Living the good life finally pays off

TAKE a walk along the seafront or in almost any public garden and you see rows of nice manicured flowers, carefully arranged doing exactly what the seed packet said they would do.

So I’m a little frustrated to reveal that my best attempts at growing several types of vegetable last year ended in disastrous failure.

Despite lavishing love, care, attention, water and food on the little pots I was not rewarded with so much as a leaf.

Disgusted but not wanting to create even more waste, I carefully emptied the various pots involved and threw their unrewarding contents into my compost bin to recycle them and at least get some return on my efforts.

That compost was duly dug into the ground this year.....and now I have cabbages and other vegetables coming up all over the place.

But Nature, having had one big laugh at my expense, was not about to leave it at that and I swiftly realised that all the best spots for this sudden an unexpected largess were almost all on tiny paths I had trodden between various vegetable beds.

This was really taking the mickey because I now had to tease them into slightly less inconvenient spots or risk trampling them underfoot when the main beds begin to really fill out.

Oh yes. Did I mention that while doing this the English summer gave me a nice drenching? I didn’t know whether to be furious at my wet clothing or grateful that I didn’t have to water the rehoused plants in again. 

Next year the garden can go hang. I’m for a deckchair and a nice book.

Is that what ‘L’ plate really stands for?

THEY tore down the road like three Horsemen of the Apocalypse, their motorcycles sounding like lawnmowers on steroids.

Their “L” plates were prominently displayed and were clearly needed as a warning for as many people as possible to avoid them like the plague.

For a start, they were riding three abreast, each vying with the other to get as close as possible without crashing or to swap places in daring swoop manoeuvres, preferably while chopping up their friends. What fun!

Other fun ranged from dramatic bursts of speed and sudden braking to overlong periods spent ignoring what was in front of them in favour of looking behind to make sure the other two riders appreciated the skill of their last trick.

The most lunatic example of their antics came as they were again all riding three abreast when one rider tried to hook his toes under the foot of the rider next to him in an attempt to unseat him or upset his balance.

Either aim was unbelievably dangerous because they had cars following them not to mention cars to avoid colliding with in front.

Eventually they steamed past all the traffic in front of them, still larking about. 

That must be what the “L” plates stand for. And people wonder why so many young riders end up being killed.

Calls for guerrilla advertising in town

ANTI-terror officers seem unaware that Weymouth has a guerrilla group operating in the town.

Perhaps that’s because its strident message calling for the streets to be taken over actually relates not to violence and mayhem – at least I hope not – but to advertising.

Slogans calling for guerrilla advertising to be spread across Weymouth were inscribed on the back wall of the old main Post Office just off Lower St Alban Street.

It’s pretty tame and hardly “man the barricades” stuff but, if advertising is putting out a call to arms, why not other topics?

How about Guerrilla Geraniums, Bring Flower Power to Weymouth or perhaps we can look forward to Guerrilla Gum, In the Bin not on the Pavement. 

No, perhaps that would be a bit too much to hope for because that would require effort.

Seagull’s revenge for removing cat biscuits

MUCH has been written about the messy and destructive habits of seagulls but they do occasionally raise a smile.

This yarn related to me by one View From reader involves a resident seagull and the family’s cat.

Sadly the cat died, not something the seagull shed many tears about, but the hungry bird was distraught when the family stopped putting out cat biscuits which the seagull had been snaffling as a handy food source.

It clearly didn’t understand that the end of the cat meant the end of cat biscuits as well and it began to squawk and peck at the family’s door, presumably in an attempt to get the biscuits reinstated.

The seagull also gave notice that it was in no mood to move away.... by stealing a clothes peg from the family washing line and using it to help hold its nest together!

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