PERFECT STORM

A perfect storm is an event where a rare combination of events will aggravate a situation drastically.
This weekend The Old Girl has been home, she hasn't had any computer work to do and the weather has been gorgeous. The result? GARDENING! She took it into her mind to do some creative things which meant that I was given digging duties. I had to dig a trench all along the border of the lawn and the sloping fern garden to stop the grass from spreading through the garden. I duly started this and it didn't take long for the odd fantasy to start to enable me to get through the otherwise mindless work. I am reading a novel about the battle of Alamein at present so my digging garden borders morphed into digging slit trenches on the Miteira Ridge as German 88 shells whistled overhead. At one stage during a mortar stonk I had to dive into the ditch hoping that it was deep enough to stop the shell splinters from riddling me. Of course this was the moment that the Old Girl came around the side of the house to see what I was doing.

Now women, bless 'em are lovely but they have little understanding of blokes' fantasies (or at least the adventure type ones). After the lecture on 'stop pissing about and get on with it' topic I resumed my digging and designing. At this stage the neighbourhood cat came over to see what I was doing. As I was about to give it a lecture in turn of the 'don't even think about crapping in my ditch' topic a Kereru flew into the garden and perched on a low branch in the tree above my head.

We get a lot of Kereru (Wood Pigeon) here but this is the closest I have been to one. The cat decided to ignore me and started taking an undue interest in the bird. The pigeon was twice the size of the cat but I thought that I'd better not take any chances. I started throwing clods of earth at the cat to get it to go away. Now this cat is quite young but is feisty and has a great personality. Not a lot seems to faze it. It follows the neighbour and her dog down to the rocks in the bay and is not at all scared of the water. As I was throwing the clods at it, it didn't move but merely looked around at me as if to say "What the fuck are you doing? I've got a pigeon here". The cat, unmoved by the clods suddenly jumped away and ran over to the fence that borders the farm up the back. A cow had come over to investigate the sound of the clods of earth hitting the hedge. The cat went up to see it as did I. It was a friendly cow and was happy to have its face stroked.

It was lucky that Richard (of RBB) wasn't here as he is afraid of cows. Actually, Richard would probably have been afraid of the Kereru and I know that he doesn't like cats.

These distractions filled in some time and, as it was 3PM, the time that I had agreed with the Old Girl that I was off to play a few holes of golf, I put away the spade and headed off.
Gardening wasn't so bad today after all.