Category Archives: Humour

When Everything has Gone Pear Shaped…

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One doesn’t usually laugh when things go “pear shaped” (a British expression for when things go wrong) and, certainly, there hasn’t been much to laugh about for the Porch siblings and families recently. Things haven’t been in “apple-pie order” or “wine and roses”  because our beloved Mum (also known as Granny Porch and Supergran) hasn’t been feeling so super; in fact, she has been very ill in hospital, and is currently quite frail and recuperating in a home other than her own. But, thankfully, Supergran still has the battling spirit and x-ray eyes that can wither a lesser opponent in a single glance; in other words, she is still herself and gaining strength slowly but surely.

Of course, even when things have gone “pear shaped” in some areas, some funny events happen… Take the time when my sister Mary and I were visiting our mother on Simpson Ward – d’oh! Now the outlook from Mum’s bed on that occasion was rather a grim one. Opposite were two old ladies, seemingly always asleep and visibly shrinking into their beds, and another lady sat in a chair beside her bed; to Mum’s right was another shrunken lady in the far bed by the window, and in the bed directly beside her was another lady whom I had never seen awake, and who lay there very still with her mouth wide open.

“Do you think that lady is on the way out?” I whispered in Mary’s ear whilst I looked in the direction of the latter.

Just as the words came out of my mouth the figure on the bed came to life and raised a hand to wave at me, and she smiled sweetly at us.

“Oh, how wonderful!” I exclaimed, standing up and walking over to the lady’s bedside. “You’re better. How are you feeling?”

The lady couldn’t speak but nodded as if to say that she was okay. Then I looked across at the lady who had been dozing in her chair. She, too, smiled at me and her eyes twinkled.

“You look better!”, I said, remembering how static she had been with her slumped against her chest on my previous visit. “You looked so ill yesterday” I added.

“I really do feel much better, ” assured the little lady profusely.

“Oh, I feel so pleased that you ladies are getting better,” I enthused.

Back beside my sister, Mary leaned in to whisper in my ear:

“That’s not the same lady who was in that bed yesterday!”

 Oops! 

Another funny thing happened only yesterday, and this time I was able to laugh aloud because nobody else was around… We were expecting our Airbnb guests from Canada and, while Chris rushed outside to see if there was adequate parking for them, I went upstairs to check that everything was looking perfect in the suite. A glance at the fruit bowl had me laughing in hysterics, then, of course, I had to run downstairs and grab my mobile phone before rectifying the slight problem of the pear shape! If you observe the photos below you will get my drift.

 

Dry as a Bone

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What could be as dry as a bone? The grass in Brisbane? No, not at present. A reformed alcoholic? No, but maybe. My friend Val’s sense of humour? Yes, but no, that’s not what I was thinking of….

Actually, I had a bit of a problem this morning when I opened my new Revlon Eyeliner of the Violet Black variety (for a change) which I bought yesterday at the Discount Chemist in Beenleigh for the princely half-price sum of $13.95, which I had mistaken for the whole price yet to be halved, and which I wouldn’t normally dream of paying… but I was at the checkout and didn’t feel like making a fuss, and, after all, it was Aussie dollars not English pounds (the hardest to take off). So, after struggling for five minutes working out how to take off the clear cellophane wrapping, at last I found the little gold tag and zipped the Violet Black Eyeliner free; I pulled off the clear plastic lid and scrutinised the head of the eyeliner stick – it was a piece of firm sponge shaped like a bullet – and I soon had the eyeliner stick sweeping across my upper eyelids.

“Violet Black isn’t very dark,” I said to myself, then I put my glasses on and inspected more closely in the mirror. Not a sign of the Violet Black.

“I wonder if I need to wet it?” I asked myself, spitting on it and spinning the dark blue sheath at the other end, in the hope that the blue eye make-up would work its way to the sponge end. Still nothing.

“It’s as dry as a bone,” I thought to myself.

 

Some hours later, as I was returning from my brother Bill’s house, I made a short detour…

“This half-price Revlon Eyeliner of yours, which I bought yesterday (showing the receipt), is as dry as a bone!” I said to the middle-aged lady behind the counter.

