Things I have learned so far this summer.......

Brilliant Gilli :)

Thought provoking!!....I like it! :)

Good one Gilli - I had a great chuckle!! Can relate totally to 19, 20 and 21 and I loved your opening quote. Nice blog!

Great blog, some very interesting points. And I can agree with so many.

Great! :-) Thanks for posting this, even tho' you've had some 'hot' weather...meaning sun...and we are sadly lacking that over here...again!

Yes, I know it was too hot - but just send us a few rays...please??

Brilliant blog Gilli, very entertaining. We may be non stop moaning about our weather but at least we are not bothered by some of your 'pests'! I can identify with 1 - 4 though(and lots of others) :o( Maybe a lid on the potting soil bin?

Great blog Gilli~brightened up my morning which is decidedly gloomy!
~think we are on a learning curve every day
~there is another truism to add to your list~if you are going to fall it will be either onto the hardest surface known to mankind or that lovely bush which was doing so well!

Lovely blog, well thought out. I can relate to no.22, it ruined my feet! 28 is so funny. And for the deer, a problem I find so hard to imagine, lol.

Oh dear Arlene, which one was it or if it was a really bad day it might even have managed to be both!!

~Hi Lily ~
a while ago I managed to do both in the same week~admittedly I was fluey and should have stayed in!!
We have concrete steps in the garden and on my way up them in a hurry I managed to get my toe caught in the hem of the other leg of my trousers and fell as if I had been poleaxed onto my knees!They are still hurting weeks later!
As if that wasn't bad enough later in the week I fell onto my Daphne Odorata and broke several branches off
Daphnes are tricky at the best of times but it does seem to be recovering~ better than I am actually!

Ouch!!! Sorry to hear that Arlene. Knees are dodgy things at the best of times as you get older (I know mine are!) and can certainly do without contact with concrete!! I suppose Daphnes can grow another branch, we are not so lucky. We don't realise how necessary knees are to gardening until they are injured. Hope you don't take too long to recover as I know you like getting out and about.

Fantastic blog, Gilli, and all so true! Great photos to go with the captions too. Well done, I keep reading it over and over - makes me laugh each time :)

Thanks Lily~it's not going to stop me just slow me down a bit!

LOL..Oh Gilli...lol this was so fun...you are a talented thinker and writer! Love your thoughts on things and agree about deer and the wind..both monsters to be sure!
LOL..Arlene..,.the quote .."I have seen the enemy, and he is me." comes to mind when I do the things such as yourself..LOL..I live with battered knees and shins from bumping and tripping into and over the most odd things..not a good feeling when you are going down and know how ridiculous you look and are trying to see who is watching as you hit...lol

Cat, how right you are! I am like you and Arlene - I fell over in one of my flower beds last week - and remember thinking in slow motion - 'I mustn't fall onto 'Canon Went'!!!

Oh dear - I didn't, I fell right on top of a clump of pretty Chrysanths, instead! I think I broke about half of the stems. :-(

Why are we sooooo clumsy??? Arlene, I hope your knees are better soon.

I think we are just so involved in what we are doing...who cares about balance anyway!? LOL...doesn't that take some thought away from what we are doing?..LOL...

Well,I was dead-heading, I think....reached over too far and ....CRASH!!!

I fell head first into the Ocean off a diveboat doing something like that ..I was reaching with a pole to get kelp that was tangling around a propeller..I popped right back up as I had a float suit on...was embarressed and luckily a diver was on board at the time and jumped in to throw me an air hose to pull myself back in with..I popped up and was laughing so hard I could barely swim against the current..LOL..still had on my wellies too...it was actually quite fun...but embarrassing because it was about as flat calm as it ever gets and I had always figured I would go over in rough water..lol..never did.

Oooops! SPLASH!!!! LOL.

~I do think it is concentration on something else other than what you are doing, at that crucial moment when you lean too far or move too quickly.....
thanks for the kind wishes on the knees Barbara~they feel very stiff~ and commiserations on the parts of your anatomy that received bumps!

Thanks, Arlene! My Mum always swore by Arnica - and I've found that she was right all along! Have you tried it?

~yes it was good on the bruising across the shins but the doc said something about water on the kneecaps?theyre creaking and groaning a bit!

Oooohh... that sounds nasty! You poor thing! Is there anything he/she can suggest?

~painkillers as and when and moderate exercise on flat surfaces~ they don't seem to be swollen anymore but just feel tight when walking~maybe go back and see if anything else can be done~

I read, I smiled, I chuckled, I laughed, I cried - with laughter. Don't have to carry many turtles here, lol.

Yes Wagger the turtles got me as well. :~))
So did the cats, the hot wellies,in fact all the temp. ones, 1 to 4, 5 - 18, lets face it I'm gona say all of them were hilarious. LMAO :~)))

That made great reading Gilli....thank you!

Rule 5 applies to tortoises too - I speak from experience :)

He he - absolutely wonderful Gilli - thank you for this!

