Bench Appreciation Day????

Ok, so I took a quick look at this page last night, to see what my FH was up to, and sheesh, how much boring rubbish can someone produce?? The bunnies did this, the bloody fat pigoen did that, Itchy and Scratchy keep annoying everyone, those annoying tree rats, blah blah blah. Give me a break!!

And I wasn't sulking and hibernating, I was having my beauty sleep. We benches need that, too, you know?

Now one thing I found out, which my FH hadn't told me about. There will soon be an event called Bench Appreciation Day.  Also known as BAD. Now call me paranoid, but I don't have a good feeling about this. If it's the same bunch of people that usually show up for events, they won't appreciate me AT ALL. They will go on about how cute the rabbits are, and talk about stupid people on some forum, and maybe even look at planes. But I bet they won't look at me all day. BAD seems quite fitting really. :(

Today several boxes full of new plants for the pond have arrived. They all look a bit sad, I must say. Hopefully they will make the pond look better again, after that rather brutal clean out. And my FH will spend some time with me while planting them.

Summer (what summer?) is over....

I must apologise for His Royal Grumpiness The Bench. He has gone into complete hibernation, because of the weather and the "neglect of his basic bench needs", as he calls it. I should have never told him about the bench in France, although I keep saying that it was not as comfortable as his planks. But he behaves like a drama queen and ignores everything we say. So I have decided to take over this blog for a while.

Well, as most of you will have noticed, summer was short, and happened sometime in May. The damp weather was quite good for a lot of the plants in our garden, apart from the tomatoes, sunflowers and courgettes, oh and the kohlrabi. They all look very unhappy. The whole garden could do with a makeover again, and we have started with the pond. We removed most of the plants that were growing in and around it, as they had become too big and were taking up too much space in the water. They had also got entangled, so that Alistair lifted out one huge lump of roots and leaves.

The fish were so surprised about the sudden amount of space, that they started getting into hyperactive mode, and we sadly lost one which probably jumped out of the water and then was found and carried away by a cat or fox. I found it on our lawn. :(

So at the moment the pond looks a bit bare. A good excuse to find some new plants, which we did at the garden centre. We also bought a few new fish. And I have ordered some more pond plants online. The wooden log mini fence had become rotten, so we have replaced it with a new one now. I still need to find some nice big pebbles for the edge of the pond. But hopefully we can get at least this part of the garden "refurbished" before it gets too cold.

The bunny shed no.1 still needs painting, and I have been hoping for a few dry days in a row this month. No luck so far. At least we seem to have two of the three wasps nests under control now. It seems to be a very good year for wasps, i.e. not so good for us, especially when they decide to build a nest right next to one of the bunny sheds, and another right outside the kitchen door. The third one is close to The Bench, which he isn't happy about, but at least they usually fly off towards the neighbours.

What else is new.....last month we went on a trip to Brittany in France and had a lovely time there. We stayed in two different hotels and then in a holiday cottage, and we visited beautiful old towns, a reptile zoo, a beach with rock pools, some megaliths, several toy shops and about every bakery along the way. The boys survived on mostly baguette and chocolate, and the odd carrot and cucumber slices. The French supermarkets are very well stocked, but also very cold. And the people are very reluctant to speak English, but luckily Alistair is fluent in French.

7 years and counting

My FH told me that she has now been living in this country for 7 years. I am proud to say that I have been part of her life for 4 of these 7 years. She knows that she can tell me anything, and I will always listen to her. I have no other choice, do I? Unlike her humans, who can leave the room or switch on the TV and watch something really boring instead.

But usually my FH has some interesting things to tell. Sometimes they are sad, like last weekend, when some disturbed guy killed a lot of people in Norway. Sometimes they make me feel a bit envious, especially when they involve other benches. My FH sat on several other benches last weekend. My cousin Arnie told me he saw her on a bench by his pond in RHS Wisley Gardens. Good old Archie, he's got a great life down in Wisley. A quiet corner, with views of a much bigger pond than mine.

If you wonder how I can communicate with my bench family, we use birds to send messages. A bit like in Harry Potter, I guess. But we don't use owls. Our birds of choice are jackdaws and magpies. Very intelligent and chatty. And they don't crap all over me like those wood pigeons and the robins.

The weather has improved slightly, but it's still not what I would call summer. Still, better than the heatwave they are having over in the US. I wouldn't enjoy that. 24 celsius will do nicely, thank you.