“Ooh, it is dry, isn’t it? Did you try wetting it?” she agreed bemused.

I felt a bit guilty as the queue was growing and still we could not fathom the problem. Another, younger, member of the counter-staff was passing by at that very moment and my lady held the eyeliner stick out as you would hold a dry old bone.

The twenty-year-old eyed the eyeliner stick and smiled knowingly.

“This head is for smudging,” she said and paused long enough for the penny to drop.

“Ah, so it’s at the other end…”, (she nodded), “and the blue sheath that goes around is the cap?”

The girl laughed, the older woman laughed and all the ladies in the checkout queue guffawed; you could say there wasn’t a dry eye in the vicinity!

 

The Perfect Host

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The perfect host is tall, dark and handsome, and he greets you with the most welcoming warm smile in spite of the fact that he has tons of work to do (fixing up his house); and, it being a Saturday, he has limited time in which to do it, especially so as his expert house-fixer dad has given up his day to come over and help. Also, the perfect host is a loving grandson and he has his dear old granny there for lunch. Speaking of lunch, he has a dozen fresh croissants just waiting to go in the oven should an aunt and uncle from England decide to pop around and see how he has been getting on with his house repairs since their last visit. 

The house is lovely – freshly painted in white with a deep sea blue trim on the fascias – and inside it is clean and spacious with lots of light coming in from the rows of windows and the glass sliding doors. The present work is being carried out on the bathroom, which has been stripped, and a vanity unit is going in. Amongst the comfortable sofas in the lounge is a piece of furniture that doesn’t quite suit its surroundings – it looks like a chair from the bridge of the “Star Ship Enterprise”! There are even special indents for arms and legs…. in my mind’s eye I could see Sigourney Weaver strapping herself into such a machine in order to fight off aliens.

After a delicious lunch of hot croissants and real butter, followed by a sponge cake (brought along by the aunty), the perfect host’s father disappeared outside to cut a length of plumbing pipe to the precise size. At approximately the same time the handsome host turned on both of the air-condition units; he then made sure his grandma was comfortable lounging on one of the sofas before assisting his aunt into the gigantic black leather chair with indents, wires and remote controls. Without showing any sign of urgency or undue haste, the perfect host discerned the appropriate strength and type of pummelling suitable for aunts, and set the machine into action; noting, of course, that his aunt was showing the expected reaction to his design (see photo below).

Fifteen minutes later the perfect host informed his chilled out aunt that the session had finished (although the beautiful music was still emanating from the speakers by her ears) and he invited his uncle to take possession of “The Bridge”. And after the uncle from England had “oo-ed” and “ah-ed” for fifteen minutes the kindly host reappeared and set his aunt back in the contraption of pleasure for some additional attention to her neck and shoulders, which he had correctly ascertained needed more work. Again, the perfect host left the lounge room.

“Where is William?” asked the dazed aunt after the neck session had ended and her English husband had helped her out of the alien (and ailment)-killing device. “William?”, she called as she poked her head around the door frame into the bathroom and, seeing that the bathroom was empty, she was somewhat surprised to hear the perfect host respond, “I’m under the bath!” With that he raised a hand from a hole in the floorboards.

“Don’t you think William is a perfect host?” I asked Chris as we drove off. Chris nodded and turned up the air-conditioning in the car, our friend Roland’s car – another perfect host (he always lends his favourite guests his new car!). Thank goodness for air-con – it was thirty-five degrees today. My nephew William said it was much cooler under the house; once again, thank goodness!

The Old Jokes are the Best

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It doesn’t mean you’re getting old just because friends keep sending you jokes about old folk – at least, I wouldn’t like to think so. Thanks for this clutch of jokes goes to Barry, our old neighbour in Australia (who is much older than me!).

 

THE HOT SEAT

An elderly Floridian called 911 on his cell phone to report that his car has been broken into.

He is hysterical as he explains his situation to the dispatcher. 

“They’ve stolen the stereo, the steering wheel, the brake pedal and even the accelerator!” he cried. 

The dispatcher said, “Stay calm sir… an officer is on the way.” 

