Tia Mary, quite contrary

How does your garden grow?

This is being written in pieces - for some reason I'm now allowed to connect to the internet for about 30 seconds every 2-5 minutes. This is somewhat frustrating and definitely limits my communications!

Mog was feeling a little better this morning, and Little Fish has been bouncing off the walls these past few days, so we bundled up and took a trip in the bus. Tina's gift from yesterday inspired us, and we headed to the garden centre.

There's Mog, with a twinkle in her eye, kicking out at passersby and plant stands. Narrowly avoiding a pansy and crocus related incident, we load the trolley and head inside. Foiled in her attempts to create havoc, Mog subsides. This is a cue for Little Fish to begin ripping open seed packets. We'll be planting carrots, cress, and country cottage assorted florals then. I hope they like the windowbox, they'll not be separated now!

A quick lunch and we head out to plant up. I say we; Mog elects to sit in the warmth watching Alice in Wonderland, Little Fish therefore elects to divide her time between Mog and myself. She does fret when we aren't all in the same room together, doing the same thing. Ordinarily, this would not be a problem; I would carry on doing my thing in one place, Mog would carry on doing her thing elsewhere, and Little Fish would wear herself out get some exercise zipping between us. Handy, too; she'll come and find me if Mog coughs or if her feed needs attention. But, thanks to Bob's unfinished-ness, it's not at present possible for Little Fish to go through the door. Two small steps awaiting ramps block her way. What this means is that every 1.07 minutes I have to get up, bump her back up the steps to check on Mog, followed 29 seconds later by plaintive pleas to be allowed to return. Who was supposed to be getting the exercise here?

Finally the many bulbs are in; the seeds can wait for another day. The garden looks almost good, although what would have been more than enough bedding plants for our old borders has only covered a fraction of our new flower beds. But at least there are signs of life, and promise of more to come.

My hands hurt. Mog has a chest infection; it isn't standard practice here to take a culture unless things don't respond to antibiotics, so we don't know what's growing in her lungs. Nothing good, I'm sure. Little Fish has an infection in her stoma, awaiting results but probably staph/strep. Mog has MRSA - asymptomatic but best to practice good hygiene around her. What this means in practice is that I should be washing and alcohol gelling my hands after touching either girl. Add to this the general reasons why one might wish to wash ones hands, plus the great clumps of near-frozen soil from the garden, several antibiotic related nappies, oh and the broken dishwasher, and I think my hands have been in contact with soap and water almost longer than they've been dry. My bath tonight has finished them off - I am therefore off to slather them in very computer-unfriendly lotion and head to bed.

Oh, we made some rather nice peanut butter and chocolate chip biscuits (cookies) too. I forgot to add the egg. They still taste ok - a little more shortbread/melting moment-y than straight biscuits would have been, but good enough.
Tia