The squirrels have now decided to move their family into my humans' house. Into the loft somewhere, to be more specific. Bad idea! Very bad idea! They should have left it at the stealing of twine and coir. Shame they don't have stone martens here like in Germany. They would help to reduce the squirrels. Unfortunately they also have a taste for rubber and tend to destroy car engines, so maybe they wouldn't be all that popular, either.

Here's a photo of my cousin Arnie and his pond. Isn't he lucky?

The Great British Summer

Whoever came up with that term should be made to live the rest of their lives as a bench outside some ASDA in Chavtown, having all the Staffies pee against their legs. What a joke! It's like saying "Great British Chocolate" or "Great British Football". Give me spring any time, at least my humans spent a lot of time with me then. Now I hardly get dry between showers and just get "visited" by bird poo. Nothing great about that.

And just look at all the duckweed on the pond again. What a disgrace! I can't see the fish any more. My FH is too busy with school related activities. As if they were more important than looking after my pond.

Here comes another shower. Maybe I should ask for a raincoat for my planks. I don't want to get mouldy. And then get eaten by that huge hornet that I just saw on the old fence. *shudders* 

Exposed benches

Has someone looked on the UK front page of search engine Bing today? They have an interesting photo from somewhere around the world every day, and today the photo is showing a bench. Not just any bench, but my cousin Tynwald. He's made it all the way to the top. The top of some cold windblown hill on some small island which gets the annoying sound of motorbikes every year. I admit the view is quite something, but look at how weathered Tynwald is, and how very few flowers there are around him. No trees at all, and probably some smelly cows or sheep rubbing against him when they feel like it.

Noooooo, I don't envy Tynwald at all. I much prefer to be here in my little garden, surrounded by flowers and frogs, watching my humans and hissing at squirrels. The neighbour has added another object to his sculpture park, this time the model of a Fokker triplane, which is hanging from a branch of the big sycamore. Don't mention the war and all that...

My FH was quite lucky today, because she managed to clean the rabbits before it started to rain. She even had some time to visit me and tell me about her painful back. I hope that wasn't my fault. I know I am not as soft and comfy as a sofa, but I don't think I am a pain in the back, either. Maybe she shouldn't have moved those heavy plant containers. Although I enjoy having more plants around me.

The tree rats have started the hazelnut harvest, so every minute or so a bunch of nibbled nuts gets thrown down from the hazel tree and lands on the garage roof behind me with a bang. How is a bench supposed to concentrate or to relax with that noise going on??? And the nuts are not even ripe yet.

Operation Rabbit Pedicure

Boy, am I glad that today is over. I was close to a nervous breakdown earlier, when my humans decided to sit on me while clipping the rabbits' nails. I got covered in tickly fur and nail clippings, and then they cleaned out some "scent gland folds", as they call them, and chucked the smelly dirt all over my private space. Yuck! How humiliating.

And if that wasn't enough, Luna, that big white bundle of neverending fluff production, managed to escape with one of her mad stunts. She was trying to hide under my planks, and she got sooooooo close to one of my legs. I was terrified that she'd start to nibble it. But then she found something more interesting to eat. My humans caught her again rather quickly, but she was quite upset. An hour later she was munching grass again, though.

My garden is looking splendid. The daylilies have started to produce masses of flowers, and my FH's new rose is also exploding with colour. There is a new vegetable patch inside what used to be an old sandbox, with some courgette and kohlrabi plants for now, and some tomatoes all around it. Let's hope the squirrels will stay away from the plants this time and not destroy them again.

Talking of squirrels, this week one of them proved once again that they are a bunch of thieves. My FH had run a string along the fence, for her passionflower plant to grow along on. And for some reason the cheeky squirrel thought it could come in useful and nibbled it off bit by bit until it was all gone. I have heard of copper wire and lead piping being stolen, but garden string?? That's a new one. We got photos as proof of the crime:

My FH is looking up squirrel recipes as we speak......

Summer is coming back....

.....even if it just for a few days. The sun felt really good on my damp planks this afternoon. And finally I got some attention again. My FH and her older small human removed a lot of weed from the pond. About time, too. I could hardly see the fish, and the pond skaters kept constantly tripping over the duckweed.

There are lots of little froglets hopping around everywhere now. And there is a young jay stalking them. It's a lovely bird, and still got some of its baby fluff. I don't like my froglets to be harmed, but I know they can't all survive and become big fat frogs, otherwise the pond would overflow.