A few minutes later the officer radios in.

“Disregard,” he says, “He got in the back-seat by mistake.” 

   
       
   
______________________________ ______________________________ ____________


 WHAT WAS I THINKING OF?
   

Three sisters, ages 92, 94 and 96, live in a house together.

One night the 96-year-old draws a bath.

She puts her foot in and pauses. She yells to the other sisters, ‘Was I getting in or out of the bath?’

The 94-year-old yells back, ‘I don’t know. I’ll come up and see.’

She starts up the stairs and pauses, ‘Was I going up the stairs or down?’ 

The 92-year-old is sitting at the kitchen table having tea listening to her sisters, she shakes her head and says, ‘I sure hope I never get that forgetful, knock on wood…’ 

She then yells, ‘I’ll come up and help both of you as soon as I see who’s at the door’. 
  

______________________________ ______________________________ ____________

I CAN HEAR JUST FINE!

Three retirees, each with a hearing loss, were playing golf one fine March day.

One remarked to the other, ‘Windy, isn’t it?’ 

‘No,’ the second man replied, ‘it’s Thursday’

And the third man chimed in, ‘So am I. Let’s have a beer.’   
   
   
______________________________ ______________________________ ___________
   

SUPERSEXY


A little old lady, wearing only a nightgown, was running up and down the halls and passageways of the nursing home in which she lived.

As she ran past other residents, she would flip up the hem of her nightgown and say ‘Supersex.’ 

She went up to an elderly man in a wheelchair… Flipping her gown at him, she said, ‘Supersex…’ 

He sat silently for a moment or two and finally answered, ‘I’ll take the soup.’ 
   
   
   
______________________________ ______________________________ ______
 

  ON THE TIP OF MY TONGUE

 
Two elderly gentlemen had been friends for many decades.

Over the years, they had shared all kinds of activities and adventures.   

Lately, their activities had been limited to meeting a few times a week to play cards.  

One day, they were playing cards when one looked at the other and said, ‘Now don’t get mad at me …. I know we’ve been friends for a long time, but I just can’t think of your name! I’ve thought and thought, but I can’t remember it. Please tell me what your name is… ‘

His friend stared at him for at least three minutes — he just stared and stared at him. 

Finally, he said, ‘How soon do you need to know?’ 
   
   

   
______________________________ ______________________________ ___________
   
     SENIOR DRIVING
   

 While a senior citizen was driving down the freeway, his car phone rang.

Answering, he listened to his wife’s voice warning him urgently, ‘Herman, I just heard on the news that  there’s a car going the wrong way on Interstate 77.  Please be careful!’

‘Heck,’ said Herman, ‘It’s not just one car. It’s hundreds of them!’

   
   

 

Fifteen Minutes

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“It will only take fifteen minutes,” the pretty blonde smiles and continues, “but you’ll have to keep perfectly still or we’ll have to do it all over again.”

I smile in acquiescence.

“Are you okay?” she asks sympathetically. (Obviously my smile has not hidden my feeling of dread.)

“It looks like an iron lung,” I say, trying to make light of it, realising as I speak that maybe there isn’t such a thing as an iron lung anymore.

“You’re right. I hadn’t thought of it like that…” she responds as if she can imagine such a machine and adds, “Now press this button if you have any problems. See you in fifteen minutes.”

Now alone, ear plugs in, and ensconced with safety button device in my right hand, I feel slightly panicky about the confinement even though my head is outside. I can look up at the lights or down the extent of my body. I choose the latter. I am like a potholer in a narrow tunnel – I’ve never been drawn to potholing – too akin to being buried alive. I think: I wonder how really fat people fit in these machines. Do they ever get stuck or are there special machines for the over-sized? I must go on the Dukan Diet again. 

Sounding distant and indecipherable (with my earplugs  in), a voice comes through a speaker; it must be the man in the operations room outside. I guess it’s about to begin. There are green lights and red lights and knocking sounds – short raps, long taps and rattatats – and I close my eyes.

