Giving the anti-histamines a workout

I'm taking a breather from the garden, give my eyes the opportunity to stop itching. (Shameless attempt to coax sympathy from his audience).

I'll say this much: it's a productive garden. I've filled a wheelie bin full of weeds and the garden still looks like The Land That Time Forgot. I've had to trim some of the hazel bush so that I can get into the back garden without stooping. Hazel is worth growing for the smell of the leaves alone. The various geraniums, lemon balm and marjoram are as boisterous as ever.

Getting down to do some weeding I'm assailed by a combination of scents and the buzzing of bees and hoverflies. The roses are a treat; at one point the path is fringed by 'Zephrin Drouaine,' with its slightly lemony fragrance, one the one side and dog roses and 'Ballerina' on the other with purer but no less delicate scents. It's a pure accident but one I enjoy.

Talking of accidents, I discover seedlings of California poppy under the gooseberry and Echium pinnatum at the side of the path near the roses. It's seven or eight years since I last grew either. And wild arum, which I've ever grown and haven't seen locally, has popped up underneath the Buddleia at the bottom of the garden.

Part of me tells myself that the garden's an undisciplined mess. And it is. But I do enjoy it immensely.

Friendship

We need to celebrate friendship more often. This is for everybody who needs a cup of tea and a hug.

Domestic

It's pouring down outside so the planned foray into the teeming mass that passes for my garden has been postponed awhile. Instead I decide to have a go at making a bid for domestic godhood.

• I shall tell people that the living room window is in that state so that the baby goldfinches don't injure themselves by flying into it.

• I have glared at that spider's web. Twice.

• I have applied Febreeze to the dust on the living room floor. According to the advert on the telly my living room shall now become awash with teenage girls, all giggly and excited. It has to be admitted: the only way I could even manage the energy for so much as a conversation with a roomful of teenage girls would be for me and they both to be under the influence of chloroform.

• Some damned fool thought it would be a good idea to wash the quilt in the bath. Seeing as how this is a single male household there's not a lot of point in having a row about it. It's a hike and a half to the nearest laundrette and there's no buses that way on a Sunday so it's arguably the only way to get it done. Most of the procedure involves beating the quilt with a stick until it stops moving. I did consider steam-cleaning it but then I remember that last time I ended up having to get a new shower curtain rail.

• I may do the washing up.

Did somebody say ironing? It is to laugh!

Don't mention the Armada...

My small niece is looking forward to her holidays.

"You can come with us," she tells my mum.

"No, I can't," explains my mum, "I don't have a passport any more."

"You don't need a passport. We're going to English Spain, not Spanish Spain."

Intimations of mortality

Advert on the telly:

"The definitive punk anthems collection. Buy it for your dad for Father's Day."

I'll be the one in the corner sticking safety pins in me zimmer frame.

Hello hello

For some time now my local railway station has been kitted out not just with new tannoys but also induction loops for hearing-impaired people. Presumably this latter is to fulfil obligations under the disability acts. Neither seems knowingly attached to anything and we certainly don't get any announcements but it's good to know that we have an equality of access to no information about our train services.

Probably nothing that couldn't be cured by a kind word from a beautiful woman

The train into work got stuck at signals awhile. I'd been staring at something on the embankment for a good five minutes before I realised what it was. It was an elm sapling. I can't remember when I last saw an English elm. When I was a kid the main road was an avenue of old elms, green and sticky with sap in the July sunlight.

I do miss elms.

On the way back home I got the bus to Manchester. I was followed onto the bus by an epicene figure in a white safari jacket. I wondered if he was Death. I chose not to ask.

A few stops down, a pink Mazda cut up the bus. It was the shade of pink I've only ever seen in NHS children's spectacles.

The chip shop further down the street turns out not to have a window blind as I'd imagined. It's a sheet of brushed vinyl pop art wallpaper in faded bullseye pattern.

