Extreme Gardening - the side effects!

I eventually got my gear dry - ready to face it all again today! I cant believe that I have a whole week of this weather to come - but the customer comes first!

Following my efforts from Friday, there have been a few side effects that I hadn't considered - the worst being aching and shaking hands from the vibration of so much strimming in one hit - or was it the strimming? Let me tell more!

Friday night I crashed and burned - we had no kids and so a few bottles of wine, a silly movie and the blanket (called a blankie in our house) soon saw us both snoring - but it was just what we needed after a long week.

Saturday, I was lucky enough to be invited to a local pheasant/partridge shoot (one of my passions!) by my cousin Paul Rosier of plastering fame. We had a great day (sunny, warm and dry!!) and between us shot most of the bag as the birds just came to us all the time, and we are both good shots of course!

In the evening, me and the misses went out with Neale and Sam James of Breathe Pictures, the guys who have just had a great exhibition in the Corn Exchange with The Best of Newbury.

Neale and Sam are totally great fun and we always end up in a pretty bad way when we all get together, this being no exception of course. If you see Neale, ask him about the bird bath incident, which he totally blames me for. The boy just cant take a few drinks!!

As to the aching hands, it might have something to do with the booze from Saturday, but I think it was the strimmer too. So much so, today I bought some fantastic anti vibration gloves for use with strimmers, chainsaws and other devices that vibrate - these were £30 by Timberland, but if they stop the pain, then great. Talking to Neil at Kalehurst Machines, this is a very common ailment in tree surgeons, especially as the weather gets cold.

I will try these gloves out over the coming weeks and let you know what they are like - for £30 they had better be "the dogs"!