Poetry! I’ll think of poems. “If you can keep your head… “ Rattatat, whirr, knock, knock, knock, whirr, rattatat. “Four horsemen rode out from the heart of the range, Four horsemen with aspects forbidding and strange, As forward they rode through the rocks and the fern, Ned Kelly, Dan Kelly, Steve Hart and Joe Burn”. (Well I am an Australian!) “Look at a fragment of velvety brown, Old man platypus drifting down, Drifting along the river…”  Knock, knock, rap, rap, rap, whirr, rattatat! 

“I love a sunburnt country, A land of sweeping plains, Of rugged mountain ranges, Of droughts and flooding plains. I love her broad horizons, I love her jewel sea, her beauty and her terror….” Rattatat, rattatat, rap, rap tap! “The wide brown land for me!” What was the rest of it? Can’t think. More poems….

Ah, “Abu Ben Adam – may his tribe increase – awoke one night….um… Awoke one night from a night of peace…”. Ah, um… Whirr, knock, knock, tap! “I must go down to the sea again, To the lonely sea and the sky, And all I ask is a tall ship and  a star to steer her by…” Um… 

It is quiet. The machine is thinking. The machine is moving and I’m sliding deeper into the tube.

Oh no, my knee is aching. What if I move it? If only I could move it a fraction. I need (kneed) to move it, but if  I do… Oh no! Another fifteen minutes. Please Mrs Robinson… not another fifteen minutes!

Da, da, dat, dat, dat, whirr, tat, tatta, tat,tat! 

What was that poem I wrote at primary school? Ah, “We will die and so will our successors, Our loved ones and our friends, But time will keep rolling by, Yes time will never end.” Shame I can remember only the last verse. Perhaps I can rewrite the missing verses. “Time….”  Rattatat, dah, dah, tat! “Time…” Whirr, bip, bip, tap, tap,tap.

Knee aching. Don’t move. Don’t move. Breathe, don’t forget to breathe, but shallowly. A bit more than that.

Knock, knock!

Who’s there?

Rattatat!

“A naughty little elf with a saucy little face, Stole one of Grandpa’s slippers from beside the fireplace…” “Tippie Tim. I had a little dog, His name was Tippie Tim, I put him in the bath tub, To see if he could swim. He drank up all the water, He ate up all the soap. I took him to the doctor, But the doctor said, ‘No hope!'”

At last the noises stop and I feel the presence of the blonde – her head blocks out some of the light and I open my eyes.

“Well done!” she beams.

“Is that the fifteen minutes?” I ask.

“Yep. How did you cope?” she enquires.

“I just kept trying to remember poems,” I say.

“Oh, that’s a good idea,” she pauses, “I remember one… ‘Little Mr Tinkie…”

We are coming out of the MRI scanning room into the waiting room and there is an old lady in a nightdress waiting in a chair by the door. She is smiling and I give her some advice before she goes through the same ordeal:

“I thought of poems. That might help you take your mind off it.”

Blank. She doesn’t speak or even acknowledge me. Maybe she has had a stroke. I guess I’m lucky to have just a bad knee and a lovely husband waiting to hold my hand and help me to the car, which he has moved to a closer car park while I was thinking of poems.

The Only Way is Up (in Smoke)

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“What shall I do with you when you’re dead?” I asked Chris when we were still in bed earlier today.

Luckily, we think alike about most things so he didn’t misunderstand me; he knew I didn’t mean “What am I going to do without you?” (of course, I would be bereft and mortified). Also, he was well aware that at present I’m in the process of writing a story about a dying man, hence the topic of death was not particularly peculiar… although you might think that six-thirty in the morning is an odd time to have such a conversation. Chris didn’t appear to think so, in fact he turned around and, although we were in semi-darkness, I could see his face light up as warmed to the subject.

“I’m glad you asked,” he said excitedly, “because recently I’ve been thinking about your idea of us being buried together.” (Hopefully at different times, seeing as my “other half” is nearly twelve years older than me!)

We snuggled closer and Chris continued:

“Darling, do you really want to moulder in the ground?”

“Yeah but what if I’m murdered – no body to exhume – they’ll never find my murderer,” my heart sank as my dreams of resting eternally in the earth went up in flames.

