Now I like looking through fancy gardening pictures and day dreaming as much as the next person, oh to sit in a Victorian styled greenhouse, with a ride on mower sat outside, a traditional set of ash handled fork and spade learning against the door whilst I sit sipping tea from my bone china mug and gaze out over a modest acre garden. You see, simple pleasures.
However, what do I see when I flick through the glossy photographs of such things? Clean, pristine and most importantly unused tools and equipment being held by some smiling apparent "gardener" without a scrap of dirt on them. When will the companies that sell us these products learn? If your tools are that good show us! Use the flipping thing and let us see it doing the job and surviving.
We gardeners know tools get mucky and certainly won't be put off by a bit of mud on a spade. Case in hand, two separate adverts for fancy greenhouses, the first sits amongst perfectly trimmed lawns and pot plants, detailed pictures show beautiful ironwork and workings: ain't never done a days work in it's life, no signs of mud or grease to be found. The second shows a glasshouse crammed with plants, a stained floor and a woman relaxing into a chair with muddy boots and trousers and an old tatty jumper on, the window panes have rain residues and there's moss appearing in the edges of the floor tiles. Now even if the second one has been staged I still know which greenhouse I feel inspired by.
So to go back to my daydream...there I am sat in my Victorian greenhouse, the smell of damp brickwork and moss fills the air, an old mower sits outside waiting to be cleaned off with a worn cushion on the seat for added comfort, my grandads fork and spade stick out of a nearby bed, the handles shine smooth from years of use whilst I sit sipping tea from my favourite bone chine mug, with a chip in it naturally.
Now that's my idea of true contentment.
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