It's not a garden without a Gazebo

Three weeks ago Mother popped over from her island home to see the fabulous ‘In The Loop’ and somehow - in between Malcolm Tucker’s magnificent expletives - managed to buy a gazebo.

Now Mother isn’t the most patient person, so instead of getting it delivered or waiting until we could take it across to her by car ferry, this 66 year old woman insisted I drive her to the harbour where she single handedly dragged the 36kg box up the ramp and onto the boat. It was like watching a caveman with a mammoth.

Please don’t think I’m a dreadful person for not assisting in the dragging - there is a very good reason for that which I’ll cover in another entry, but suffice to say that as she paused now and again from her exertions to wave lovingly to me and yet another person passed me tutting and shaking their head, I did wish the ground would open and swallow me up.

So, when we went to visit this weekend, we were hopeful of making amends by helping her assemble the new purchase, but as it seems to have rained non stop since she bought the damn thing, it remains still boxed in the porch, where she peeks in and gazes wistfully at it every now and again. Hence the picture above of her gazebo-less garden...

Here are 5 facts about Mother that might help you to get to know her a little better:

1. Her real name is Sandra but most people call her Bear

2. If she’s really angry, she purses her mouth so tight that we tell her she has ‘cat’s arse lips’ and that usually makes her laugh

3. When I told her what an idiot I’d been and how much debt I’d run up, she said only two words - ‘Jesus Christ!’

4. When I was just a few weeks old, she and the dog walked to the shops with me in my pram. Mother, the dog and the shopping all returned home - I was still in my pram outside the bank (and she wonders why I’m a neurotic adult?!)

5. Her favourite past-time is making bonfires in the garden. In the past she has managed to burn almost her entire collection of clothes (after I stupidly said that what she was wearing made her look like a bag lady) and the phone cable to the house (badly judged bonfire positioning and a very cross BT engineer). But my all time favourite fire-starter incident was when she almost blew up the old orchard area with some over enthusiastic petrol dousing in an attempt to clear the dead trees. On lighting it and hearing the low rumble of something very scary about to happen, she took off up the garden like an Olympic runner. The look of surprise on the dog’s face as she sprinted past him in her wellingtons will never leave me...