“After a while they bury someone else on top of you and, anyway, when did you last visit  a graveside?” he said like an enthusiastic representative for crematoriums.

“Yeah but someone may like to visit me for a talk and a few tears,” I argued feebly.

“Wouldn’t you rather have your ashes mixed with mine and be thrown to the winds? Or be in a  place we both love?” Chris wheedled.

“Our garden. I’d love to be here forever,” I succumbed.

“No, this place will be sold. Why not a rocket? People do that you know,” he suggested.

“Not a rocket,” I said, thinking of the people on land. “I guess I wouldn’t mind the sea. Throw me into the sea then. By the way, how much is a cremation compared to a burial?”

“Burials cost thousands nowadays and a simple cremation – no service or memorial – can cost as little as £1,008,” my husband exclaimed joyously. “You don’t want a service – do you? We could have a party to remember you… but I’ll probably go first and you can throw a party.”

“Let’s find out how much it costs to turn our bodies into diamonds,” my mind turned to other options. “I think I’d rather become a diamond, if it’s not too expensive – if it’s say… £2,000.”

Half an hour later we were at the breakfast table and Chris opened the mail. He laughed and showed me the letter from SunLife insurers. There was a photograph of evergreen Alan Titchmarsh looking rather happy in spite of the window above his head informing that the “Average cost of a basic funeral in the South West of England £4,685”.

“I must be getting older,” Chris mused, “I never used to get mail asking ‘who’s paying for your funeral?’. I could get stony-faced about it!”

“If you become a ‘real diamond geezer’,” I added.

So we looked up “Ashes to Diamonds” on the Internet and it looks like we can afford only to become orange-yellow stones like topazes, not lovely blue cut diamonds. Chris found another site and was aglow with the notion of having my ashes set in coloured glass shaped as hearts or bubbles. 

“But they probably put any old bits of ash in the glass,” Chris said, bursting my bubble.

So now our plans for the distant future are on the back-burner.

Martin is Monsieur Hulot

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Just for a change I’d like to introduce you to Martin Levinson, our great friend, great wit, great writer and funny guy (funny ha ha, not funny peculiar; at least, I don’t think so but I may be a little odd myself!). Martin’s work as a university professor occasionally takes him to unusual places; last year Norway and recently to Italy. What’s so funny about that? You may well ask. The uno uno quattro is Martin’s own account of leaving his hotel early in the morning in order to reach the railway station in Bolzano (somewhere else in Italy).

I wasn’t familiar with Monsieur Hulot so I checked him out on Youtube and I’ve pasted a link at the end to Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday – brilliantly funny!

 

The uno uno quattro  by Martin Levinson

If one is to be the main actor in the centre of a play, it would be nice to get to glimpse the script at some stage, and, perhaps, see who is directing the action. I remain bemused, a Monsieur Hulot figure bumping through existence.

This morning the script entails me getting from my hotel in Leifers to the railway station in Bolzano, a simple enough operation one, might assume, even if it does entail getting up at 5.00 in the morning. Settling the bill the previous night at the hotel, I had been told that there was the option to call a taxi. The woman on the desk had given me an apologetic smile. It seemed that there was an element of act of God in the appearance of the said taxi; you could never be quite sure on the matter. Best to call in the morning, she advised. Things are a little clearer then. But, anyway, she added, there was no problem as there were three early morning buses that would arrive at the station in time, the 110, the 111 and the 112.

In the morning I decide to order the taxi, only there is no-one on the 24 hour desk to call. I go to the bus-stop. None of the three promised buses appear. Finally, as I am about to try hitching, one arrives and I jump on. An ominous red light flashes on the screen when I insert my ticket.

You cannot travel on this bus, the driver tells me. The ticket is valid only for other buses – namely the three that didn’t turn up. This was a 114 – uno uno quattro, he enunciates slowly, not uno uno zero, uno uno uno or uno uno due.

No Roman emperor ever gestured so dismissively for someone to depart.

The people on the bus are getting restless. I stand my ground.

