NaBloPoMo #8: The Gardener.

Oh I am so disappointed by the quality of these scans. This picture is to die for in real life! I don't know whether it's her little hat, her frilly T shirt, her soft frilly shorts with the huge nappy underneath? Is it her bare feet? Her wheel barrow or the look on her face as she is sprung trying to behead an agapanthas??? This was such a special summer. The previous year she had been brand new and the heat (even in the UK) did not treat us well what with breast feeding and night feeds. Houses in the UK have no air conditioning and are not designed to promote through breezes. In a hot summer they are stuffy and when you leave windows open, bugs come in. And spiders Brittany!! BIG spiders. Try realising at 4am as you finish a feed that there is a palm sized monster trooping across the bedroom floor! You stifle the overwhelming urge to scream (there are after all others asleep in the house....did I mention that I lived with Mum and dad for the first 18 months?) and tiptoe across the bed (can't put your feet on the floor cos it might get you) to put the baby in her basket, then search the room for an appropriate weapon. You spot an encyclopedia of jungle animals (my mother has kept every book we ever owned) and bravely snatch it off the shelf. Meanwhile the monster has disappeared under your desk. Ever so carefully you place your feet upon the floor and peer under the desk. It peers back at you, cunningly wedged in between the side of the desk and the carpet. In one swift move you thrust the encyclopedia under the desk whacking it repeatedly against the side of the upright section so that the sorry spider is mangled into a plethora of smears and stray limbs. You then leave it there to crisp up for a couple of days before asking someone else to vacuum it up.

Meanwhile, your sister, who is staying for the weekend, appears at the bedroom door. The thumping (and involuntary grunts of eeew eeew) have awoken her next door. Upon discovering what has happened, she goes next door and gets her husband to swap beds with her as she has been camping on a mattress on the floor!!!! :-D He's such a laid back chap. He never complains.

That was the first summer. The second summer was much better. The night feeds were over, she was mobile and entertaining; a real little character. She loved her paddling pool and sliding down the climbing frame slide into the water.

Maybe one more summer shot tomorrow before we head into Autumn 1996.