I feel rotten....

Maybe it would be a good idea to give me another rub down with oil. No, I don't want to become a gladiator bench, I just don't want my planks to rot in this appalling weather. And my armrests are getting cracks, how embarassing. Who's going to appreciate me when I look that run down?? And to top it all off, I got decorated with yet more bird droppings today. :(

Two weeks ago exciting things were happening in my garden. My FH had bought a new pond pump and filter, and so I could witness the installation of it. It certainly wasn't as easy as the description makes you believe it is. I had to giggle quite a lot at the "getting the electric cable inside a plastic hose" bit. But now it is all in place and working, and I have to listen to the sound of a fountain 24 hours a day. Luckily I am a bench, otherwise I'd want to run to the loo every 5 minutes. The fish are happy to be rid of the frog mess, and the fountain keeps the duckweed in the corners of the pond. Yesterday saw the arrival of two new fish. Two girls, or so they hoped. From what I can see, one of them seems to be a boy. The other one has been hiding all day, probably because it is a girl and is getting bothered too much by the boys. I hope they'll calm down again soon.

Tomorrow the youngest human in my family will turn 11. I could smell the cake all the way out here in the garden. The boy requested a cheesecake, German style, so that's what he'll get. That cake seems to be very popular. All those people who pretend to come and visit to appreciate me, they really just want a piece of that cake. I know that now. I just can't compete with cake and cute bunnies. :(

The latest generation of froggies has started to leave the pond. They are hopping all around the edge of it. And in the front garden we have a blackbird's nest with 5 chicks, who are getting quite big now. Hopefully some of them will manage to avoid being eaten by magpies and cats.

The Great British Drought

*sneeze* Excuse me, my planks have got a cold. The drought has got me, with all its heavy showers and the wind. The sun doesn't come out for long enough to help me get dry again. Sometimes I wish my FH would invest in a bench cover. To save me from the worst of the weather. But then again, I wouldn't be able to watch what's going on in my garden. *sneeze* Oh dear, oh dear, I am really not a healthy bench right now. And the next few days will bring even more rain. The plants and the snails love it, but I think we've had enough for now. Give me a break!

Last night one of the small humans had a shower and suddenly there was no more water. The drought again, you might think. But no, it was a meltdown in the fuse box. Seems like the cowboy builders who installed the thing, didn't insulate a cable properly, and so it eventually set the whole box on fire. Luckily the fire went out quickly, but now my humans won't have a working shower until at least Monday. They are not allowed to use a hosepipe, so no shower in the garden, either. Unless they stand in the rain, of course. But that might scare the neighbours. They'll have to stay dirty, I guess. Or use a jug in the bathtub.

That's one good thing about the drought: I get several showers daily, so I am a rather clean bench. Snotty and sneezy, but clean. That baby robin's poo has no chance against the rain. And the wasps stay away, too. And the free radicals, those invisible but oh so dangerous little devils.

Ninja squirrel has been looking quite soggy lately. I bet it doesn't like the drought very much. Digging in wet soil can't be fun. Sometimes it sits on the trunk of the big tree, head down, and holds out one of its paws, as if it was testing for rain or waving at someone. Very odd. Might be Ninja code for "no one in this garden, you can come and dig".

The Squirrel Terrorist

Almost forgot to mention the latest "squirrel incident". Just look at the photo below and you'll understand what I mean. Good old digging isn't good enough any more. Now the little criminal has discovered explosives as a faster way to get to its storage. In this case it was a whole fat ball (intended for birds), hidden deep down in one of our flower pots.

Open Gardens

Last weekend some of the houses in our village opened their gardens to the public, and my FH and her OH (which means "other half", not "old human") couldn't resist having a look. I wish I could have come along and visited some of my bench mates, but I think it would have looked a bit silly, if my humans had carried me through all those gardens. So I just have to make do with what my FH and the bird messengers told me.
One of the gardens belonged to a house which stood empty. It's in a lovely quiet street, and the house and the garden would be ideal for my humans. But it is not for sale, and even if it was, the price would be shocking.

Talking about shocking, my FH told me about a bench which is for sale at our local garden shop. It's one of those terribly uncomfortable metal things without a soul, and it's in a disgraceful state. The paint is flaking off everywhere, it's rusty and it just looks really sad. And guess what? They want £485 for it. That's five times as much as I cost when I was brand new and even more beautiful than I am now. And the worrying thing is that there are people who are willing to pay this price. First they have some posh food at the garden shop's restaurant, where half of the menu is in French or Italian, and then they look at all the rusty clutter from some French or Italian skip. Maybe they put something into the food to make people want to part with their money more easily.

This is the empty house my FH likes, from the front and from the garden. And below is a photo of that hideous thing that dares to call itself a bench.

April showers

Ok, ok, I know.....I have been lazy again. But time is passing so quickly at the moment, and I am afraid to miss something if I sit down and think about what to write. I don't even dare to nod off, just in case the pond robber returns. We lost another fish, and I failed to see who took it. It may have been one of the many neighbourhood cats, or one of those greedy magpies. All I know is that my FH found the poor fish in the middle of the lawn. The rest of the fish have been very nervous and shy ever since. The loss of their friend must have been very traumatic.