But you are Italian; you do not have to follow the rules, I tell him in my pidgin Italian. Would Garibaldi have thrown me off this bus? I ask. Only, unable to recall the past conditional, the present tense has to suffice. He looks unimpressed. As so many people in Bolzano prefer to call it by its German name, Bolzen, invoking an Italian nationalist might not be so persuasive, and somehow, it seems altogether less convincing to argue that the Germans have a proud tradition of not following orders. However flimsy, I stick with my original line.

Dante, Galileo, Michelangelo, Leonardo – do they want me thrown off this bus?

(I guess where they are now, they don’t give a fanculo volante.)

Again he gestures in that bored emperor manner.

Maybe the guy likes music.

Rossini, Verdi, Puccini, I suggest.

He shakes his head.

Gianni Rivera, Sandro Mazzola, Franco Baresi, Paulo Maldini, Gigi Buffon….

Everyone likes football.

Roberto Baggio, Il Divino… I cannot recall the Italian word for ponytail. (It’s coda di cavallo, I discover when I check later – just in case such a situation ever recurs in the future.)

He shifts in his seat, as if about to stand up to push me off. I shake my head. I am not moving anywhere. There are some murmurs from other people in the bus.

He pauses, theatrically, in some imperious posture between seatedness and standingness. He throws his arms into the air. A reprieve? He gesticulates, angrily, towards the back of the bus.

Somebody pats my back as I walk down the bus. Shared acknowledgement of a victory over an oppressive, inhuman bureaucracy that grinds down the common man? I have no idea. Someone else smiles at me, fleetingly, as if afraid to be spotted.

I look around the bus. I am the only white person there. The rest are going to work, mopping, sweeping, cleaning this place up, setting up offices, while their Germanic Italian neighbours grab a few more hours of sleep.

A woman on the seat behind taps me on the shoulder, holding out a bag of pastries to offer me one.

She smiles, and for a sweet interlude in my existence I no longer feel like Monsieur Hulot. This is how Spartacus must have felt when he broke out with his comrades and caught the early morning omnibus out of Capua.

Beehave Yourself!

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One of my greatest pleasures whilst tending the flowers out on our terrace is when a passing bumblebee bumps against my arm and I can feel his wings, and he doesn’t get nasty or upset because he perhaps senses that I’m not going to hurt him, or maybe even he knows that I’m his friend (we gardeners are rather fanciful!). Even the ordinary honey bees don’t seem to mind my presence and they often fly close enough for me to feel the movement of their wings in the air. They never sting me, not like wasps – I’m allergic to them (and they seem to know it for they harass me regardless of my pretence at nonchalance); luckily, I haven’t seen many wasps this year.

However, I’ve seen thousands of bees this year, quite recently in fact, and not one by one… Chris discovered them last Friday when he was hanging out the washing in the garden on the sea-side of our house; obviously looking for a new home in which to hibernate for the winter, the bees were buzzing in and around the loose soil all over the steep bank leading down to the railway line. Much as we love bees we weren’t too sure that we wanted our garden to be overrun by them so Chris called Graham, a bee-keeping acquaintance of ours who might have been interested in housing a homeless hive of honey bees.

“They aren’t honey bees,” Graham began, “they’re too small and they are already making homes in the soil. Also it would be too difficult to gather them, and they won’t be honey producers.

“Oh dear,” Chris and I were thinking together, having not yet come to terms with the idea of sharing our garden with so many hobos.

“But they are good pollinators,” smiled the bee enthusiast.

“How many do you think there are?” Chris inquired.

“Oh, it’s only a very small swarm – about four and a half thousand bees,” replied Graham.

Chris was hanging out the washing again this morning (I do help sometimes – really!) and he came back upstairs with something of a triumphant smile on his face.

“They are still there,” he announced proudly.

“And they didn’t sting you or get annoyed?”

“No, most of them don’t even have stings. I was looking them up on Google,” my husband admitted. “I think they are either digger bees or miner bees – not to be confused with a mynah bird.”

I went upstairs and returned with my phone camera, made a bee-line to the hive of activity and took a few photos for my blog readers. While taking shots of our bee-loved new residents I noticed our neighbours’ pampas grass, tall and beautiful against a background of blue sky and sea, and I laughed to myself. 

