I’ve just got back from B and Q where I’ve had a lovely shopping experience getting together all the stuff I still need to take to the show.  Last year I abducted our garden hose which failed to engender domestic harmony so this year I’ve decided to buy my very own ocean going five star windy uppy hose thingy.  I also needed gold paint for my maypoles which haven’t even been started yet. A bit like shopping for shoes if you’re that type of woman.

Plonked everything in the trailer including 150 35 litre pots for the 150 grapevines arriving tomorrow morning from Barcelona, which will need potting on immediately if they are to survive.

Got home to find all three lids on the litre cans of metallic paint have come off and smothered my windy uppy hose thingy with glutinous unwashoutable gold paint, my trailer is now a fetching shade of gold, in parts,  as are the pots, the dogs’ tails, my hands and next door’s kids.  Sadly not enough paint for the maypoles so will make a return journey tomorrow.

Tried, aided by terribly helpful and indeed golden 7 and 8 year olds, to assemble hose thingy only to find several bits left over at the end including a long thin spring which may be why when I unravel the hose everything gets twisted, but god knows, why can’t anything come ready assembled these days?  I’d gladly pay the extra – are you listening, anyone in the hose industry?

My best friend’s coming over tomorrow to pot grapevines with me, we’re going to have a lovely time gassing as we work, but we’re both rather bossy and if she does anything the wrong way (and she is really pigheaded) we’ll end up screaming at each other, as usual.  We both come from huge families of sisters which may have something to do with it.