Now and
again I make myself a cup of coffee and take time to sit down and just think
about this and that. It is quite useful as I am probably one of the most
distracted people I know of; I forget things which should be obvious and I just
need that time of reflection to remember.
I went to
town today to get new flower pots. I had a lovely arrangement of Margarites at
my front door, but I had planted them in buckets of zink, and no draining… totally
thoughtless (even though it looked ever so idyllic) considering the weather
here: they were swimming, if not in fact drowning, so I had to get something
else to put them in. Something which looks nice and has a couple of holes in
the bottom for drainage.
My youngest
son and I went to the store and I found just the perfect flower pots and was
about to pay,
when my son (who had found one of these brilliant selling ideas:
children size shopping carts!) appeared with quite a few items he just had to
have: Gargamel and Azrael (he has quite a few Smurfs and needed Gargamel too…
and his cat of course), a drinking bottle looking like a piece of Lego, a stick
of candy, a pair of socks… and then some. All very necessary and useful. He
presented a whole list of very reasonable arguments, so (as I fetched an
assumed sigh) I paid for all the items and we went home. I am still not sure
who did the best buy. I, who got exactly what I wanted, or he, who got a lot he
did not even know he wanted.
When we got
home, one of my son’s friends came over. I usually like it when my kids have
friends over, but some kids are very enterprising, and that characteristic does
not always agree with my level of energy.
They were
playing outside on the lawn with all the smurfs and a couple of actionmen,
seemingly quite content and settled down, so I went around the house doing my
thing.
When I
returned, I realized I had misjudged the situation completely:
They had
found my lawn mower. Usually I would have been ever so happy for the help, but
this time the result was my lavender hedge is gone. I loved that hedge. I only
hope it will grow back. A futile hope, perhaps, but still…
You can’t
really yell when the intentions are good. I just explained that there was a
reason why there was a tiny fence between the grass and the flowerbed.
The boys
understood it was not such a good idea to cut vegetation in a garden, which does
not look like grass, with a lawn mower.
So, the
matter was clarified and I went back to round off my project. Within a couple
of minutes it started to rain, so I called the boys inside, reminding them to
bring the smurfs and actionmen with them. Toys should not be left outside in
the rain if you want to keep them for a while.
The boys
watched children’s television while eating candy. (Saturdays are good like that:
the only day of the week my kids get all the candy they can possibly eat. It
never turns out to be a lot anyway.)
I went
outside to check the garden for left behind gardening tools and clothes and
found both the remote controlled robots left in the rain, the remote controlled
helicopter was left on the trampoline (I realize it looks like a heliport, but
still I was dejected) and no less than four teddy-bears sat in the rain looking
miserable.
Oh well,
they were never told to bring all the toys inside: I should have been more
specific…
The friend
had to go home because it was dinnertime, so I got him dressed and waved him
off.
I had just
started cooking dinner when the phone rang. It was the friend’s mother calling
to thank me for the wonderful afternoon her son had spent at my house, and the huge
bouquet of yellow and red tulips was just stunning! Her children were not
allowed to pick flowers in her garden, so she was overwhelmed with my
generosity…
Shopping
with my son cost me more money, but the raid on my garden cost me more grief: The
tulips would have adorned my garden for at least two more weeks, and then
another week in vases inside, but perhaps the mother’s joy was worth the prize
I paid. For some strange reason I do not think she is too accustomed to the feeling.
