Saturday 25 May 2013

P is for Patio

P is for Patio

It’s also for Pensioner!  But that’s just too depressing to have as a title, isn’t it?  But they’re sort of related. So…some ‘Tales From The Patio’ (quick plug for my first book!  See my website nonnyjames.com for details!)
     Yes, we do love our patio, and our garden, but the patio is our favourite.  As soon as the sunshine arrives, I get charged with energy and start preparing the patio tubs for planting.  I remember a particularly energetic couple of days when I decided that I wanted to disinfect the tubs.  ‘The houseboy’, as I affectionately refer to him, was most excited because it gave him an excuse to try out his Christmas present – a pressure washer!  Having blasted the tubs to within an inch of their lives, it was time for the Jeyes fluid.  We both love the smell!  So I started rinsing and preparing the tubs for new soil and plants or bulbs.  Meanwhile, activated houseboy decides to tackle the garden shed with creosote.
     We were winding down and relaxing on the patio after activities and enjoying the wafts of evening creosote and Jeyes fluid (we have a problem with certain smells!) and I said ‘I suppose this is glue sniffing for pensioners’.  We did have a chuckle.  Rock and Roll.
     A few months later, houseboy had been tackling the patio furniture with Danish oil again.  It smells lovely.  We’ve added it to the ‘glue sniffing for pensioners’ list.  And talking of smells and the houseboy (oh dear, that came out wrong), he came back from the local hardware shop the other day with a tub of putty for our knackered window frames. Oooooh lovely!  It’s on the list. My favourite patio story, though, is this:-

     We love each other’s company.  We do old fashioned things like talking (!).  We’d had a gig together and got home at midnight.  It was a brilliant gig.  Performers will know that gigs can go two ways.  Brilliant or horrendous.  Whatever the outcome, you have to have a period of coming down from the high, or drowning yourself in sorrow after a low.  This was a high.  It was the most beautiful evening.  We were struck by the balmy temperature and the amazing peace and calm of the night air.  So we decided to have a cig and some wine on the patio.  So we smoked, drank, and chatted.  After what felt like a short time, I noticed that the sky had changed colour.  The lower bit had gone a fairly light blue.  Wondering what the time was, I went indoors to look at the clock.  FOUR A.M.  We’d been chatting for four hours.  Speaks volumes!

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