Physical jerks

Oh dear, the garden is now well and truly stalled in its half-dug state.

Bert suggested I should take over: "You need toning up." Luckily for me, the weather is awful. And the pickaxe is vewy heavy.

Bert's shoulder is still bad, and yesterday he was complaining that he had also, somehow, pulled a muscle in his arse. I offered to kick it. Tempting, huh?

Bert's brother G is doing an Ironman in Austria soon. Bert isn't jealous. No way. He's been doing triathlons himself for years, and has nothing left to prove. So I don't know why he said,"If he drops out, I'll turn up on the day and do it myself." But G has a coach and a team of physiotherapists, chiropractors, osteopaths and witch doctors to hand, and is determined to go ahead despite an array of injuries (mostly in the groin area so let's leave it at that). One of B and G's shared characteristics is the ability to be deeply focused on their own ailments whilst oblivious to those of others (or is that just a 'man thing'?). In G's case he throws money at a host of treatments and cures, while Bert does a more macho "I'm in real pain but I don't have time for doctors who haven't got a clue anyway, so I'll just go on and on about it instead." (I call it pain transference.)

Incidentally, Bert proposed to me while he was taking part in a triathlon. He ran past and shouted, "If I make it round I'll marry you!" I didn't catch what he'd said (even though for once I had managed to turn up before he finished), but unfortunately his mother and our daughters heard it loud and clear. So there was no getting out of it, and he was running too fast for me to catch him up and trip him or something.

Birthdays and Bertdays

I told Bert today that I had started a blog about him. He looked a bit puzzled. "A blob?" Bless.

Last week it was Katie's birthday and I made Bert write the card. I like to watch him struggle - it's like 'emotional gym' for him. He thought it highly appropriate to urge her to work hard over the next year (OK, I admit he added "and don't forget to enjoy yourself too").

Mind you, he finds buying cards difficult too. As it happens it is his mum's birthday the day after Katie's, so as usual I found myself in Clintons looking for 'Mother' cards. Then I thought "Hang on, it's his mum, he should do this." So I took him card shopping. He took one look at the bank of cards, picked one out and said "That'll do." But when he checked the code and worked out it was £5, he started throwing a wobbly. "£5 just for a card? That's £8 once you gross it up!". (He was talking about the tax he'd already paid on the £5.)

I think 'grossing it up' is a great way of describing most of Bert's observations.

I mentioned recently that Bert had started digging up the garden. This has 'ground' (sorry) to a halt. He has hurt his neck and shoulder in some strange and immobilising way but won't see the doctor and insists it is unrelated to digging up loads of solid chalk with a pickaxe and wheeling umpteen barrows of this through to our (permanently resident) skip out the front. "It's bad knees you get with gardening," he maintains. No wonder I've not got that fit doing the garden. I've obviously been doing it all wrong.