*hands over a glass of whisky to campanula* x)

The free work force sounds good though. x) Madame Gregoire might be just fine, I cut my Iceberg and Gloire de Dijon last year to 50 cm stumps and they got that as a message to grow more canes. x)
what the hell is an ant farm though? I mean, isn't that something that... well... any natural gardener squishes on sight? :D

I am laughing out loud while appreciating that the best way to face the vicissitudes of life is with good humor -- and lots of it! Also found out that in the UK a 'skip' is a container to transport and dump waste. One is outside on the street right now picking up tree limbs and junk we've been working like dogs to get out there before they came. Nice of the city to provide this service :-) And thank you Campanula for providing the divine service of humor to the happenings of our days.

Campanula, YOU have missed your calling! A book full of these posts would definitely become a classic! Thank you for the outrageous laughter at my house this morning! I've read you out loud for everyone's pleasure. Thank you, also, for giving Fred Loads life. I grew the rose and its sport, Festival Fanfare many, many years ago and loved both. FF sported to solid pink for me which I registered as Festival Pink. Virtually simultaneously, it did the same over there and there were nearly identical registrations for Festival Pink and Loads of Pink. Tom Carruth, the hybridizer of wonderful roses over here and a valued friend, told me the registration committee chose to allow both as they felt neither rose would ever be confused with the other as neither would likely be imported across the pond. Hearing his name brought forth some fine memories, thank you!

Honestly, reading your post, I was THERE with you, though I'm sure you would be glad I wasn't as I was laughing maniacally! Thank you! Kim

Oh my laughing so hard. Companula you are so very talented.
Wish we had a skip here. We have a 20 year old pick-up truck which thanks to god still works and two doddering ol' fools (aka us) who load it and haul it to the dumps.
Love reading your posts.
Jeannie

OMG, Campanula, your are simply too funny for words.

Baby hedgehogs won't gallop up and down the stairs. Do they eat ants?
Renee

ah no, Renee, I have done the baby hedgehog thing once before, years ago. They won't gallop up and down the stairs but they will race around ALL NIGHT....on the wooden floorboards. The ants are still tucked up in their little test-tube, where they can stay for up to a year (phew)
Kim, I have always loved these bright single roses too - so versatile, cheering and uncomplicated. Did you get Dancing Pink then? The bedding plant industry is absolutely huge here in the UK and billions are spent on horrid little petunias and impatiens, every year, only to be chucked out at the end of the summer. If the rose industry could capture even a fraction of this miserable trade, with long-flowering, tough little bushes, it would be a whole lot more sustainable.

If the rose industry could capture even a fraction of this miserable trade, with long-flowering, tough little bushes, it would be a whole lot more sustainable.

It kind of does, with supermarket minis, but I suppose throw-out part of the trade is rather essential. You don't really have to care for it and it is not boring, as you get different stuff next year.

Hate impatiens, most unnatural plant ever! Old ladies love it here though, the bigger and the more unnatural, the better. Geraniums still are in the lead though. x)

Now that I've finally stopped laughing let me wish you luck and luck to all the other animals and vegatables.

I agree with Kim. You should write a book. It would be a hit!

I agree - funniest thing I have read in a long while. Mental pictures of the mastiff & new kitty chasing each other - our nephew has a mastiff, and it is unbelievable how gentle and good he is, although you do have to worry about where he decides to sit or lie down in the garden - or rather, on top of what.

Interested in finding out how the rose you cut back to the "gnarly old stem" does - I had to cut back several of my huge old climbers last summer, and to my amazement, many of them have sprouted serious healthy climbing canes from WAY down near the ground on their gnarly old stems, where there had not been any new growth evident for 15 years or so.

Jackie

Thanks for the Dancing Pink comment, Campanula. Eurodesert has it and I've eyed it for a long time. The flowers are a bit like my Lynnie, but I am more than a little tired of PINK. Being half Dortmund, it does look very interesting for breeding.

There ARE wonderful small and ground cover roses which can easily replace the bedding plants, but those who like constant changes of color won't ever go for them. One client must have kale and tulips in season, followed by what comes next. The roses are firmly entrenched, but she grew up with the kale and tulips in upstate New York and begs for them every winter here in So. California. They're about as appropriate as Cape Cod houses surrounded by White Birch in the desert, oops, that's where we ARE! LOL! They make her happy and she IS a love, so I give them to her happily. Thanks, again, for the laughs. I make sure to hit your posts as I know I'll howl! Kim

Suzy, you are a riot. Somebody ought to send this link to the BBC. You are definitely sitcom material. I laughed and laughed.

