Thorn In My Side

It's been a thorny old week here on Privet and Confidential, some times things just work out that way. Not that it was Diana's intention to start winter pruning it's just that despite the temperature having risen by about ten degrees the ground was still rock solid and you'd have needed a pick axe to turn the compost heap. We wandered down to the orchard to look at the plants and shrubs that edge the boundaries and tidy them up as necessary, that's when I saw them, no ordinary brambles these but cultivated blackberries Rubus fructicosus 'Russian Giant' with thorns of an appropriate gargantuan size. We wrestled with the wretched things all morning until the old stems had been cut out. I was mightily glad I'd decided to wear my wax jacket that morning as nothing gets through that, but my jeans weren't much protection as I noticed in the bath later on, I'm beginning to look like a pin cushion!

"Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know of no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes the greater is their power to to harm us" Voltaire