What pisses me off: Gardening… Still!

Sep 25, 2016

A few ‘What pisses me off’ articles ago I was having a whinge (I know, hard to believe) about the never-ending weeds in the gardens. Some of your comments made a lot of sense, and by that I mean the comments about the gardens, not the comments telling me to take a long walk off a short pier.

For the last month I have been getting the yard ready for the warmer weather, because as every gardener knows with the heat comes the rain and the bloody weeds.

Just like some of you suggested I have been planting in every nook and cranny, I decided to stick to the hardy stuff like bromeliads, succulents and agaves. If Mum had her way the yard would be awash with flowers, but the reality is the Queensland sun is too harsh and water too expensive for a yard full of anything other than the strongest of plants.

Also water is a bigger than Ben Hur issue here. The house is a duplex and when it was built the Council in all their wisdom put one water meter in for both units, therefore the water bill is split in two, we have tried many times to get the council to read the submeters, they would only have to walk 10 more steps, but apparently that cannot be done.

The old lady next door hits the sherry a lot and she loves to fight and argue, she has accused me of everything from pulling nails out of the fence, kicking down her lattice work to trying to put her in a home and for as many years as I can remember she has complained about the water bill, but I never say a word when she leaves her sprinkler going for hours or forgets to turn the hose off for a couple of days creating pools in our backyard.

A couple of months ago she knocked on the front door and asked me for help, so of course, as I have always done I went and did what she couldn’t, and now the sun is shining out of my backside once again, but that could change at any moment depending on which way the wind is blowing.

Anyway back to the garden, I put flowers in the wheelbarrow to appease Mummie Dearest and I am well aware she is by no means impressed with the latest lot, pansies were expected and to be honest I hate pansies but I bought them… Well at least I thought I bought them, they looked like little baby ones, I thought they would grow into big pansies, they didn’t. They don’t even fill the wheelbarrow.

It looks quite pathetic and if Mum thinks I haven’t seen that look on her face whenever she is near them, she is wrong and just like the dog she manages to tell me off with out saying a word!

Their eyes and facial expressions give them away, words are never exchanged in these awkward situations, after all nothing to be gained by ‘poking the bear’. Mum will get her pansies when whatever they are in the barrow dies and the dog will get her chicken wing on Friday.

Did this give you a laugh? Tell us what pisses you off.

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