I knew it! There was a reason I'm doing this now...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2232056/Gardeners-florists-named-UKs-happiest-workers-90-horticulturalists-enjoy-going-work.html

OK, it's from the Daily Mail so perhaps one would doubt the voracity of this story, but yep, I have never been happier at work. Every day brings something new and every day I end up having done something I can see the results of my labours - and it's always appreciated too.

Working at Argos on that brick they call a catalogue, I would flick through it thinking, "18,000 products in here, I don't want one of them..." Whereas, I can look back at my days work in any one of my lovely gardens and think, "Ahhhhh, that's nice!"

I think the following pictures from this year are tantamount to that statement:

I do have such fun you know. Take today for example, on my way to Quainton (see below) I got stuck behind a cab that kept speeding up, slowing down; speeding up, slowing down. I assumed he was looking for somewhere, the home of his next fare for instance. But no. Oh no, this cab driver was in front of me for five, going on 25 miles - that's what it felt like.

We got to the new hideous estate just the other side of Aylesbury (see this link: http://simonmurraygardenservices.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/i-promise-not-to-mention-weather-part.html) where there is a single track road with road works and a set of traffic lights. The lights turned red and said cab driver stopped in such a place as to make it near on impossible for the traffic coming from the opposite end of the road to get passed him. Stand off.

After a couple of minutes two rather large blokes got out of their cars and asked him to back up. Nothing. I got out and tapped on his window. He put his hand up and refused to even look at me. He was Indian, so unfortunately the two blokes got a tad racist.

I said,"He's a fuckwit because he's a fuckwit, not because he's Indian." The two blokes looked like they were going to take out their frustration on me, so I went back to my car. Thankfully the cabbie did back up enough for the on-coming deluge of cars to get passed. 

Of course, after this protracted interlude, the lights had not only changed to green from our way, they had changed to red again, so we couldn't move. I say we, but the cabbie decided he would go anyway, meeting yet another line of on-coming traffic halfway. More stand off; more shouting; more I was thinking that I would never get to Quainton, a mere mile or so from the "beauty" of Kingsfield Park. He backed up, very slowly, after one of the workmen from the building site had "had a word".

To cut a very long story short, we eventually got through the road works, on to the estate and he indicated that he was going to turn left into an unfinished road with about ten unfinished houses. He stopped. I hooted. He waved his hand at me again; my blood pressure started to rise - I mean I can take a joke, but fuck a pantomime!

He moved on at about 6mph and then indicated right, stopped, an on coming car full of kids and an irate looking mother nearly hit him. Then he moved on nearly hitting them. I was now beside myself with something akin to tourettes-a-gogo and would have stopped and let the bugger do whatever he was trying to do , but there were about 20 cars behind now. 

Finally the cabbie turned right at the next road and I put my foot down. The last I saw of him was in the rear view mirror with one of the 20 cars chasing after him flashing his lights and hooting like a walrus on heat.

The legend on the back of the cabbie's car? "Serving Aylesbury for 25 years - exemplary!" Whatever that means...

Quainton, Spring this year

...again Spring, just cut the grass. Below, Quainton today
13th November 2012, a pretty good replica of the Somme...

Anyway, I'm happy, are you?

I promise not to mention the weather... Part Deux

Two posts in a day - sounds like a song a la Crowded House's Four Seasons in One Day, love 'em. Now I've mentioned them I am listening to Weather With You, class. Neil Finn has to be one of the nicest blokes - I know it's not possible to know that for sure, but he was one of the blessed Linda McCartney's favourites, so he must be good.


On my way to Quainton every Tuesday morning I pass through a new housing estate and I laugh a lot. And this is why I laugh a lot:

This place is about 30 seconds from the edge of Aylesbury and, all due respect to the people of Aylesbury, but it's not the most scenic of places and has a bit of a reputation for drugs and suchlike. And I do not judge here, not by any stretch of anyone's imagination. These signs are for a pile of crap estate called Kingsfield Park and they say (just in case you can't read them):


1 Kingsfield Park  - Air to Breathe


2 Kingsfield Park  - Space to Think


3 Kingsfield Park  - Space to Think (again)


4 Kingsfield Park  - Room to Grow


It's a shockingly misleading bit of marketing. Most of the houses are back to back and cramped up into little cul-de-sacs that could not give you space to swing the proverbial marketing exec, let alone to think, breathe and grow. I guess I'm just a house snob, I like old houses, at least turn of last century and new estates just seem such anodyne little boxes with gardens the size of a stamp. All too pretty and possibly not that well built. Here's a couple of the house styles from their website:

Gimme Victorian streets any day!


This is the top of the driveway at Rebecca's in Quainton, about five minutes drive from Kingsfield:

And here are some flowers from the top of the drive too:

Nice!


Happy house hunting - if you're doing it!