My own private Waterloo …. May 2008

Everything is well with the world. The only problem I’ve got with the car is that it’s low on fuel and it was explained by my local MP the other day that the only reason we invaded Iraq was to ensure that Bushey Service Station retained enough petrol on a weekly basis purely to fill my tank. What a nice man; I think I’ll vote for him next time.

I finally managed to get out into the garden and destroy my very own patch of rain forest with the lawn-mower, while also taking out a whole host of ant nests. I assume the ants had heard that Bushey was cool for travellers and vagrants as we now hear that we are to get our third designated traveller site, while the whole of the rest of Hertfordshire has none. My local MP said he was powerless to do anything about it but would I like some lucky heather? What a lovely, charming man. I’ll certainly vote for him next time.

Anyway, our next door neighbour has a pond, which attracts frogs. The problem with frogs is that they tend to move around, and not stay by the pond where they are safe, and wander around into neighbouring gardens. And they spawn little frogs. Hundreds of them. Most of them are now garden mulch courtesy of the Flymo, but hand on heart I did try to save as many as I could by getting Amanda to round up a few in a bucket as they were spotted. The Flymo did manage to collect Mummy frog though which made a bit of a mess, but I knew it wasn’t Daddy frog. I found Daddy frog towards the end – he refused to move as I approached and even a few gentle nudges with the front of the lawn mower proved unpersuasive. Amanda refused to go near him, she hates big frogs. Kids eh? Wimps, the lot of ’em. You may well ask why I didn’t pick him up myself, but I can’t stand them (hence the lack of conscience over the mass genocide just undertaken) so we had a predicament. He sat there just staring at me while I contemplated my next move. Man vs Frog, a classic encounter, and there could be only one winner.

He moved. I say ‘moved’, I think it was more of a lurch towards me in a frankly aggressive manner. I found myself erring on the side of caution and jumped backwards, letting go of the lawnmower. Well, I mean he could have suddenly turned nasty, couldn’t he? Amanda is now howling in the background as I draw on every ounce of manly resolve and regain control of my tactical weponry. I flick on the lawmower with a deft touch and aim it fairly and squarely at the enemy. Girding my loins for an all-out attack from the flank, it seems my intentions were finally understood and Froggy leapt towards the fence and proceeded to casually stroll towards the shed with a typically Gallic swagger. Victory! English spirit has once again prevailed in the battle against a Froggy opponent – I felt like Wellington at Waterloo.

Amanda released the captive prisoners once we had strimmed those fleeing battle survivors along the sides of the fences (except Daddy Frog who was probably now on his way to my local MP to protest at the brutality and victimisation in Bushey) and the war was won. Until next time. I’ll say this for the Frogs, they don’t know when they’re beaten. Just don’t mention the war …