Optimism.. such a sunny, open encouraging sort of word, with overtones of foolishness and an inability to face reality. In the last two days I have spent more than I can afford on plants and seeds in the belief that a) I will turn a good profit over the summer and b) that the upgrade of my holding from mud patch to glorious garden will increase the value of the property and thus safeguard my old age.

Over the last six weeks I have dedicated myself to the development of a thing of beauty and a joy for ever, with the following results.
I have a small lumpy lawn, half of which is turfed (dug out of the paddock) and the other half seeded. The latter half covered in grubby horticultural fleece in defence against chickens, pheasants, pigeons etc.
There is an entire new bed dug over and ready for planting where the chickens spend their days happily hunting worms and weed seeds
Many varieties of bulbs and corms are cowering in the damp, cold soil waiting to be decimated by the next hard frost, which will probably come in mid-April.
My back is permanently aching, my knees are buggered and my hands look as if I have been digging an escape tunnel with my fingers..

Yesterday it rained, a perfect opportunity therefore, to stay in and do the housework. An opportunity I forsook in favour of trotting off to the garden centre clutching a recalcitrant debit card which shook and whimpered in my hand. Today a catalogue dropped into the waiting teeth of Freddy the barking jack russel and, before I could help myself, I had wrestled the poor, beleaguered card out of the wallet and had bashed through an order. Optimism, sounds an expensive sort of word as well, doesn't it?