An early morning intervention of my nimbostratus nemesis scuppered todays plans of applying preservative to chez Strachan’s garden fencing. The wooden target area rendered untreatable by the thick charcoal cloud’s unwelcome precipitation.

Even though I applied wood stain to the majority of my fence panels last year, this task remained a necessity as areas remain untreated due to being covered by deciduous climbing fauna.

At the moment, I have a small window of opportunity to undertaken the work before the plants leaf, denying access to the untreated area.

Frustratingly, this slot is growing ever smaller due to the capricious nature of the British weather. I made a start with the chore earlier in the week, however I had to abandon that due to a similarly unwanted rain shower.

Even though I have a lot more patience than when I wore a younger man’s clothes, I find it hard to warm to the task of applying preservative to fencing. It’s about as boring as this blog is thus far…… Although, I promise to attempt to rectify this.

Like reading this narrative, staining fences is a thankless task. An onerous job to undertake with leafless vines partially obstructing the target surface, but when these climbers are in leaf it’s nigh on impossible to tackle.

Not that you’ll have the inconvenience of reading this narrative through the budding vines of a climbing hydrangea….. Unless, of course, you’re reading this sitting in a garden border or a plant nursery, which I suspect is unlikely.

In an attempt to fill my many horticultural knowledge voids, I’ve read quite a bit about the subject over recent years.

While attempting to broaden my education on all things flora and fauna, my reading sources opined that reading an electronic device while sat in the middle of a garden border is not good practise. Particularly if the border is chock-full of established plants.

The only guidance I read that contradicted this penned by landscape gardener George Hibrow. In his controversial book ‘I Know Loads More About Gardening Than You Thick S***es’, he advocates a maverick approach, recommending not to burden yourselves with device location restrictions in the garden.

Hibrow tells of perching in numerous eccentric places to get internet access dans la jardin.  For example, he claims to have once sat halfway up an apple tree to utilise his neighbour Mr Crowsnest’s wifi network.

It was a foolhardy move resulting in him falling out of the tree and shattering the iPad he was holding, along with his left ulna and right radius bones.

Subsequently, the incident meant a requirement to dictate the text of his book to his wife, Mrs Hibrow……. They were a very formal family who apparently didn’t waste time using each others first name. In fact he claimed not to know her Christian name.

Despite both arms being plastered above the elbow, he expressed having no regrets about the incident. Claiming that he’d do it all again, although he might use a lower branch next time!

He concluded his eccentric book by asking “Could someone scratch my testicles, please!”