Diary – 6 June 2019

Don’t you just love garden centres? You have to be mad to go on a sunny Sunday morning in the full bedding-out season but all human life is there, enjoying the full English breakfast or even kippers. They sell everything — sofas, lamps, barbecues, waterfalls, bread, toys, meat, mountaineering gear. Oh, and plants and Growmore and those little windmill things. I went to buy extra geraniums and lobelia because it is a truth universally acknowledged that whenever you buy far more than you can possibly need for your pots, those pots expand when you turn your back. It was a gladiatorial clash of trolleys, and I trampled on several old ladies in fighting for the last ivy-leafed Brilliant Scarlet. I got it of course. I am an old hand.

Victorious, I enjoyed a pot of tea and a cheese scone, before checking out, as well as the garden stuff, a squeaky badger (for the dog), a massive sack of niger seed (goldfinches) a book about the planets (grand-daughter) a sun hat (self), some mint imperials and a birthday card.