The Day of the Triffids

Strange title for a gardening blog? This was the message left from Richard at The House of Frames in Newbury regarding some gardening work he wanted doing - "Come and sort my Triffids out please!"

I met Richard when helping my misses Karen of The Best of Newbury and Neale and Sam James of Breathe Pictures with The Best of Newbury Exhibition recently held in the Corn Exchange (and now on show in certain places around Newbury so check it out).

Richard and his team provided the picture framing service for the exhibition and we got chatting (as you do) about his garden and the hedges that needed cutting some day....well that day arrived with this phone call.

We set the date for Monday and all was fine. That was until Monday morning. I took the dogs out for an early morning walk and got absolutely drenched - this was before 7:00am. When I saw the forecast for the remainder of the day, I made the call I hate doing and rained off. Paperwork and indoors for the rest of the day - pooh!

Tuesday was different all together, a bit windy and cool but no rain. I made my way to Wantage to get an early start. I had not seen the job, but Richard described a nice Beech hedge and a few Leylandii that needed a bit of a trim....it shouldn't take too long.

I must say, the house and location was a dream property - an old Farm House and mature gardens - simply beautiful.

I have recently added an extension kit to my Henchman hedge cutting platform which takes it up to about 18 foot, allowing me to safely cut some really big hedges - thankfully I had just thrown this in the back of the truck "just in case" as well as my Husky Pole Saw as the hedges were simply ENORMOUS.

As usual I just cracked on with the hedge cutting until disaster struck - my Creative MP3 player went faulty! Nothing else for it, I had to sing without it, driving the dog mad and the neighbouring cows too.

Anyhow, the hedge was just about finished before darkness fell, with just a few more bits to do on my next visit - about 8 - 10 feet shorter in some places than at the start.

I was also very spoilt, I was given some lovely home made soup for lunch - other customers please take note!