I haven't seen any toads recently, I wonder where they are all hiding. My FH calls them all Trevor for some reason. They like to sit on the wall and suck up ants. And there is no lack of ants this year, they are absolutely everywhere. They tickle my planks, and laugh at me if I complain. Nasty little things. Come back and help me, Trevors!

So now they've forecast a mini heatwave for the next 2 days or so. Which may never happen, of course. But I wouldn't mind, as it would wake up the daylilies and make them open their lovely yellow flowers. But it would also cause more pollen and make my FH sneeze a lot. That's not so nice.

Remaining unsettled....

Nothing new here regarding the weather. I had a few sunny moments, but didn't see much of my humans. The youngest of my humans seems to have partied too much over the weekend, so now he's in bed with a fever and general blah feeling. He gets to stay home from school tomorrow and gets nursed back to health by my FH. Which means she won't have time for me. Again. Sometimes I feel invisible and useless. Can they treat depression in a bench? Maybe with some wood oil? Or by putting a container with pretty flowers in that gap just to my left?

The parrakeets have been unbearable all afternoon. Their screaching and constant bickering over apples and other food is giving me a plank ache. They destroy the lovely birch tree in my garden by plucking off the seeds and whole pieces of twig, which are then all thrown on the ground. What a waste! And those fat wood pigeons are dropping poo all over the lawn, and then my humans step into it. Even worse, yesterday I watched a blackbird dump its poo into the bird bath, and then it had a bath in it afterwards!! How gross is that? Is poo good for the feathers? Does it scare off free radicals? Well, bird poo certainly doesn't do my planks any good.

My FH has been neglecting not only me, but also the garden. I can understand that she prefers to be inside the sheds with the bunnies or in the house when it rains, but the weeds are slowly taking over. I am proud of my garden and don't want it to look like a mess. And the young plants in the mini greenhouse are crying for bigger pots. She won't harvest any courgettes and kohlrabi if she doesn't give the roots more space. She should know that, as she's some kind of plant person. And the pond could do with a bit of a cleanup, too. I don't want it to get smelly. I have to be next to it all day.

A short visit....

More bad weather today, and I was really bored. My FH's small human had his birthday today, so they were all busy looking at LEGO sets being built and eating cake. I had a few good moments, like when my FH and her small human sat on me and looked at LEGO Ninja cards. And then, when my FH caught a few baby froglets. A little while ago I had a "mild peril" moment, because a fox was sniffing its way through the garden and the rabbits started thumping. And I was watching a magpie with a leg injury for a while this afternoon.

But it wasn't the best day for me, and tomorrow won't be all that great, either, as my humans will all go away to have a party in Kew Gardens, that wonderful place that every bench dreams of as the ideal retirement home. And my FH also told me that they are going away on holiday in a few weeks time, and I can't come along. And as if that wasn't bad enough, they are going to France! People eat frogs there! And snails! Actually they eat almost every animal they can get their hands on, even tiny songbirds.  There is a bench in the garden of the house they will be staying at, and it is painted blue. How posh! I bet it isn't as comfortable as me, though.

The weather

As an English bench, I can't help but mention the weather once in a while. Especially right now. I mean, it is June, right? So why am I having more showers than my humans? All that moisture really isn't good for my planks. The only good thing about it is that the bird poo (free radicals and all that...) gets washed off me. But that's not worth much, when I am lonely all the time. My humans are not going to sit and talk to me in bad weather like that. :(

The frogs are quite happy, and so are the thirsty plants. Mushrooms are starting to grow in the lawn. I just hope I won't have any fungus growing on me any time soon. I really don't like mould, evil stuff. Eats itself into wood and makes it soft and weak. Hard to believe that some humans actually eat mould. It grows on horrible stuff called "cheese", on the outside of salami and it gets grown in huge tanks, harvested and then squeezed into different shapes and flavoured, so that it looks and tastes like meat. How odd is that? My FH is allergic to some mould and can't eat the fake stuff. But she prefers real meat anyway. I wonder how many people are allergic to meat? My FH is allergic to quite a lot of things. Me, I am only allergic to one thing: squirrels!! Also known as tree rats.

Anyway, back to the weather. On the news they said that the Queen's birthday parade is in June, because the weather is better than in April, when her real birthday is. Hmmmm, I don't think so. Not during the few years that I can remember. Summer happens in April and May, and then the rainy season begins. I wish I could go on holiday during the rainy season. Somewhere sunny and warm , that would feel good on my planks. But only if my humans came along, otherwise I'd be scared and lonely.

