WEEDKILLER

A rare sunny Bank Holiday Monday recently found me drawn outside into the sunshine to take advantage of the opportunity to at least make the slightest of starts upon tidying the tiny jungle that seems to have erupted where our tiny garden used to be, after two long and soggy years of neglect.

So there I was, having strimmed back a portion of the long grass which sometimes passes as our postage stamp sized lawn, and weeded a flower bed and a pot plant or three, busily extracting the weeds from between the cracks in the front paving, when an incredibly tall woman who I’d never met before walked up to me and plonked a bottle of weedkiller down in front of me and said “Here you are!” before sauntering away back to her own house.

Well, that’s how I remember it now, anyway, although there was a bit more chat than that and, despite being utterly befuddled by this, I did manage to mutter a brief “Thank you” before returning to my weeding.

I believe that the chat mostly came from her and seemed to involve the fact that they had “loads of the stuff” that they’d “brought from their old house” and that they’d “considered spraying it anyway but decided not to” with regards to the weeds that I was currently tackling which, if it had happened, might have been mightily neighbourly, but also just a tad presumptive, given that we had never even been introduced...

It transpired, you see, that she is, after all, one of the “new” occupants who’ve recently moved into number whatever it is further down the row.

Now, I’m never all that good at dealing with “new” people and situations at the best of times, but crawling around on my knees battling with some stubborn dandelions whilst feeling utterly knackered and having what we laughingly refer to as my “muscles” shaking from all the effort put into the strimming ordeal could never really be described as the “best” of anything, especially me, so I remained as nonplussed at the arrival of this strange bottle of chemicals as by the courier who took it upon herself to deliver it, and couldn’t really decide what to do with it.

So I hid it behind a plant pot to keep it out of direct sunlight, and returned to my more physical approach to weeding, before sweatily drifting inside a few minutes later and plonking the bottle on the dish drainer as I grabbed a swift glass of lemonade and attempted to explain this strange development to the beloved.

The thing is, we don’t like using chemicals on the garden, and never really have, and, whilst they might make life a heck of a lot easier for me in garden maintenance terms, especially with me being so very neglectful and all, we’re really rather reluctant to change our principles on this small matter, especially when it comes to adding toxins to the water table and upsetting the delicate balance of nature and so forth...

Plus, we rather like the bumblebees, and we wouldn’t want any harm to come to any of them, even if the labels do claim that they are perfectly harmless...

But then...

Well, it does perhaps seem rather rude, especially upon first meeting  new neighbour, to reject outright such a kind offer, especially one that came along unprompted or provoked by anything other than seeing me struggling along on my hands and knees. Plus, of course, everyone knows how much first impressions count in all manner of things, and I really didn’t want to come across as pompous or superior in any way by snubbing her kind offer in my usual haughty and stand-offish manner...

“Oh, we don’t use those...”

So, as you can imagine, I was pretty confused by the entire situation and went inside to explain my dilemma to the ever-practical beloved, who, shortly afterwards, strolled back along the row of houses, weedkiller in hand, and returned the bottle from whence it came, introducing herself pleasantly in the process and having a nice little chat - presumably about what an idiot I am - before returning sans weedkiller.

Why am I so bloody awful at such things...?