In an English Country Garden

Little bit pre-menstrual at the moment so I’m gonna tell it like it is!
Spring is in the air, and while most creatures’ thoughts turn to procreation and uncontrollable carnal duties, mine turn to gardening. I love my garden, spending hours tenderly nurturing fragile plants, labouring hard to create new features. Producing plant life from my countless packets of seeds to create a vision of horticultural brilliance from April through to October. Carefully planning which plants complement each other, experimenting with colour schemes, relishing the challenge of providing colour from spring to Autumn, painstakingly planning which flowers will bloom when, to provide a succession of changing hues. It is quite an operation, and one completely unappreciated by my husband and son who regularly flatten my horticultural creation with their bloody footballs! It is not enough that they have a football pitch in the village and a makeshift goal in the nearby field, no, these two will dash outside for a quick kickabout during the ads, or during half time of the televised match they happen to be watching. Five minutes of football on the nearest bit of grass from the settee, laying waste to all flora within ten yards of the lawn; returning to their weeping mother in the lounge, and insensitively assuming that the sad advert about a dog needing a home had been on again.
Last year I had managed to propagate some particularly difficult seeds in my greenhouse, They had been pricked out and were in “position A” – top spot in the greenhouse, signifying their status as very important plants indeed. One morning during the school holidays I was settled down in front of Jeremy Kyle, fully equipped with Jaffa cakes and tea, when I heard a crash from the garden. I rushed out to find that the Greenhouse had been breached and Position A had been wiped out by an invading football. My son and his mate had been practicing bicycle kicks, they hadn’t quite got the hang of it but felt sure that they were getting there. Had I not had to withdraw to sign for a delivered package, Jeremy Kyle’s next series may well have featured an item entitled – “my mum attacked me with a garden rake then cooked my football and made me eat it”
I am sure that I am not alone in having this problem, maybe I should count my blessings that they are not into stock car racing or throwing the hammer because that would really make a mess of the borders. Maybe it is entirely attributable to PMT and the time of the month, but currently, each time my garden is trashed, my mind quickly turns to payback, nothing as destructive as rotovating the pitch and planting a few beans, or campaigning to turn the pitch over to public allotments. Just fixing a few hanging baskets to the goal posts of my son’s team. Replacing the corner flags with obelisks covered in sweet peas, and encouraging every gardener who’s life is blighted by someone who can’t kick a ball straight, to go out this autumn and plant a conker on the centre spot and penalty spots of their local football pitch. It may grow, it may not, but at least you will feel that you are not powerless and can fight back in your own small way against the nemesis of every keen gardener – the bloody football!
Normal service will be resumed in around 7 – 10 days time.