Here are some weather related photos:

Frogs and other amphibians

As I mentioned before, I like frogs and consider them my friends. They hop around my legs at night and keep scary insects away from me. In spring they hum a song for me. And they entertain my humans, too. The other day I watched my FH tease some frogs with a grass flower. They thought it was food and jumped really high. Luckily she stopped the teasing before the poor froggies had wasted all their energy on some vegetarian stuff. They really prefer their flies and other juicy insects.

During spring the froggies always produce a lot of spawn. Last year it all got either frozen or eaten by the fish. So this year my FH decided to remove some of the spawn and let it hatch in a tub. Once the tadpoles were big enough (i.e. bigger than the mouths of the fish and newts...), she released them back into the pond. This morning I could see quite a few tiny froglets hopping through the plant jungle around the pond. Success!! Now hopefully those big magpie birds won't eat them all.

When it rains, it's party time for the frogs. During the night they wander all over the garden and my FH has to carry a torch so that she won't step on any of them. They do their job as biological pest controllers in the garden. They have to be careful when foxes or cats come to visit, as they don't say no to a frog, even if they just use it as a toy for a while. Did you know that frogs can scream when they are in danger?

Last year my humans cleaned out the pond in early spring, and this is what they found at the bottom of it. Normally I see about 20 frogs in and around the pond, but they managed to find more than 60!! I am surprised that the fish survived that mess.

Frog school:

There are also several toads in my garden. My humans call them all Trevor. They like to hide under flower pots and compost bags. I haven't seen any toadlets so far, but maybe they hatch somewhere else. I did see some newtlets a few years ago. They are very difficult to spot, and the newt parents are quite shy, too. Unlike the big frogs who allow my FH to rub their chins and take closeup photos.

The pond a few years ago, you can see some of the fishies:

The rabbits

Of course I need to talk about the rabbits. Those cute fluffy creatures that get all the attention, while I have to watch and listen to all the "awwws" and "how cute"s. It's sickening sometimes. Humans treat me as a thing made of planks. I am not considered cute. But I am at least practical! Humans can sit on me, they can put up their feet and relax and I am a lot cheaper than those furry creatures, too.

If people had pet benches instead of real animals, the world would be a better place. We don't make smelly turds, we don't bark, we don't cause the waste of tons of metal and meat for food and packaging and we don't need to see a doctor. We bond easily with other benches (unless they are from ASDA or really ugly and rusty, like those overprized ones they sell at the local garden shop......fresh from a French skip....) and we can stay outside in any weather. If you want cute and fluffy, put a fleece blanket over us and ...voila!


Ok, now let me introduce the rabbits that I am watching every day. First of all there is Snoopy. He's 5 years old and a bit of a grump, especially when he's hungry. But some of my humans seem to have the same problem. Snoopy came from "up north", that place where they can't speak proper English.

 Then there is Penny, Snoopy's best friend. She's also 5 years old and a real Essex girl. She looks all sweet and innocent (ok, not real Essex girl there....), but boy does she have a mood sometimes. She lets Luna feel who's Queen of the shed. And then goes back to looking cute.

 Luna shares the shed with Snoopy and Penny. She is 4 years old and came from across the river, where she grew up with Mrs Sherlock Bond. She is not the brightest spark, but always hungry and eating. No surprise that she is the biggest and heaviest rabbit in my garden. She also seems to have an endless supply of white fur which fills the shed and gets blown into every corner of the garden.

The other shed is shared by Sunnie and Cloud. They are both 4 years old. Sunnie came from the middle of the country somewhere, from someone on a rabbit forum that my humans talk about a lot. She's the biggest wood nibbler, and she has a bad hair day almost every day. That's mainly due to the fact that her friend Cloud doesn't groom her, the lazy sod. Here you can see Sunnie grooming him instead.

Cloud seems to be everyone's favourite. He gets the most "oooohs" and "awwwws". He's a bit dim, but loves humans and follows them around as much as he can. He jumps up inside the lawn cage and hits his head against the lid, when he gets excited about a human coming to see him. He also steps into the water bowl on many occasions. He really makes me snigger. He came from some evil website called Gumtree. He had been a child's birthday present, but the child got bored quickly.

