Gardening day!

I hate bloody gardening. I wish we had never bought a house with such a large garden, but Jennifer insisted, making some vague comment about "making a really a really nice garden together". Bollocks! I think she last held a gardening implement sometime around 2003 and that was for about 20 minutes, at which time she realised that either,

a) There was something on TV that she wanted to watch, or;
b) There was something she had to connect to work to do

and she ran inside the house to get on with it.

So, the normal sketch is that the garden goes to wrack and ruin until I get sick of looking at it. Then, for a few hours over a few weekends, I dig, cut, trim, weed and generally tidy up the fucking thing. There is never a need to cut the grass. We have a very nice man with a lawn mower who comes every two weeks and cuts the lawn for three quid fifty pence. A bargain.

This morning I was out in he garden at 9am. Sometime around 11am Jennifer shouted from the back door that she was going into town to buy a dress for a wedding she was going to be attending in a couple of weeks. I waved goodbye, Jennifer shut the back door and left.

11:45am. I had finished everything I wanted to do. I had got a fair bit done. All of the crap had been put into recyclable bags and everything had been swept up. The garden looked sweet. I was very happy. It was very satisfying. (Always is, once I get going, although I will never admit to enjoying gardening to Jennifer.) I went to the back door and tried the handle.

The back door was locked.

Eh?

I tried the back door again.

The back door was locked.

Fucker! Jennifer had locked the back door. I had no key, and even if I had, she had left the key in the lock on the other side. I could see it through the window. I couldn't go out of the back gate, because it was padlocked and the key was in the house. I could have done an action hero thing and climbed over it and got through the iron gate at the front of the corridor, because I know that combination on that lock, but I am not Bruce Willis (despite sharing his baldy good looks) and, anyway, where exactly would I have gone? Neither neighbour was home. I had no money and was practically naked, wearing a grubby T-shirt, shorts and trainers.

Stuck, man.

Over the next three and a half hours!! in the back garden, through sun, wind and rain I cycled through various emotional states. Mild annoyance, anger, fury, rage and then onto a kind of zen like peacefulness and then back to mild annoyance.

I studied the red ants. I studied the spider webs. I sang the whole of the Beatles "Revolver" album. I looked at my reflection in the double glazed back kitchen window and admired the weird 3D effect on the skull on the front of my T-shirt. I had a piss down the drain. (Twice.) I considered having a wank, but didn't. (No hankies in my pocket. Nasty, but might have been interesting to find out if semen kills weeds.) I checked out the ruins of the hedge that the Dad of my neighbour, the sexy Keren, had been systematically removing over the last couple of weeks. (Nice girl Keren. Very pleasant. A good neighbour. Has never been any trouble to us. Has lips that could suck a golf ball through a garden hose.) I took my top off went the sun came out and put it back on when the sun went back in. I sat down and stood up again. I hugged myself. I gathered saliva in my mouth and found out how far I could spit. (Not very far, as it happens.) I replayed the "Watchmen" trailer in my head a couple of times. I thought of how best to structure this post.

At 15 and 45 minutes past the hour, I stared intently through the kitchen window. Any sign of Jennifer. No.

15:15pm. Jennifer arrived home. I welcomed her.

"You've locked me out, you fucking idiot!"

I will give her this, she did appear to be mortified.

Choice words were expressed by me to her. I ran upstairs. I showered. Jennifer followed me up, still apologizing. I said that I didn't want to talk about it. I dressed and left. I had arranged to see "Donkey Punch" with my Brother and Sister 2 and was now, possibly, going to be late. I had planned to leave the house at 15:10pm.

Jennifer tried to hug me this evening. I declined. I said that I was still fucking angry at the whole locked-out-of-the-house business and at lot of other things. She said that she didn't lock me out of the house on purpose. I said that I agreed with her, but that I felt it was still another indication, one of many, of how little I even cross her mind lately. Work first, second, third and fourth and then, maybe, Jerry.

It is how I feel.

I did see "Donkey Punch" with my Brother and Sister 2. I thought it had it's moments, if being a little uneven. I will write about it tomorrow.