Riveting post about the garden

In the last few days, I've fobbed you off with a picture of the cat and a list of my favourite records. Can you tell how seriously I'm running out of steam towards the end of this posting every day of Lent business? In case you can't, I have some PHOTOS OF SHRUBS, you lucky people.

I have a couple of really funny blog posts in my head, but making them real requires Ian's free time and co-operation plus some vacant office space. I've been promised it'll happen this weekend. But in the meantime, you have to put up with shrubs, because all I did today was tidy the garden for seven and a half hours, turning it from an unkempt thatch into a neat Brazilian landing-strip. Then I had a cup of tea and fell over.

Behold the Before:

The Shit-Heap of stuff it took me all day to hack down, cut up and throw in a pile:

And the After.

Here is a little bit of rediscovered railway track!

Yes! A railway! It runs all the way up one side of the garden. Ian has several trains for it that fill the precious little cupboard space in this house.

It is thanks to the garden railway that Esme is alive today. Ian loves model railways, and I love him anyway, and because I love him and show an interest in his hobbies if I can stand it, I encouraged him to buy a garden railway set and a few little trains.

"Hooray!" he said. "Now we can be one of those old childless couples who have a model railway instead of a family."

I had a vision of us both, older, saggier, with grey hair squashed flat under matching stationmasters' caps. In my vision, Ian was blowing a whistle and writing enthusiastically in a notebook, mumbling numbers to himself. I was staring blankly, all passion for life drained from my face.

"No," I said, "no."

"What?"

"If you want to set up this railway, we have to have a child."

"But - "

"No."

I showed Esme the railway-track today, and she thought it was exciting, but I could tell she didn't really understand what it was for. When we next run some trains down the garden she's going to squeal until she pops.

Yay! It's tidy! Jesus, I ache.

I also tried to take some garden photos that showed the real essence of it, the way in which we've shaped it and made it our own.

Eagle-eyed readers may enjoy trying to spot the following:

1. Waste-paper basket, abandoned outdoors for last six months
2. Plastic owl
3. Compressor, abandoned near top of concrete steps as tripping hazard
4. Single wellington boot, abandoned outside for quite possibly over a year
5. Blue sack of building-rubble, to be taken to the tip "soon"

Here is the plant we put outside to help it perk up a bit:

Here is a pile of assorted crap that has lain unmoved since last year:

And here is a photo of just outside our kitchen door. Eagle-eyed readers may enjoy trying to spot the full-size bath that's been there for several months.

Ian is going to measure the bath "soon" to see if it needs to be cut into two or three pieces to fit in the back of the car. Then, "after that", he plans to take an angle-grinder to it and cut it onto those two or three pieces. "Then", it will go into the car and be taken to the tip.

I'll take a photo of it this time next year so you can all see how it's doing.