Here is a link that might be useful: If only sweat were irrigation...

Suzy, Brilliant! Your family sounds as though they have stepped out of a really funny sitcom.
Best of luck with the rubbish clearing.
Baby hedgehogs, may not climb stairs, but adult ones certainly do.
Many years ago, when I was living in an old railwayman's cottage in Surrey, we used to leave the back door open on hot summer nights.
There was no access from the back, so it was completely secure.
One night I was wakened by my DH. He was standing at the foot of the bed, stark b*****k naked except for a large pair of gauntlet gloves.
You can imagine the wild thoughts that ran through my head as I sleepily came to.
Was this a new sexual interest that I didn't know about?
No. He was simply preparing to retrieve a large hedgehog from beside the bed.
The hedgehog had climbed two flights of steep narrow stairs, and was happily snuffling around our bedroom.
He was repatriated to the garden, but often used to come in after that. We left him alone when we realised that he could climb down the stairs just as easily as he could climb up them.
I often lay in bed listening to him climbing down the stairs. Shuffle shuffle bonk! shuffle shuffle bonk!
Daisy

cheers for the kindly comments, folks. If we didn't laugh (hysterically) we would have torn our hair out, ruined our vocal chords and probably started in on weapons (not that we haven't resorted to those either during numerous furious rants). I recall chasing daughter with a windbreak pole the length of a campsite as well as breaking a wooden spoon over my lurchers back for peeing on the bed...while I was in it, on the same camping trip. Age is a great mellower....I just can't run as fast as the rest of them anymore.

Suzy------I so look forward to your very entertaining posts----and then when I stop laughing I read one of Sherry's responses and start laughing all over again .

Thanks for the "joy"

Florence

Suzy, I can usually decipher all of your terminology, but what's a "lurcher"?

So far as I have noticed, nobody in this thread has expressed proper sympathy for the boil on your ass and inquired as to its progress. Your mentioning it brought to mind a term that I only recently learned - TMI (too much information)! But, now that I've brought this up, I hope that it is much better now!

Yes, please do keep posting your funny rants and posing interesting questions. I am another one who believes that laughter, particularly at oneself, is often the only reasonable response.

Your rubbish skip reminds me of the first time that we had a "dumpster" (that's our word for it) when we were doing some cleanup. At night, neighbors and passers-by would throw their trash into it. We'd be awakened by the sounds of things crashing into it, and were most intrigued by the assortment of things that people pitched into it, and wondered who was doing it. We were worried that we'd have to hire another one, but fortunately there was still room for our stuff, too.
Anita

Hi Anita
Boil shrinking! Morale returning. Thank You. A lurcher, properly speaking, is a cross between a running dog and a working dog, such as a terrier and a whippet or a collie crossed with a greyhound. 'Lurcher' is often used to describe a cross between two running dogs (Saluki X Greyhound, say and known as a longdog. Running dogs include deerhounds and wolfhounds (often known as sighthounds), used for catching rabbits or coursing hares. We used to go out lamping at night (using lamps to illuminate the rabbits eyes and drive them towards a boundary, which may be netted. We could get 30-40 rabbits on a decent night (more if we used nets)- a handy sideline at our local butchers and it kept us and the dogs (4) in meat. Lurchers are often gentle and loving but also inclined to roam as well as being terrible (cunning)thieves. I was on first name terms with dog-wardens from 3 counties.

Knowing you is a very cool thing, Suzy. I think many Americans are anglophiles at heart, probably rooted in The Beatles for those of us who are of that era. The only thing we're missing is your voice, i.e., your accent. I'll always wonder about that. And now we know what lurchers are. So glad the boil is shrinking.

Sherry

hiya sherry
Dunno if you have heard of Coronation Street - a long running soap set in the industrial north of england - well, despite being transplanted to East anglia, I still have the ee by gum northern flat cap and whippet accent. Most definately not received pronunciation. We do not have sandwiches - we have butties, preferably jam ones
I miss the hills (very flat in the fens) and I miss Lancashire meat and potato pies but my town, Oldham, was often nasty, racist and chauvinistic - I haven't been 'home' in nearly 40 years and doubt I ever will. I'm a yokel now, in slow old Cambridge.

Suzy, a good script-writer could do a whole mini-series for TV on your one posting! I haven't laughed that hard in ages!