“Why are you laughing?” Chris asked.

“The pampas grass,” I giggled, “I was wondering if Adrian and Sonia know what it means… Maybe I should tell them… But…”

“Bee-have yourself!” said Chris.

So I’m not going to tell them. They’ll have to read my blog to find out. I’ll copy and paste an article on the subject just in case you’re in the dark.

Ah, what beautiful pampas grass!

Embarrassed dog-walkers pass by with eyes fixed ahead!

Exclusive: Pampas grass sales are falling because it is a secret signal for swingers

For decades it was a common feature of suburban front gardens throughout Britain, adding a touch of exoticism to more everyday native planting.

But an unfortunate association with liberal sexual practices appears to have heralded the end of pampas grass as a gardener’s favourite.

Plant sellers says sales have plummeted – in no small part due to the plant being regarded as a secret signal to passersby that its owners are happy to indulge in swinging.

Many nurseries have stopped stocking it entirely, and even large suppliers have seen numbers plummet, as buyers shun the plant for fear of what it means.

Palmstead Nurseries, which sells plants to garden designers for households, commercial gardens and public spaces, says the plant has fallen out of favour.

A decade ago the firm, based in Ashford, Kent, was selling an average of 550 of the plants every year. Annual sales fell to less than 500 five years ago and are now as low as 250.

The plant is one of the least popular of the company’s grass varieties, some of which are so in demand that it sells thousands of plants every year.

Nick Coslett, the company’s marketing manager, said it had fallen out of fashion in part because it was seen as a signal that swingers lived in a house.

He said: “It’s just not in fashion at the moment.

“I’ve got no evidence that it was ever actually used for that – I think it goes back to the fact that it was planted in people’s front gardens.

“But there is that connotation, unfortunately. It’s all part of that 1970s, kitsch feel.”

The plant’s association with swinging has been dismissed as a myth by pampas enthusiasts, but broadcaster Mariella Frostrup said she had inadvertently identified herself as a swinger by planting the grasses outside her Notting Hill home a few years ago.

Since the arrival of her two Cortaderia selloana plants, the presenter said she had been inundated with unwanted inquiries.

Writing on Twitter she said at the time: “Bought two and put them on my balcony. Neighbours have been swarming!”

Steve Dawson, a buyer for Crocus, the largest gardening website in the UK, said it now sold around 300 pampas grass plants a year – a fraction of the amount it sold of other grass varieties.

“A lot of people used to put it in their front gardens – I think people are probably a bit embarrassed about doing that now,” he said.

Another plant nursery, Worcester-based Bransford Webbs, said it had stopped selling pampas grass altogether over a decade ago, because sales figures were so poor.

The plant comes in several different varieties, some of which can grow to up to eight feet (2.4m) tall.  

Most nurseries which still sold them said they tended to sell the Pumila variety, which is a, smaller, “dwarf” version of the larger plant. It grows to around five feet (1.5m).

Pampas grass is native to south America and is named for the Pampas region, fertile lowlands covering Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina, where they originally grew.

It is very hardy and can produce a significant number of seeds. This has led to the plant being seen as a weed in some countries.

In California, it is classed as an “invasive to avoid” plant, and people are discouraged from planting it in their gardens.

George Hillier, of the Hillier garden centre chain, which has 12 branches, said they had almost completely stopped stocking the plants due to low demand.

He said that embarrassment over the plant’s connotations could be a factor, but that its size and the difficulty of removing it was one of the main things putting gardeners off.

“They are very sharp and they’re very thick,” he said. “Once it’s in and really established, getting rid of it is a couple of days worth of work.”

 

Crushed Toads and Fish ‘n’ Chips

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Most men would prefer to drive for miles out of the way and waste a litre of petrol rather than ask somebody for directions – wouldn’t they? My Chris is of that ilk. It happened again when we were staying at Nefyn, North Wales, last weekend.

We fancied fish and chips for dinner but our hosts couldn’t recommend any fish and chip shops in the area.

“We’re a bit funny about fish and chips these days,” said our host (also a Chris) in his Yorkshire accent.

After much head scratching, he came up with a place about thirty miles away, which is quite far when you’re in the hills, and neither of us even attempted to assign the place name to memory. In fact, all the driving about we did was simply to find the local fish and chip shop down the hill in the centre of the village.

There was no sign of any fish and chip shop on the main road, or on the beach road, or any of the side roads we took.

“Let’s ask them,” I suggested as we sped past a group of tattooed and chained bikers walking on the pavement.

“What about these girls?” I asked ten minutes later as we passed three tattooed teenagers with prams on the same pavement, but facing the opposite way.

“Why don’t we just go back to the Spar store we keep seeing on the main drag and buy some bread, butter and jam for tea?” Chris said wearily (he must have been sick of driving).

So we went into the Spar store and, whilst Chris ran around picking up the items for our simple tea, I made a bee-line for a sensible-looking lady member of staff and asked for directions to the local fish and chip shop.

Now I like to think that I have a “good ear” but I have to admit that I’m unaccustomed to the North Wales accent. The lady replied, not with a pretty lilt (as expected) but with funny sounds from the back of her mouth suggesting a great deal of spittle – as if she wore ill-fitting dentures:

“Go up to the crushed toads…”

“Pardon?” I interjected.

“Go to the crushed toads…” the lady said a little more slowly but with even more spit.

“Hold on a moment,” I looked around for Chris and called out, “Chris..?”

At last he joined us and she was relieved to be able to get her sentence out:

“Go up to the crushed toads, turn right and it’s on the right.”

“What did she say?” I asked when we were on our own walking back to the car.

“Go to the cross roads…”

“Ah, well you would understand as you’re a quarter Welsh I suppose,” I laughed.

 

Up at “Gwendoline’s Chippy” a few minutes later we encountered those tattooed bikers, some tattooed older ladies and The Illustrated Man. (I thought there must be a very busy tattooist in Nefyn but Chris thought the customers were tourists from England.)

Chris and I are a bit funny about fish and chips nowadays. We thought our hosts’ chickens might enjoy our fish and chips that tasted like crushed toads but Pamela eyed the package suspiciously and placed it in her bin. Perhaps she, too, had an idea of what crushed toads tasted like. We had toast and jam for tea, which was delicious.

 

 

 

A Sexy Nightie (Not)

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“I wish I’d brought a sexy nightie with me…” I said to my husband. 

“Oh, haven’t you?” Chris asked with mock disappointment (at least I think he was feigning).

Well, we have been married for over twenty years so my night attire wasn’t exactly my first priority (oh dear – what am I saying?). Perhaps it was the novelty of being away together in a foreign country that made me think of it.

Actually, North Wales is not foreign to Chris as he is one quarter Welsh and spent nearly all the summers of his childhood in Nevin (now Nefyn, since the return to Welsh language on all the signs); however, this was only my second visit to the place held so dear in my husband’s memory. And to make it even more exciting for me this time Chris took me first to the fantastic village of Portmeirion, which I had seen on television when I was child, for it was the location of the strange series called “The Prisoner”, the brainchild of Patrick McGoohan who devised the series and played the leading role of “Number 6”; but the most amazing thing about Portmeirion is that you would think you were in Italy. We were walking through the beautiful cliff-side village when the thought about sexy nighties (or the lack of one) hit me.

Much later on, after a wonderful night’s sleep in an “Air B’n’B” on the other side of Llyn Peninsula, I awoke and sat on the side of the bed to have a stretch; I was wearing a white vest with a navy blue stripe running through it and blue and white pyjama shorts. I could hear Chris laughing behind me.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

“You look like a Breton fisherman!” he chuckled. “All you need are some onions around your neck!”

I laughed too. Not quite a sexy nightie!

“But I love this Breton fisher-woman,” Chris said, putting his arms around my waist and kissing my shoulder.

Turning around to kiss him back I noticed he was wearing a white t-shirt and blue and white striped pyjama shorts.

“Hey, you’re a Breton fisherman like me,” I observed with a giggle.

Pah to sexy nighties!

Below are some of my photos taken at Portmeirion last weekend .