Garden Philosophy

There was a couple who lived in the house next door to me for over forty years. They raised a family there, they grew old there. Then, when they eventually became too frail to live independently, they moved to a nursing home, where they both died.

The old man used to have a bench in the garden where he would survey his domain; beans shot up poles and lettuces grew next to carrots. It was a scene of self-sufficiency and fertility.

Now a young couple with children have moved in. The old bench is gone and a trampoline stands where the beans used to grow. I looked at this and thought that it might be nice to come up with some stirring statements about how the transformation of the garden is a metaphor for the circle of life, or even that it is a metaphor for the how the materialism of this generation has done away with the austerity and authenticity of the old couple's generation.

But, to be honest I was mainly wondering how they got that "old people" smell out of the house.

The Generation Game

A lot of older people say that kids these days don't know they're born. They might think that they're using metaphors to describe the relatively privileged young people of today, but actually, in the case of my cousin, Horshack, they're being more literal than they think.

You see, since he was born, his parents have kept Horshack in a large moist sack and fed him through a tube.

They're very nervous people, my aunt and uncle. Once, when one of their pet goldfish drowned, my uncle contemplated gassing himself in his car, until he remembered how expensive petrol is these days. In the end, he remembered his lactose intolerance and took a near-fatal overdose of Dairylea Dunkers.

There was a point to all this, but I've forgotten it. The TV's on in the background and one of those Halifax adverts both distracted me and filled me with a homicidal rage only a good round of EST can quench.