Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
I have sadly left Coastal Cornwall and have now arrived in Somerset, with its rolling hills and endless green spaces, narrow lanes leading deeper to orchards and meadows.
After unpacking and settling into the slow Somerset pace, we were given a beautiful day of blue skies and birds chirping away.
I, in my wisdom, decided I would do a spot of gardening as my mother had unfortunately recently slipped on a very soggy wet patch in her chicken run and fractured her poor thumb. Although I love gardening in Bahrain in the cooler months where Petunias and Geraniums flourish, in the hotter summer months many plants perish so I was looking forward to some Somerset summer gardening.
My mother, spotting me outside, decided to supervise to make sure the weeds such as dandelions and ivy were being pulled up as opposed to her beloved Clematis and Cosmos. Later, having qualified in her eyes, I decided to set my heights higher and went about tackling the surrounding hedge. Very overgrown and awfully bushy, I went in search for the battery lightweight hedge trimmer that I had seen advertised in my step father’s Mole Valley Farmer’s brochure. However, my search led me to the workshop and I was handed a piece of equipment that reminded me of a scene from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Extremely heavy and with electric cable, I was reassured that my mother had only once sawed through the cable but luckily was saved from electrocution by her trusted Wellington boots and my step father had only once partially gone through a mid-thigh section. Funnily, once I had the antique hedge trimmer powered up, everyone disappeared and the children ran off to the safety of their iPads. A few sweaty hot hours later I had managed to trim all the hedges. My arms ached unbelievably and although Alan Titmarsh wouldn’t be grading my topiary skills, I felt fully satisfied at having not electrocuted myself or a nearby chicken and possibly adding hedge trimming to my repertoire. Although I have a suspicion that I shall be leaving the hedge trimming in Bahrain to the trusted experienced compound gardeners who magically manage to trim the rich bougainvillea bushes in a matter of minutes.
