Western Morning News (Saturday)
Gardening slows the spring in anyone’s step
IWOKE up this morning wondering what tractor I’d fallen under. The dog looked at me balefully as shuffled stiffly across the room. Gardening, I realise, finds all those muscles that a gym workout doesn’t. You can lay on bench presses, do the plank, press-ups, lunges and kid yourself you’re toning your muscles.
That’s until you get in the garden heaving bags of compost or spend hours bent in half planting onions or clearing old weeds. The first days of gardening are the worst and I defy anyone to spring up out of bed the next day feeling supple.
Except, that is, my mother-in-law. Even thinking about her makes me feel weary. I wonder even if I’ll have the energy to finish the article...
Clutching a bunch of tulips, I went along the road to her house, expecting to find her, as most 98-year-olds would be, sitting in front of Flog It or an old black and white film with the volume maxed out.
Instead she answered the door looking as though she’d been radicalised. She was wearing an old dressing gown, track suit bottoms and fluffy slippers. I realised she was decorating and was glad to see her in some semblance of dress. She normally works naked – “so much easier to get the paint off dear”. It’s not easier on the eye, though, as her front door leads into the main room and she’s in full public view. Today though, her front room was piled high with everything from the kitchen and a ladder was perched over the sink. M-in-L was in her element. She’d stripped the walls and was in the process of painting the ceiling.
To my horror, she shot up the ladder to point out a patch of damp. Midst the muddle I managed to find a vase for the flowers. Before I could get to the tap, she foraged in a drawer and pulled out some Sellotape, promptly taping up the heads of the flowers. “Stops them dropping,” she said as the poor things were gagged into shape.
The trouble with M-in-L is that she likes to start jobs but gets bored and gets other people to finish them. This doesn’t go down well with Hubs, who is constantly summoned – usually at about 8am – to find bits of wood or similar. Last week it was for replacement skirting board, which Hubs happened to have in his “never can tell” vast store. He carefully mitred the wood to fit the old and uneven walls and fitted them with surgical precision.
Not good enough. She’s ripped them out because someone, somewhere, maybe an errant spider, will be on the floor under the table by the cupboard and see that there might be a tad of difference in the height. It’s par for the course and workmen ensure they know she comes with a government health warning as she’ll invariably undo their work too. She’s an OCD perfectionist.
I once walked along the road to see her on the opposite pavement shouting instructions into the air. Following her gaze, I saw an old boy of about 80 clutching her chimney stack. It was grubby, she decided. I’m sure you worry about the same problem…
M-in-L decided hers had to be painted. She commanded the poor old chap to climb on the roof. He’d only come round to give an estimate for something else. As I looked up, I saw him sweating profusely, hanging on the stack and blindly waving his free arm and brush wildly at the masonry. “You’ve missed a bit there,” she yelled and I moved on fast, thinking if I was on her roof I’d throw the paint pot at her.
But she’s used to spilt paint – once she went on the bus to return a fivelitre can of white gloss.
Sitting on the top floor, the tin rolled over, the lid came off and it poured away, running down the stairs of the brand-new bus. Everyone was turned off at the next stop and white footprints covered the pavement like a crime scene. M-in-L shrugged it off and avoided any fines.
She has an interesting line in fillers, using cheap white toothpaste – “smells so nice, dear” – or dozens of tubes of superglue. Cables are verboten in her house and she buries and fills them all, then covers them in paint, wallpaper or carpet. I’ve seen grown men from BT close to tears trying to find the source of problems which inevitably arise because she’s shortened wires to tidy them up.
I did actually get worried about her the other day. “I’m giddy in the mornings when I get up dear,” she said. I didn’t dare suggest anno domini. Just as well, because she went online and decided her electric blanket was too hot. She refuses to use central heating but her bed could be used in a crematorium.
“I turned it off last night,” she said chirpily. “And this morning I leapt out of bed like a mountain goat.”
I grunted wearily, feeling tired at the thought. I’ll get her along to do some gardening. That might wear her out. But I doubt it.
“You’ve missed a bit there,” she yelled and I moved on fast, thinking if I was on her roof I’d throw the paint pot at her