Sunday 30 January 2011

The Bodyguard

I’m a hoarder. I have draws full of egg boxes, jars & margarine tubs, bags full of bags, and boxes full of wrappings, ribbons & bows pilfered from other people’s Christmas presents (after they were opened, I hasten to add). Afterall, you never know when something might come in handy for those “if only I had” moments in life. My stash of DVD newspaper freebies, however, had yet to be pressed into service - “The Thatcher Years” never was that perfect last minute gift and there never was a giant dripping tap in need of a washer in the form of a dodgy remake of “Dr Zhivago”.

In an ideal world either money would grow on trees or birds would eat chocolate. If the former, I could buy a 20 metre x 12 metre x 2 metre fruit cage without having to sell my soul to Harrods Horticultural. If the latter, I wouldn’t need a 20 metre x 12 metre x 2 metre fruit cage, and there’d be the added bonus of less chocolate in the world to tempt me and make me fat. Alas, Coca Cola Enterprises has yet to come up with a recipe for the ideal world, so I need to find an alternative solution if I’m to protect the fattening buds on my fruit bushes from the beaks of hungry birds.

This is where the DVD stash comes into its own. The perimeter of my soft fruit patch is now heavily guarded by Hollywood A-listers past and present, interspersed with the occasional ex-Prime Minister and aging rock star – the great (but mainly the not so great) works of John Wayne, Ingrid Bergman, John Mills & Kiera Knightley dangle menacingly by the blueberries, Churchill’s bodyguards and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers glint in the sun ready to blind the bullfinches as they swoop in for a gooseberry bud snack.

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Now I just need to find a way to stop the cats s******g in the mulch!

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