There are times when the pleasure and romance of a garden is put aside and its maintenance becomes a beast that growls or whines to get one's attention. This morning, although hot, was the time to do a bit of overdue weeding, deadheading, lawn-mowing and so forth. Not all of it, mind you, just some.

Sharp weeding tool in hand, I thought about the British mysteries I occasionally read (a memory instigated by my murderous thoughts regarding the unwelcome vegetation, I suspect).

For a little light reading, I'll sometimes indulge in a "cozy". Picture, for example, a single, middle-aged, female protagonist who has "a man" come to do the digging and repairs. She may even have a woman "to do" for her, not everything, perhaps the "deep cleaning" in her impossibly-charmingly-thatched-cottage. (I'd be just as happy with a woman doing the maintenance and the man deep-cleaning; my daydreams are equal opportunity employers.)


You know, the kind of home that has a name like "Rose Cottage" with a little stone wall and a cat or two snoozing by the hearth or purring contentedly in the garden.  

The only thing marring this idyllic scene is the certitude that at least one pesky corpse would be discovered amongst the hollyhocks, in the hedgerow, or some such similar place.)




I could keep searching for the elusive house, not quite as little as my current one, and hire out some jobs...like shoveling snow or cutting the grass.