to Youtube!
Expat - my booty shakes of its own accord...
CI - you have submitted George to an endless rendering of 'Lemon Tree very Pretty...' with your Evil postings!
Dolores!
If Wellington hadn't been splashing around in all that stinky waterloo, Wellies would still be called Gumboots.
And the car boot sales chap who sold me the lemon tree drove a yellow citroen.
Yes, it's all making much more sense now...
:-)
OFF TOPIC...but I don't care!
I just heard today that my Oz-based brother, who I haven't seen in 10+ years, is coming to visit us in Maryland in September!!!
WOOO HOO!! Party time
(He's a wild man)
Wizard news from Oz, Expat! Happy Reunion! :-)
CI - Mr Gum must be very miffed at his loss of celebrity...
Expat - Enormously Joyous news for you!
And EERILY, my aus brother mail'd yesterday to say they're coming to visit us in September too!!!
(Though we saw him in 2005)
I bet they even live next door to each other...
OMG, Dolores. That IS eerie! So, a joyous day for us both!
Mine is in Mandurah, WA, between Perth and Freemantle.
Marvellous!
Amazing coincidence!
I'm really happy for both of you!
:-) xxx
Expat - not quite so eerily, mine lurketh in the vicinity of Brisbane - he's about the same distance from your brother as your brother is from you. (Roughly)
Thankee CI - exceeding kind
Dolores and Expat
Glad to hear of your upcoming re-union news; this is a big coincidence.
On Seinfeld (US TV show) it was said there's no such thing as a big coincidence or small coincidence only a coincidence.
No matter the size of your coincidence I also am happy for youse.:-)
We just need my exotic relation in Blackburn to visit for a unique treble of huge coincidences. ;-)
Hi Exotically-linked JW!
Yeh, Many it is, who follow the Sooths of Seinfeld. I've never seen the programme, Incidentally, but I reckon size matters when it comes to coincidences!
Weeell, Dolores, I think the distance from Washington DC to Perth is about 5 times the distance from Perth to Brisbane...but after the first thousand miles, who's counting?
The Camel, Expat?!
Crikey! I was just about to wittily say something about camels humping a lot, when all the island's power failed! We've had high winds today, and someone's said two electricity pylons have been blown down in the north of the island.
I'm off to do some important heroics... like rescue my car from behind those electric gates... Keep your eye out for me on the international news! :-)
We're with you, Heroic CI!!
(Leave those camels alone)!
All I wanted to do was go downstairs, crank open the electric car park gates, drive the car out, and park it in the street.
Lifts and elevators don’t work in a power cut, so I ran down five flights of stairs. When I arrived at ground floor level, I realised I had left my car keys upstairs. So I ran back upstairs.
But my car keys were on the same key-ring as my door keys, inside my apartment. So I couldn’t open my front door. I walked back down the five flights of stairs and got a spare set of front door keys from the nice lady in our reception foyer. I walked back upstairs.
When I got to my front door I remembered I had recently changed the locks and had forgotten to give copies of the new keys to the nice lady in our reception foyer. So I strolled back down the five flights of stairs to see if she could offer any advice. She couldn’t, but she had noticed my girlfriend returning home and taking the other flight of stairs up. So I tottered back upstairs.
The girlfriend let me in when I rang the doorbell. I got my keys and slid downstairs on the banisters. The nice lady in our reception foyer helped me crank open the electric car park gates. I searched high and low for my car in the car park, but couldn’t find it. So I crawled back upstairs to tell my girlfriend.
She smiled at me and reminded me she had popped out to have her hair done. She’d gone by car. And when she had returned, the electric car park gates hadn’t worked because of the power cut. So she had parked the car in the street outside.
I’m back on-topic on the topic of Wellies now, Dolores. You see, I’d left my laptop running on battery power, and it had crashed. So I had to RE-BOOT it.
:-)
He He Ho, CI - brilliantly told & turned!
"... change that into a blog" CI?
Once upon a time, on a brilliant sunny day, I turned the corner and what should I see but - Canary Islander, completely lost, and wearing - he he ho - battery-powered wellies with a fringe on top!
Hmm - definitely wait with breath baited for YOUR Next Project, CI!
Wellies? I'm in my wellies so long, so often, I've been known to go out to (good) friends in my slippers, knowing they would be under the table all night!
Hi Farming-Frenchstyle
How great to see you! We've been without internet for a few days following tempest - hope you haven't been badly affected. Slippers are a Splendid Thing, specially those you can stick in the microwave and heat up!
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