There have been many other rabbits in my garden, as my favourite human (I shall call her FH from now on) sometimes looks after rabbits for an animal rescue. Not at the moment, though, as her knee is a bit poorly and she has too much other work to do, too.

The Neighbours

My little garden is quite private, or secluded, as the property people like to call it. There is a block of garages behind me, another garage to the right of me, three sheds and some trees and shrubs opposite me, and the house to the left of me. The house is a small bungalow, in "need of cosmetic updating", but the owner (not my humans, they just pay to live there) doesn't want to spend any money on updating. But at least the house blocks out the traffic noise from the sometimes very busy road.

Behind the rabbit sheds is a lovely garden which belongs to an elderly lady, who is very sweet and sometimes helps my humans to look after their garden when they are on holiday. To the right of me there are new neighbours. They bought the house last year, and have been doing the "updating" bit ever since. They extended the old garage into a new garden office, so that I am now looking at cedar wood panels instead of the conifer tree which used to be in that place. They gave the whole construction a grass roof with some wildlfowers in it. Looks quite pretty actually, but it suffered during the dry weeks earlier this year.

The new neighbours also have a thing for slightly hideous sculptures. First there was only a griffin and some plastic bird, but now they have added polystyrene sheep onto the grass roof and a big owl on the roof of the main house. And then there's that shiny trailer that looks like some kind of spaceship, and which really scared the rabbits when it was delivered. The humans are nice, though, and they often have BBQs and torture my humans with the lovely smell of grilled meat.

Here are some photos to show you what I am talking about. That metal cage you can see in the first photo, kind of ruins my view, but of course it is for the rabbits, and they are having a lot of fun in it, so I just try to ignore it.

Prologue, part 3 (I am getting there....)

So I have been in "my space" for a good 4 years now, and have seen and heard many interesting things. I have suffered from the noise of parrakeets, and got bird poo abuse, I got rained upon and was covered in snow a few times, as well. I had all sorts of bottoms sitting on me, some bigger than others (I am happy that my favourite human's bottom is getting smaller now; I was beginning to feel the pain in my planks...).

Here are just a few highlights from the last 4 years:

There will be froggies in this blog, like it or not. They are my best friends, apart from my humans.

Here are some humans looking at a strange cardboard construction. Apparently it's for rabbits. But hey, don't I look good in that picture??

August 2008, looking good:

February 2009 came as a bit of a shock:

In September 2009 my humans built a shed. For the rabbits, of course. Those furry things are getting spoilt, I tell ya. Luckily they are staying well away from me. I can hear them nibble the wood of the sheds (yes, there are two rabbit sheds now...). I wouldn't want to be abused like that. It's bad enough that I get "eaten" by wasps.

In spring of 2010 I was removed from my usual spot for refurbishment. I got a proper sanding down and then got some lovely oil rubbed into my planks. I felt a lot younger after that. But you have to admit, there is something missing when I am not next to the pond:

Later that year I even got my own bench cushion. Very decorative and it helps to protect my planks from the weight of the humans. Not sure why there was that litter box beneath me, but my humans always come up with some strange ideas.

One of my many friends:

Prologue, part 2

The summer of 2006 saw a significant improvement to "my space", but it was just a step towards better things to come the following year. My humans enjoyed growing massive sunflowers (that was before "The Hoe" had joined the household.....), and there were even some potato plants in one corner.

Later that year, two rabbits named Snoopy and Penny began to live in my garden. They are just some of the 5 rabbits that I can now watch all day.

During the following winter, my humans decided to create a small pond and to hide the ugly brick wall of the garage behind me with trellis and climbing plants. They are very wise humans, and they knew that every garden needs a bench. Especially when there's a pond. So that's when they decided to adopt me. In March 2007 I arrived and was placed in "my space". Just look at me, all new and looking gorgeous:

Just one month later the plants around me had started to grow and make my space greener by the day:

And another month later, May 2007:

July 2007, and I felt like living in a jungle:

Anyway, you get the idea. I felt like I had arrived in a good place. The pond eventually got some fish the same year, and most of them are still living in there today. Only two got nicked by a heron. I tried my best to scare it off, but it just couldn't hear me hissing and shooing. It even had the nerve to hop all over me to get to the pond.

After a while the first frogs anf toads made their homes in the pond, and my humans adopted some newts from another human (they call her Mrs Sherlock Bond or something like that, she has visited my garden a few times...). There are damselflies and pondskaters, and the rest of the garden is full of wildlife, too. It never gets boring for me.