The tadpoles seem to be doing fine, and I keep seeing plenty of frogs and a few newts. There was toad spawn in the pond, but I am not sure if that managed to avoid being eaten by the fish. The plants are all doing really well. A few of them got damaged by late frost, but they will recover. The tree peonie has several healthy looking buds, and the iris by the pond is enjoying its new sunnier aspect.

The BAD last month went very well. I felt that I got plenty of attention, and that I was very useful. Of course I will never be able to compete with the fluffy bunnies. The guests seemed to have had a good time, anyway. Hopefully we can repeat this in the summer.

My FH told me about the drought that England is supposedly going through. And that she's not allowed to use the hosepipe to water her plants and give me a cheeky splash once in a while. April hasn't felt particularly dry so far, but apparently it'll take a lot of rain to refill the lakes and rivers. People are just too wasteful with water. They should try and live without running water for a while and see how that feels. My FH says that her parents and grandparents never had a shower every day, and hardly ever a bath, but they still didn't smell bad. Why is everyone so obsessed with hygiene nowadays? Imagine how much laundry needs washing, if people change their clothes every single day. And then all those golf courses that need watering. Isn't there a better way to make use of that land? Britain has more land wasted on golf courses than it has protected wildlife areas. That's just wrong. Golf courses are so boring and not wildlife friendly at all. And they don't seem to have any benches. How very sad. :(

That Google Earth treasure hunt my FH was so obsessed with, has now finished. Apparently some guy in Germany won the grand prize. Hopefully he put as much effort into the puzzle as my FH, and wasn't just a lucky lurker. Now everyone is waiting for another book. My FH would be really good at coming up with some tricky puzzles, but she doesn't believe in herself and is too scared to start any big project. But if she writes a puzzle, than she won't be able to take part in solving it, so maybe that's why she's not so motivated. She still tortures her friends with all sorts of photo quizzes. I think she should create a book with photos of benches from all over the world. I would buy that.

One day to go

So tomorrow's the big day. The second bench appreciation day. And the weather forecast is quite promising, so I might actually get some attention this time. I will have to put on my "I am cuter than a fluffy bunny" look, of course.
My FH is busy cleaning the house and baking cakes, while at the same time trying to figure out that puzzle. I am a bit worried about her sanity, to be honest. It's bad enough that she's talking to the frogs. And now that she's another year older, her brain cells are fading very fast.
The neighbour has put his silly plastic owl back on his roof. Not sure what the purpose of it is, but it sure doesn't scare off the noisy parakeets. Or maybe it does and that's why they all come to my garden and disturb my peace and quiet with their unbearable bickering.
The garden is slowly waking up. The daffodils are looking pretty, and the peonie has several big buds, so hopefully it'll have some pretty flowers in a few weeks. No frog spawn, yet, but I think they'll start next week. FH's no.1 son's Monterey pines are having a crisis, but maybe a quick repotting will save them from "death by neglect".
One of the houses in the neighbourhood is up for sale again. At least is has already been extended and refubished, so there won't be more building noise. The garden is a bit small, and the price tag is ridiculously high. I don't know how people can afford to pay so much for an average sized house. My FH's mother needs to win the lottery, finally, after 40 years of trying (and wasting lots of money...).

Another BAD is coming up

My FH told me that next month there will be another bench appreciation day. I doubt that I'll receive more attention than last time, but it's the thought that counts, right? It's really just another excuse to eat cake and talk about rabbits.

The good news is that my FH has finally left that rabbit forum that kept annoying her so much. She hasn't looked at it for 2 months now and says she isn't missing it. But instead she started doing photo quizzes for her friends, and now she's got this book about some treasure hunt, which is keeping here busy A LOT. It's quite a cool idea actually and I wish I could help her. My bench cousins around the world have seen and heard many stories. I bet the final location has a bench somewhere. Otherwise it wouldn't be a worthy place, would it? A place without a bench has no soul.

Time to wake up

*yawn* *stretch* I guess it is time to end my winter beauty sleep and start watching over the garden again. I can't say that it was a very relaxing sleep. Too much action in the garden, and I am too nosy to ignore it. I haven't had much attention from my FH, but that's normal during winter. She says it's too cold to sit outside then. So she went to a place called Madeira, which is warm even in winter. Sometimes I wish I could make myself small enough to fit into her suitcase. Then I could be useful everywhere she goes.

Yesterday it was really warm here, though, and the frogs woke up and started speed dating. The pond was boiling with desperate amphibians all night. Luckily they are not the continental type, as I couldn't cope with the noise. It's enough when they hop around my legs. I wonder if my FH will hatch some of the frog spawn in a separate tub again to protect it from the fish. I think there are more than enough frogs in this garden. Let the fish have some fun, too.

There was only one squirrel in the garden during winter, and it had its bedroom somewhere up in the loft. Because it was noisy and eating cardboard boxes and other clutter, my humans decided to evict it. So now it has found a new lair somewhere in the neighbourhood and is trying to pad it out with all sorts of soft materials, which it nicks from our garden. Only this morning it tried to run off with a big cotton towel, but it got stuck in a  gap of the fence. Earlier this month it nibbled a big piece out of the fleece which is meant to protect the Callistemon shrub, and it carried off a fleece disk, which had covered the soil of a potted tree. It also collected pieces of newspaper from the compost heap. And it keeps teasing Caspar the cat. Here's some evidence: