It was a hot day and our granddaughter Jeannie was bored so we went to B&Q.

This may not be the first destination that springs to mind when attempting to entertain a little girl who is almost three but at least there is no admission charge. There is, of course, an exit charge when you have to pay for all that you have bought as you leave.

The reason for the trip was sparked by sitting in the sun on the decking at the back of the house. I have always shied away from gardening. I grow no plants in the rockery and my friend Peter comes once a fortnight to cut the grass.

There are no flower beds, just a lot of grass, which is how I and Jeannie like it.

Plenty of room for paddling pool and play tent and picnic bench and games with balls and running round and hiding. What can I say? I like to hide.

The remnants of my last attempt at horticulture sit in plant pots on the decking. A small fir and a bushy thing that persists in flowering three or four times a year despite having been ignored since the start of the millennium. I don’t know what it is other than persistent.

There is also a black iron hinge for a hanging basket by the back door that looks slightly sinister as if waiting for a real hanging.

The thought came that maybe I should make an effort. Maybe Jeannie would like some flowers?

“Why don’t we go and get some plants?” I said, much to my wife Maria’s surprise. “Maybe go to a garden centre?”

“B&Q,” she said.

She can recover swiftly when she scents an opportunity.

“B&Q?”

“They do plants. They also do mops.”

How had a floral reflection on a summer afternoon turned laterally to mops?

“I need a new one,” she said.

Who was I to argue?

We pottered around B&Q’s open air plant section with a supermarket trolley. I had been meaning to get sacks of stone chippings for derelict flower beds for some time but the sacks looked heavy and I didn’t fancy the hard work. Maybe next year.

Jeannie picked giant daisies so two of those plants went in the front section of the trolley to hold them secure. A large purple thing and a hanging basket went into the body of the trolley.

At the check out, a young woman made a futile attempt to remove one of the daffodil plants from that front section to read its bar code and gave up: “They’re brainless putting them in there. You can’t get them out. Idiots,” she said.

She thought an assistant had loaded the trolley for me. I didn’t like to say I was the idiot.

Back home, the basket was hung and the plants were placed on the decking to become Jeannie’s garden. I even re-potted the daffs with half a sack of compost left over from 2009.

Maria was off mopping the corridor (it doesn’t take much to keep her happy), Jeannie watered the plants and we admired our creation. Well, God’s creation, if you want to be pedantic, but our arrangement.

Not bad for an idiot, I thought. Maybe we should get some more.

More?

Was floriculture catching? Had I been bitten by a green fingered bug?

Panic began to set in and the garden was no longer a good place to hide.

It was time to get back indoors where I belonged.