A gaggle of young girls get on, gaudy in thickly-applied make-up, each with a mobile 'phone clamped to one ear. In my day young ladies were quieter and more demure weren't they? No, of course not. I remember a Sicilian hillside raucous in bawdy song. One of the girls bawled down the 'phone that they were "going lindyhopping." I expect it means something different these days, like dance music.

Next come four mockney diamond geezers. "Just three stops to the Chinese, mate. How much? Is that for all of us?" Welcome to the unsubsidised provinces, mate.

No one was sick and nobody died and the driver got out of his cab to help a lady carry her pushchair off the bus.

Happy holiday!

Summertime

Was it only last week we were on a frost warning?

It's been fairly warm this week, though yesterday it was also distinctly thundery (or it could be that work had given me a headache). The daily commute provided plenty with which to be distracted and it would have been churlish not to have been. Over the past few months I had come to the conclusion that the lady with the nice bottom who travels on my train had lost weight she could have done with keeping. The removal of the winter anorak midweek confirmed my fears. The summer skirt still had that hypnotic sway but there is less substance to the allure than there should be. The black high-heeled pixie boots just emphasised the loss.

My garden is currently a riot. Mostly of weed seedlings, with herb Robert and willowherbs jostling for space amongst the horsetails. Midway along the path is a patch of nipplewort seedlings. I'm inclined to leave them alone for prurience's sake. "What's them little yellow dandelion-y things?" "Them's nipplewort." We do what we can for the tourist industry. Littered amongst the foliage is a profusion of feathered hooligans. The goldfinches have gone a bit quiet, which means they have young to feed. The spadgers paraded the first batch of baby sparrows the other day and very welcome they are, too. The noise from the bottom of the garden suggests that the blue tits have decided to grace one of the six hitherto-unused nestboxes. The seventh has been used alternatively by wood mice and bumblebees. We should be OK for gooseberries and blackberries this year.

A jobbing gardener has stuck a flier through my door. I know of his work. His idea of gardening is to prune magnolias in March. I'll stick with the weeds, thank you.

Everything stops for tea

"And what tisanes have you got?"

"Well, we've got Lemsip, Lemsip Max or Blackcurrant Lemsip, which is a bit like cherry Ribena."

We're H A P P Y, we're H A P P Y...

Still here in spirit

I feel like I'm neglecting a lot of people lately. I hope to catch up with things some time. Soon, I hope.

Adulation

On the bus on the way home I've kept noticing that there's a blue plaque on a housing block near the traffic lights. I've often wondered what it was for. Today we were stuck in a traffic jam just beside it so I could have a read.

I'm irrationally pleased that it's in honour of Terry Hall and Lenny the Lion.

Holiday for springs

I'm working my way through my turn with the office cold and being a bit miserable with it. OK, even more miserable. Even by my standards the bed is spectacularly unmade, the result of a poor night's sleep caused by a combination of bunged-up nose and frozen shoulder. All the dreams were about detective stories, which suggests there's something I need to remember. Which could be any one of a million things these days: going into the fridge yesterday to pick up the piece of pork I'd bought my parents I found a carrier bag with a book in it. You can guess the rest...

Breakfast was probably a bit heavy on the garlic and chili. Well, very heavy on the garlic and chili, but I'm not planning on kissing anybody today. Or this year at all if the past few months are anything to go by.

My God, it's cold today. We were discussing this the other day: is it just a male thing to switch off the central heating once we reach British Summer Time?

It might as well be Spring

The first swifts have skimmed overhead, the garden is full of the song of wren and blackcap and the air is thick with the scent of cherryblossom and narcissi. The bad news is that the newly-cleared areas of the garden are thick with willowherb seedlings and goosegrass. The good news is that the patio is full of lemon balm and marjoram and there's every reason to expect a summer full of soft fruits.

I've planted up the first of this year's hanging baskets.

At five o'clock this evening the sky turned black, the wind got up and it's become very cold.

Happy bank holiday weekend everyone!