A Garden is Dangerous

It is well documented how dangerous gardening is.  Even the word ‘garden’ is an anagram of ‘danger’. As soon as spring arrives, we keen gardeners feel the sap of enthusiasm rise and we rush outside to dig, chop, carry, bend, kneel and stretch - not for an hour or two but the whole day.  If we survive that first day in the green gym, the second will surely to send us reaching for the anti-inflammatory potions and the comfort of a hot bath.

The secret ,of course, is to build up the activity and alternate tasks so nothing is too repetitive. Treading carefully and gentle exercise is not a sign of weakness but human beings are not rational, are they?

Doc takes no notice of sensible advice.  He is a doctor, so what does he know about aches and strains and accidents?  He thrives on physical work.  He is fit for his age but his idea of taking things steady is ticking off 18 holes on the golf course followed by 4 hours attacking the monster weeds in the garden.  For an encore he will wash a car or two.  Still, he sleeps well and has the luxury of indulging in double portions of pudding because he burns up lots of calories.  (Some people have all fun, don’t they?)

Doc also displays bravado when it comes to climbing ladders and this is one area that for me, is a step too far.  For years I was the annual 'shaking' anchor woman at the bottom of the ladder whilst he heroically cleaned out the gutters.  Since my foot problem developed, I am no longer a trustworthy anchor and we have defaulted to GAMIN (Get A Man In) for that particular task. Then last week, I unthinkingly let slip that I had spotted that some of the panes in the greenhouse roof had slipped, leaving gaps for rain to come through.  Doc seized the opportunity to repair the situation.  Despite the fact that the greenhouse is large with a steep pitch, he was scathing of my suggestion to call in an expert.  He was adamant he was capablehe of fixing the problem and it would save us a lot of money.

I tried to bribe him with the promise of cake but he declined. He put on a pair of heavy duty gardening gloves and up the step ladder he went, one creaking step at a time.  The sheets of glass were large and he had to carefully and accurately manouvre each one into a new position. The air was, as they say, thick with tension.  At one particularly wobbly moment I covered my face with my hands and peaked through the gaps.  I was terrified and imagined the Paramedics running down the path with a stretcher.  The Smalls will be furious, I thought.   “Why did you let him do it?” they would yell.  Thankfully though, Doc was lucky and in the longest hour I have spent for quite a while, he repaired the seals and secured the glass.

The look of self-satisfaction on his face worried me.   It was the kind of look John Wayne wears in those old movies.  It is the look that goes with the words “A Man has to do what a Man has to do.”  The trouble is that what John Wayne did was film trickery and Doc is made of real-life perishable flesh and bone.

Before Doc put his gun back in his holster and swaggered back up to the house, he set out the mousetraps in the greenhouse, primed with peanut butter.  (We have been having little visitors in there for some time and their munching of my lettuce plants has to stop.)  Of course, being post-menopausal, my memory fails more times than I can remember and I forgot the traps were strategically placed amongst the pots.  Thanks to my ailing foot, I am also quite unsteady on my legs.  However, I am pleased to report that I did manage to escape the claws of the traps but I don’t think I will mention to Doc that it took super-human effort and skill to avoid disaster.  Given my disability, I am impressed by my nifty dance moves and creative use of a window catch.  Yes, gardens are dangerous but a “Woman has to do what a Woman has to do......”