Mr Penry likes being out in the garden, potching. Perhaps I should explain, 'potching' is a Wenglish word that means pottering about, doing nothing in particular, in a sort of happy, contented world of one's own.

Yesterday however, he decided that the day for action had arrived. No more potching. He was going to do some pruning. Only Mr Penry doesn't prune, exactly. He hacks.

I have had experience of his gardening before. Like the time he obligingly cut his mother's grass, and afterwards happened to mention that he'd encountered a 'tough bit in the middle'. It turned out to be her prized pampas grass, now nothing more than some bits of stick and churned earth.

So I explained what could and couldn't be cut back.
'Don't worry,' he assured me, 'I only want to cut down the brambles.'
I tried again, explaining what to leave alone. When to ask.... etc. etc.

And did he listen? Well, when I went out to take him a well earned cup of tea he was sitting in the arbour, red in the face, taking a well earned rest from his labours. And then I saw it. The empty border.

I mean it. Empty. The six foot tall fuchsia I had lovingly tended from a cutting is now a bare wooden stump. Ditto several hebes and various other shrubs that would have provided a riot of colour in the summer.
'What have you done????' I demanded. 'You've got rid of everything!'
A slow smile spread across his features. 'It's not that bad,' he said. 'You can see the primroses now....'