Danskcolin: Tuesday July 9th 2024 "All those girls - filling the house with their thin thighs"

Friends, do you mind if I ask you a rather personal question? Is your back garden a bit on the small side? Is it under that critical "square footage" that makes it difficult to know exactly what to do with it?

From your reaction, I think I'm "getting warm", aren't I. And maybe you're already starting to feel a bit uncomfortable, which certainly wasn't my intention!

Living here in our new-build home in Malvern, my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and I know, for example, that our next-door neighbour, young Laurence, struggles to make his back garden even marginally presentable, even given the attention that his long-suffering mum brings to it with her industrial "scythe" (the "Jungle" model) on her occasional visits from the family's ancestral home near Basingstoke, Hampshire.

our next-door-neighbour, young Laurence's

back garden, as viewed from the window

of our "Guest Bedroom 2" at the back of our house

And, even though it's none of our business what Laurence does with it, Lois and I have often speculated on the kind of 'vibe' that he maybe could achieve, if he did something like the Coventry family have done with nearby Croome Court, with its iconic faux Greek-temples, lake, islets etc.

Laurence's back garden as Lois and I have often imagined it,

something on the lines of what the Coventry family have done

with nearby stately home Croome Court

The fact is, that, despite what people sometimes say, you DON'T need a lot of square-footage to make a real difference to your neighbourhood. Look at what they achieved recently in Worcester's run-down Brickfields neighbourhood, for - really - not that much money...

You see, it's possible! And that busy road in Brickfields, not normally on mine and Lois's short-list of places to visit, is now back up there in the Top Ten, whenever we "chew over" the planned schedule for our daughter Alison's visit later this month, together with husband Ed and two of their three children.

So watch this "space", or should I see "Watch this GREEN space!" haha.

Compared to our neighbour, young Laurence, Lois is certainly a lot with our own small back garden, and it's her real passion, no doubt about that.

our own neat back garden (right) contrasts sharply with

the jungle next door in our young neighbour Laurence's little "plot"

- not that we're comparing them [Oh yes, you are! - Ed]

However, a gardener's work is never finished, and today, in a rare act of unselfish behaviour, I help Lois out marginally myself today, by assisting with preparation of a mix of a potent cocktail of topsoil, compost and manure (yum yum!) and using the advantage of my height to tie the canes together for her runner bean plants to climb up.

me today, unusually wielding a trowel (bottom right, just out of shot)

Leaving our back garden aside for a moment, however, and thinking more about the wider country that we live in, have you noticed how there's a bit of a buzz in the air at the moment, with the new Labour government coming in, hopefully "blowing away some of the cobwebs" after 14 years of Tory rule.

Steve, our American brother-in-law in Pennsylvania,

sent me this iconic picture today of Labour MPs in the new Parliament

Sir Keir Starmer, Labour Party leader, arrives at 10 Downing Street

excerpt from Sir Keir Starmer's first speech to the country

after accepting the office of Prime Minister from King Charles

It's very like the anticipation when Tony Blair became Prime Minister in 1997 after 18 years of Tory rule, or, in the States, I would imagine, when Kennedy became President in 1960, after 8 years of Eisenhower.

Or, to be completely even-handed, it's like the buzz when Ted Heath became Prime Minister in 1970, after 6 years of Labour rule under Harold Wilson, and when Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in 1979, after 5 years of Labour rule under Wilson and Callaghan.

It never lasts long, unfortunately, that buzz, and reality strikes home sooner or later, when we realise neither of the two main parties are that great - they're only human beings, after all, even though it doesn't always seem that way! However it's a nice experience while that feeling of excitement and anticipation is still around, Lois and I always think.

And it's not just that government by any one party runs out of steam, and out of ideas eventually. With the recent 14 years of Tory rule, it's inevitable that the pendulum has maybe swung too far in favour of business profits over ordinary people's welfare. Just like, after too many years of Labour rule the pendulum swings maybe too far in favour of the trade union power, restrictive practices, and the subsidising of uneconomic propositions or enterprises, and all that malarkey etc etc.

A periodic change of the party in government keeps us on a reasonably even keel, I say. That's my two-penn'orth, anyway, for what it's worth! [So glad you took the time to "educate" us there with your deep political insights, Colin! - Ed] [No problem! - Colin]

21:00 We go to bed on an old episode of the 1970's sitcom "Butterflies", starring Wendy Craig as Ria, unsatisfied housewife to crusty husband Ben, and mother to selfish teenagers Adam and Russell.

And let's not forget Ria's would-be lover, smooth business man Leonard. Oh no! And tonight Leonard makes his first move on Ria with a letter inviting her to lunch - a letter which, sadly, she never gets.

Poor Ria !!!!!

For Lois and me, as often, tonight's highlight is another of Ria's speeches of general lament, all about the acres of despair in her life: the long soliloquies she gives us, as she busies herself alone in the kitchen-dining room, clearing up all the mess that her husband, her sons and her sons' girlfriends have left her with.

This time we hear Ria focusing on her own ageing, the approach of middle-age and her assumed unattractiveness, which she contrasts with those thrusting young girls that her selfish sons Adam and Russell are spending their time with.

She doesn't like the way her sons' girlfriends look, for starters....