Monday 18 May 2009

The red rose challenge


I made the mistake of telling Mr Grumpy how a friend's boyfriend, returning from what had seemed like a permanent split-up, had had a bouquet of 13 red roses sent to her office, one for every year they had been seeing each other. (Mr G and I have had 12 years of ups and downs.)

I say 'mistake' because this was like a red rag to a bull - or rather, a red rose petal. Not to be outdone, Mr G disappeared to Sainsburys and on his return, proudly presented me with a scarlet patio rose, instructing me to turf out the mint seedlings from my blue pot and replace them with the rose.

Every day, he has been out counting the blossoms and buds and once they had beaten my friend's bunch and reached 14, he was triumphant. Yesterday he counted 17 and was beside himself. "Never let it be said that I'm competitive," he said with a heavy dose of irony.

I rushed out and photographed a rose for posterity, after a heavy shower. The pelagoniums looked pretty after the rain, so here is a pic of them, too.

1 comment:

Jackie Sayle said...

He might have bought you a container to plant the roses in! Not sure I like the competitive element about the amount of blooms. Sometimes, one red rose in a milk bottle can speak volumes.