WE’RE in the midst of springtime, with wild flowers coming up everywhere around the place.

This has inspired our lass to decide ‘we’ need to spruce the outside up around the new side patio area.

We’ve apparently got to have some more greenery around – picked by us that is, not nature’s abundant grass and weed mixture we seem to get for free and with little effort!

Back in Linthwaite I wasn’t much for gardening. As far as I was concerned flagging was the thing.

Call it a patio, barbecue area, back yard or hard standing, flags by any other name needed not much more attention than the occasional flick with the yard brush and a douse with weed killer over the cracks, sorry, joints.

I did have a bit of a lawn at the back which got cut now and then whenever I couldn’t see out of the back kitchen window.

In fact the first time Ruth paid a visit she thought it was the biggest window box she’d seen, until she tried to step out of the back door.

I even had some success watering it with a mixture of vodka and gin, so it would come up half cut ...

As you can tell from the photo, gardening here has more of a constructional overtone. ‘We’ have to first clear the area to be used with pick/shovel/barrow, dig (a very small word for a back breaking job I might add) some footings, concrete in some foundations and build us a new retaining wall, seen curving almost seductively in the photo.

The holes have to be sunk in the place indicated by our lass. This takes a while and I have to stand in the plot brandishing a large wooden pole for effect wearing a green jumper and trying to look like a shrub, so she can get the right feel for how the plant will look.

This eventually having been decided, said hole(s) are sunk, carefully avoiding land drains, water pipes and electric cables which the builders have carefully not marked!

This done we put a day aside to visit every garden nursery within a 50km radius to find and buy the exact right shape/colour/size of plant(s) ‘we’ want, transport them back in the car along with bags of compost, weed inhibitor and new tools.

Travelling back up the IC-1 the car now resembles some sort of mobile jungle.

Next we have to mix up our lass’s special recipe of compost, sand and horse poo (and of this we have got PLENTY!) which is used as a base for the new plants.

This very special and secret growing mix is shovelled into each hole, well watered and then the plant is positioned, filled all around and stomped into position.

The area is then covered with the weed suppressant membrane, scattered with small pebble and feature rocks then voila, job done and Graham has some merit points.

I’d send an after photo but I’ve more to do, so watch this space ...

For holiday details contact us at Caixa Postal No. 294 , 7700-221, Gomes Aires, Almodovar, Portugal.