What are apple-catchers anyway????

It's Sunday - I'm on Day 2 of the horrible head cold. Fereday has had a couple of days start on me, and was feeling slightly better so has headed off over to Leeds to run things to the tip for the Sainted Sandra, my longstanding mentor and virtual foster parent who is deserting me for a retirement penthouse in Antipodean climes. Personally, I don't warm to the idea of Australia - to me it's the place where the spiders are so big, that the snakes have been scared into extinction.... but I've never been south of the equator, so I speak from the uninformed position of someone who doesn't even get the Discovery Channel...So, I am propped up in bed with the Sunday Times and a choice of two laptops (one work, one play). I only really have to move to turn the kettle on and make a cup of tea.... and even then, I don't have to move out of the bedroom - thank the architecture gods for the Victorian notion of putting a sink in a bedroom. I've already fired up the work laptop and spent an hour sending 'essential emails', i.e., those which subliminally communicate that most important message that anyone with their sights on the top of the so-called greasy pole can send: "Look, it's SUNDAY - even GOD RESTED.... and I'm here working away... don't forget this when the annual appraisal comes up, I need to buy Fereday shiny things... look how dedicated I am...."Then I've turned to the papers - read about Ronnie Wood's new fashion line (available at Liberty's soon, ladies... just the thing to wear when you're in the mood for that dangerous day dream - crank the i-pod up to a (nearly) unsafe level, carelessly throw on the garden clogs which have no treds left on the soles, and pretend the tomatoes in the greenhouse are cannibis plants)..... felt sympathy for Cheryl Cole (???)... and eventually turned to AA Gill's restaurant review. Pompous though he may be, I am a huge fan of AA Gill's writing (excepting, of course, his execrable foray into chick-lit, but the less said about that, the better). His restaurant reviews in the Style magazine of the Sunday Times are always 90% invective-riddled observations on life, the universe and everything and 10% actual comment on the restaurant.True to form, he delivers another classic observation today, which just has to be shared: "When men eat together, they become very, very male... in a blokey, wallowing buffalo, flatulent hippo, bad-tempered-Greek-calamari-molester-in-apple-catcher-undercrackers-sitting-on-white-plastic-furniture-flexing-furry-shoulders sort of way...."To be completely honest, I don't really recognise the man in Gill's description.... Fereday is generally fully-dressed when eating and I don't know what 'apple-catcher' underpants are. But it did get me thinking about my better half's habits... in particular his eating habits. I guess like a lot of gardeners, Fereday dines regularly in the front passenger seat of the car. Working alone, his lunch buddies would only really be the tools, the inevitable creepy crawlies which inhabit every gardener's vehicle and Radio 4. He's very tidy, though - there's never the remains of a butty or an empty pop can left in the car - tools and bags of leaves, yes... pop cans, no. In fact, eating-wise, Fereday's pretty much the model diner... the only hint of the type of blokiness which Gill describes is to be witnessed when he's confronted with an "individual portion" foodstuff like a cupcake or a large cookie... you can see the glint in the eyes, hear the primordial gears creaking into action, and you just know what's whirring inside him, bringing into conflict his civilised self with his caveman.... "I bet I can fit this whole cookie in my mouth at once". This is a bloke thing - it's very competitive, really.It is something women just don't do - I don't look at the cupcake like that, in fact, my inner risk manager is saying to me "Careful you don't choke on that" .... if my inner fatty didn't wade in and slap a flabby hand grubby with chocolate smears and cookie crumbs over the inner risk manager's big mouth, my inner risk manager would keep me at a svelt size with no problems. But maybe I should alter my perspective and try something different - I'm now the only woman in a team of men. I must admit that work lunches with the team are much better - I can order and finish a nearly raw steak covered in bernaise with chips instead of chasing a salad with the dressing on the side around a plate. Despite this, I did find myself reverting to some stereotypical ways and found myself making sure the management trainee had a serving of the side-order of green veggies so his mum wouldn't think we weren't taking proper care of him.... Well, if the black, matte leather sensible court shoe fits.....Funny - I've not been blogging for a while.... I blog yesterday and then I find myself blogging again today... I've thought about that a bit. Fereday and I have had a really busy few weeks - I think that whenever I came across something which was blog-worthy, I just didn't have the time to slow down and do the mental macrame to take it from a pile of disconnected strings and beads to a fully formed hanging-plant holder of a story...

ICL and Syngenta have renewed their strategic partnership supporting turf professionals in the UK and Ireland and other European turf markets, extending a long-standing collaboration focused on research, product innovation and practical support for…

The GroundsFest Academy, in collaboration with John Moverley OBE, has launched a free online sustainability assessment tool designed to help organisations evaluate and strengthen their sustainable practices.Sustainability is increasingly becoming a…

"I have a 6ft pair of Niwakis, wish i’d had them years before I did. I initially got the 8fts and immediately realised they would be a pain for the majority of hedges I used to cut. I think they are brilliant just make sure they are seated properly.…"