You have my heartfelt sympathy!! I shattered my knee a year ago in November - total misery having to stay off it. Now.....I need the pins out and keep putting off surgery...I too will need to stay on couch for a couple of weeks - big incision on kneecap so cant bend. I suggest you get your pots ready with soil in them to plant - 10 shoulnt take that much time. I have lost count of the ones I have coming....Can you have the roses shipped earlier? You can get everything on the deck, get a chair by the water spigot and water from there. I couldnt stand it and hopped around on crutches and planted 4 roses that came in 2 weeks after surgery. Just organize everything and it may not be as bad as you anticipate. Pile up lots of gardening magazines and books to read! Good luck..... Judith

I have a cast iron clawfoot (I know you said you weren't interested in those specifically) which we love. My husband is 6'5" and has trouble fitting into regular sized tubs; the clawfoot is deep and he can get a good soak. We looked at the Victoria and Albert tubs, but decided on the clawfoot because we found a great deal on a used one on craigslist and it matched the period of our house (1910 bungalow). Neither of us miss having the deck. We are struggling with finding storage, but that is a general issue we are having with the overall bathroom, not specific to the tub. When reading I'll just put my magazine, book or paper on the floor next to the tub. It's not that inconvenient to lean over and pick it up again over the edge of the tub. I don't have any problems getting in and out of the tub, and I've had foot surgery like you would not believe. I've had my ankle, leg, and foot surgically reconstructed 9 times in the past 6 years. While I'm no longer on crutches, I am significantly disabled (makes many DIY projects very difficult for me). I also have very poor balance and suffered nerve damage during one my surgeries so have no sensation on the bottom of my foot. I was warned that all of these issues would make it difficult for me to get in and out of a clawfoot tub, but I just hold onto the opposite side for balance and have no trouble. I have good days and bad days, and on bad days I sit on the edge of the tub and just swing my legs over. I don't think using the clawfoot tub is any more difficult than a regular shallower tub. This was my foot last year, you can see that it was pretty messed up. Even though I had a regular tub during this procedure and only recently got the clawfoot, I'm still recovering from the surgery.

Thank y'all. I'm pretty sure I know what I'm going to say now. Two things really - one, that since I haven't even yet started I don't even know if there is a enough business to occupy two people. Two, that I value our friendship too much to taint it with a business deal. She is an incredibly nice person, would go to the end of the world for you if you asked, but very dependent on those around her. And because I have strategically distanced myself as I mentioned, she's not needy towards ME... She reserves that for people who tolerate her more than I do. Her ex-husband couldn't tolerate it though, which is one of the reasons why they are no longer married. To paint you a picture, her son is in preschool full-time yet she still employs a full-time nanny. While he is at school the nanny takes care of mom. Medical care? No... errands, cleaning, cooking, organizing, while she is out getting massages and her nails done and hair done and shopping and dr. appointments. My dh said that her happiness is not my responsibility and he's right and so are all of you. She is going to eventually have to earn an income (or remarry another rich guy) eventually. Alimony is only for four years. Anyway, I saw her Hummer down the street this morning at the our mutual friend's home that is her real estate agent (she's in escrow on both the place she sold and the place she bought). She knew I was home; my car was out front. She didn't stop by...I think she knew from my panicked reaction yesterday that the answer will be no. Probably mad at me. Oh well...it'll pass.

I include some amazon reviews of Extra Virgin by Annie Hawes -guranteed to take you out of yourself into a really different lifestyle - someone else and somewhere else - great sense of humour and lots of fascinating information - a really cheerful read "What a surprise! When my flat mates started raving on about this book I was terribly sceptical expecting a rather trashy " A Year in a Lemon Tree" or some such nonsense. I couldn't have been more wrong and within pages was so hooked that I did not want the book to ever end. In fact I enjoyed it so much that I could go straight back to the beginnig and read it all over again! Annie Hawes has a wonderful style of prose which is most endearing. You are left feeling as if you know all the inhabitants of the village and that Hawes is a friend of a friend who you feel you have always known. Her capitalisation of words like Dirt, and talk of draughts causing life threatening illnesses were especially amusing being a foreigner in a german speaking country obsessed with such matters. Hawes' faux pas were also very close to home Warning if you are hungry or on a diet do not read this book as the descriptions of Ligurian cuisine will break any will. Do however throw caution to the wind and give this book a try and anyway you can always start dieting again afterwards!...... Annie Hawes tells the story of how she and her sister came to live in Italy and how they learned to live with and understand the olive growing locals, their families and their traditions. They soon find out the these somewhat cynical people, who are baffled and amazed by how two females will cope on their own, will become very special to them and change their lives forever. This book is heart warming, emotional and best of all hilariously funny. The stories of how the locals take to their new neighbours and their strange ways had me in fits of laughter. If you like a book that makes you laugh,lets you see a very different side to life and gets you thinking then this is the one for you. Wonderful..... I read this book while in Greece ,where I walked on donkey tracks amidst olive trees. This really brought an added pleasure to my reading. My partner could not understand my sudden interest in plates of succulent tomatoes, drizzled with olive oil! Annie Hawes' descriptions of her early days in Liguria are extremely funny and I frequently laughed out loud . I also learnt a lot about peasant life which i think would also apply to other communities (the use of Apes for example, a mode of transport which has always intrigued me in Greece!).Needless to say, my partner is now devouring the book. Read it now !" Thoroughly enjoyable Get better soon Jan