Gardeneering.

It's time to get into the garden.
I've found that doing a bit of work at this time of year makes the garden a lot easier to keep under control later on.

First job, cut the Fig tree back.
I have no idea what I'm doing, I just brutally lop off branch after branch until the tree looks 'tidy'.
I've used this approach for many years now, the tree is thriving and produces a good crop of figs so I must be doing something right.

Next job involves radical change.
There's a Bay tree in the garden, or, to be more accurate, what's left of a Bay tree.
It used to be a Bay bush which, after much clipping and snipping. I standardised. All well and good until I neglected to maintain it for about 3 years and it ended up as a Bay bush at the top of a very large trunk or, as I prefer to call it, a Bay tree.
Last year Linda sawed the top half off in the hope that it might regenerate from below the cut.
It didn't and ended up looking like this:

Bay Stump

We discussed removing this mutilated stick last year but didn't get round to it.
Today's the day.
After much forking, digging, root-chopping, pulling, pushing and, last but not least, swearing I managed to remove it:

Danger! Hole in world!

Linda then decided an Aucuba, that had been hidden behind the Fig and Bay trees, had to go and be replaced by a plant, who's name I can't pronounce let alone spell, that looks like a laurel but isn't and caused a bit of disagreeable bickering whilst writing this post because I tried to wake Linda (asleep on the settee) to ask her what it was:

Linda planting
(Notice lopped fig tree in background).

I vigorously pruned several more shrubs before Linda managed to wrestle the secateurs from my grasp telling me I'd done enough damage for the day and, as a treat, I was allowed to agitate the compost bin which is filled with life-forms that should not be.
With any luck that's as much as I'll have to do in the garden all year.