And all those GoYers making excuses about falling over in their flower beds - that's not concentration guys, that's that bottle of mother's ruin you keep stashed in the greenhous!!! Come on, admit it you lot! x-)

Great Gilli. Made me smile. :o)

~I wish I had that excuse!I wouldn't have fallen so hard!

BrIliant Gilli ,must be the way you write them.LOL......

I remember that about turtles, and garden snakes can be tricky too.
And don't stand under the humingbird feeder after filling it to admire the birds.
And cats will rearrange your seed beds so that you can't tell what's coming up where so you can't sort out the weeds.

Gilli, I love this blog!

Gilli, what a lovely blog, it sums up life exactly and demonstrates why we all love the unexpected, thanks for sharing.

Oh dear, haven't you learned anything that didn't do you harm Gili?. All the above seem quite harsh lessons!

Well thought out blog and very amusing(if not a little depressing!!!) but might help some of us to avoid some pitfalls! Great!!

Brilliant! No 29 applies to me - why do I always do digging in a white Tshirt?

I want to know if you have found a publisher yet Gilli..you need to send this off to be published..I am so proud of you!

YOU are a writer...love n hugs!..makes me happy to think of you sitting there writing away and gardening..you could do books about it Lady!..
xx ~Cat

Wow! Thanks everyone for your nice comments.

Bernieh ~ I'm glad someone else can relate to the heat!
Spritz ~ I'm working on bottling up some sun and warmth. As soon as I perfect the process they will be on their way. Keep checking the mail.
Lily ~ there is a lid on the potting soil bin but it doesn't fasten. The wind blows it off usually after we close in the evening and then the cats visit overnight. I'm working on a better system after squishing the last lump!! LOL
Arlene ~ Sorry to hear of your fall. Your addition is quite true. It will always be the most beautiful bush or at least the most expensive one. Hope you are healing up well. Last time I hurt my knees I ended up on Celebrex. It worked wonders. I don't know if you have that over there.
Marguerite ~ I can see how 22 would ruin your feet in pretty short order. No. 28...ants up the nose are not pleasant. As for the deer......they are just like rabbits only taller with antlers.
Gee ~ I'm glad it brightened your day. Keep on smiling. I will keep in mind the rule about tortoises just in case I have to carry one of them too.
Cat ~ Ah yes.....just a Hemingway in the making....that's me!! LOL. You should see my shins.....always covered in bruises from walking into things. I fell off a stone wall and landed right on my rear. I had a key in the back pocket of my shorts and I ended up with a lovely green and purple bruise in the exact shape of the key. LOL
Wagger ~ We have a few biggish turtles in the pond at work. They keep wandering over into the shrubs or trees which are set out for sale. I always try to take them back so the children don't bother them. I learned right away about carrying them with the rear end facing away...... :o)
Ian ~ You are a love. Glad you enjoyed.
Sid ~ I think you may be right about the mother's ruin. Hee hee hee.
Hywel ~ Glad you liked it. Smiling is good.
Weedy ~ I forgot about the garter snakes. Probably because I haven't carried one for many years. They smell awful too when they're scared. Glad you explained about the cats in the flower beds. That must be exactly what happened.
Stroller ~ Glad you liked it. Life is full of lessons.
Paul ~ Not depressing at all. Except perhaps the heat.....anyone would find that depressing. Life is just a giant classroom. :o)
Keithsmum ~ Isn't that the strangest thing? Last time I wore a light blue shirt and ended up having to fix the skidsteer. That went in the garbage after... :o(
Cat ~ "All I ever wanted to know I learned in the garden...."?
Lincslass, Fluff, Silverbelle, Louise and AA ~ Glad you enjoyed reading. Any lessons to add?

wonderful blog made me laugh - re the slug slime - if you wipe your fingers on grass it comes off!! (you can then wash your hands normally!)

Thanks Genius........I'll have to try that with the slug slime next time........another lesson learned..... :O)

Well I am sorry you have had such an awful summer with all these misfortunes. I can't for the life of me think why other Goyers enjoyed them - you sound as though you have had a wretched time in your garden, I don't know how you coped, I feel quite depressed for you now!

Loved all of it Gilli. The lesson I've learned this summer is Do not hang your washing under a damson tree, unless of course you can catch them in a big sheet and turn them into earlier mentioned Mother's Ruin.

What I learnt this weekend - don't position a bench underneath an apple tree in August......Thunk! Ooouch!

Love the blog Gilli lots of them apply but especially numbers 28 and 29 always check for bee's too and I am forever getting into bother from Gill because I have not changed into my 'gardening clothes'

Thanks GF.......it's nice to know you care! :o)

Ginellie.........Oooo, I hope you were able to get the damson stains out of your washing. I'll have to remember that one.

Sid........good one. I'll add to that.....don't stand under a pear tree in August when the wind whips up! Ouch.

Bob.......A bee up the nose would be worse than an ant. I have more gardening clothes now than anything else as I have ruined so many shirts. LOL