Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear…

The election and the surrounding circus has provided an enormous amount of  material I could rant about, but I just can’t summon up the enthusiasm. What’s knocked the ranting out of me  is the realisation that there seems to be  no end to the gullibility of the great British public.

Another election, more wool than ever!!!

Is I believe the title of a pop song in the genera punk.

It’s a wonderful sunny spring day, the birds are singing and there is a gentle breeze rippling the surface of the lake. I should probably be at work.

It’s a fishing lake in the heart of the Sussex countryside and I am here because of my son’s obsession with fish and fishing. It seems that if I am not helping him build a Koi pond within what was planned to be my fernery, I am sitting by a lake watching him fish or visiting an aquarium.

I am not a fisherman myself, never have been and have no real interest in it beyond enjoying the obvious pleasure it gives both my sons.

One aspect of their hobby that I am finding most agreeable is that they have to be accompanied by a responsible adult, and I at least, partly qualify for the job. It gives me an opportunity to stop work and just sit in a beautiful place and do absolutely nothing, without the usual pangs of guilt that I would feel about wasting time.

So for me, and I suspect many others fishing, it provides a legitimate reason/excuse for idleness.

Not sure how I will cope when the kids grow up and can be idle all on their own!

Driving back from Suffolk on Saturday lunch time, listening to a phone in on Radio 4.

Apparently, according to a retired civil servant who had phoned in, presumably with the intention of enlightening the more passive listener with his specialist insight into our political system, he stated:

“What the next government needs to do is to be honest with the electorate.”

I laughed so much that I almost fell off my perch and into the central reservation.

Breathtaking naivety without the slightest hint  of sarcasm or irony. Hilarious!

Comedians across the county must be in fear of their careers.

I, like many people around the country, spent Wednesday afternoon listening to what may well be Alistair Darling’s last budget. What strikes me as possibly the most interesting aspect of the budget is the way it mirrors what’s happening in my garden, both in timing and content. To prune or not to prune , that is the dilemma, both for Mr Darling and my humble self. Furthermore, it seems we have both come to the same conclusion:

Sometimes the wise thing to do is not to do anything at all.

One political commentator noted that due to the state of the economy and impending election, it was a do nothing budget. Hear! hear! I agree and that’s just what’s happening in my garden right now. Spring is later than normal, (what ever that is) and several of my plants have sustained damage over the winter.

However tempting it may be to tidy up those apparently dead stems, the right thing to do is nothing at all, that is until the spring is well and truly under way and it becomes clear how far the damage has gone.

My hardy fuchsia dies back by a different degree each year and it’s only when it starts into growth that it becomes clear where to cut it back to. Several shrubs have been damaged in the same way including rosemary, Arbutus Elfin King and Callistemon.

One of my eccentricities is an irrational fondness for Cordylines, not I should add the fancy coloured ones that are in my opinion ghastly, but the plane green ones with thick trunks, spreading heads and wondrously scented flowers. There are some plants (not many) that have a quality of presence that immediately creates atmosphere.

I have found through experience that Cordylines suffer from two problems, horticultural snobbery and an infuriating variability when it comes to hardiness.

I have one specimen that has come through the winter unscathed but several others are looking very sad. I will be waiting until after the election to see if the growing point is dead or alive. If there is no sign of recovery by the time we have a shiny new government then I will cut back to within a few inches of the ground, in much the same way as I suspect the new chancellor will be pruning the public sector.

For now I will follow Mr Darling’s example and do nothing more than a little tinkering at the edges.