Do I suffer for my art or do I suffer for my art? The answer to that is yes, btw.

I went for a walk down the fields last night, the one field has been left fallow. Which means it full of grasses, wild flowers and pollen. Lots of pollen. I’d been down there less than a couple of minutes before I started to sneeze and my nose started to run.

Did I give in? Noooo, of course not - I’m English, I carried on regardless; the stiff upper lip and all that (it's a mad dogs & Englishmen thing). Which meant that when I got home, I needed two Piriton tablets instead of the one. Obviously time to start pill popping the allergy tablets again to kick my system in.

So to today's pictures – I’m afraid you’re going to have to accept this for a while, I’ve a new toy so obviously I’m going to have to play with it. Yes, everyone is going to suffer - even the cat; who got pissed off with me messing about trying to sort the light settings out and I still didn't get it right. I shall have to read the manual.

The first two pictures that I took were in a neighbour’s garden. Yes, cheeky sod that I am, I took pictures of their flowers (we'll there aren't any in my garden, to survive an attack from me and the dogs they’d have to barricade themselves in).

Next door appear to be growing rather a lot of poppies, which has just reminded me of a story that I’ll tell you about in a minute. Oooh a Ronnie Corbett moment, it's been a while since I had one of those. Although I suppose it could be a Max Bygraves moment - his catchphrase being 'I want to tell you a story'.

And unfortunately for you lot, that has just triggered another memory of watching Sunday Night at the Palladium on telly with my Mum, Dad & my Nan. My Nan loved that show, we'd have our drinks and packet of Golden Wonder crisps ready for it to start. I remember the 70’s version of the programme, which apparently wasn’t as good as the earlier one, but we still enjoyed it.

OK, back to it ~

The next lot are from down the fields.

Cow Parsley. Now if you think I have a problem - think again. Just look what someone posted on U Tube, and it's had over 433 views too. At least with my photos you can see what you're looking at.

Clover - with an insect trying to get in on the act (which I'll admit I didn't notice at the time). It's obviously heard all about the ants and wanted its 15 minutes of frame as well. What can I say, word gets around.
So to the story I mentioned earlier (I know, nothing for a week and then you can't shut me up). I can’t remember if I’ve told you this already or not, so just nod if you’ve heard it before and pretend you haven’t.

When the kids were small with lived in a ground floor flat. The ground floor flats had both front and back gardens and there was a bit of competition between the neighbours as to which block had the nicest gardens. Now I have to admit that I am to gardening what Sweeney Todd was to hair dressing. Plants and flowers just take one look at me and die – they obviously think why prolong the agony?

Anyway, at the time my Dad convinced me that even I couldn’t over water African Marigolds – look, if your own parents don’t believe in you, what chance have you got? So I dug a border around the front and back garden, visited the garden centre and purchased said plants. Something my Dad failed to mention was the fact that African Marigolds smell awful, a bit like cat wee (please note that I’m trying very hard to be more polite, otherwise I’d have said piss). Personally I don’t think they’re partially pretty either, but in fairness to the plants they at least tried to live.

I did my up most to look after them too. I weeded and watered them. I even gave them a drink of Baby Bio plant food once a week. It was during one of my weeding afternoons that I noticed a small plant growing outside the kitchen window, it was bigger than the other weeds and didn’t look like them. So not at all sure what it was, I left it to see if it would grow into a flowering plant. Look, any plant giving it a go at survival in my garden deserved a chance. It joined the ranks of the 'Looked After and Cared For'. I weeded around it, watered it and gave it the weekly tipple of Baby Bio – yes, you get the drift.

Boy, did it grown into a good sized plant; I showed it off to my elderly neighbour – someone that not only had a beautiful garden but also grew all this own veg too. He couldn’t tell me what it was either, never seen anything like it before. At this rate I would have to send a photo to Alan Titchmarsh to see if he could tell me what it was. It didn’t look like it would ever flower, but it kept throwing out unusual shaped leaves. Maybe it was some sort of shrub.

It was a little while after that when Himself called to me to watch the news one night. Didn't that look like the plant I was growing? He asked. Good grief, so it did – just like it. I then went on to watch the rest of the news item about a house that had been turned into a cannabis growing factory.

The plant that I had so tenderly cared for was in fact a cannabis plant, and total innocent that I am, I didn’t have a clue. At the time we had a budgie and I used to throw his Trill seed out of the kitchen window for the wild birds. I suppose back then drugs weren't the big money earners they are now and people weren't so aware - easy internet access wasn't available for a start and computers had just started to get the general public's interest, so I doubt that bird seed manufactures sterilised the seeds. One of the seeds must have germinated, no wonder Trill is meant to make your budgie bounce with health.

Himself pulled it up in the end and burnt it on the bonfire, quite sad really - for once in my live I'd found a plant that I could manage to grow.