The Stick, Bobs, Parental Issues

 Shortly after we moved here we bought a tree from a nursery in the south-west. It arrived by post, I planted it and we've been waiting half a year for it to do something. Latterly we've been calling it "the stick' or "the twig".

Yesterday Ailz sent pictures of it to the suppliers and they said, "We're afraid your tree is dead but here are several reasons why it's not our fault." I suppose we could enter into a dispute with them- ding-dong, back and forth- but there's enough of that  in the world already.  Now we have to decide whether we want to replace it and if so with what...

Before we left the farm we did our best to declutter. Now we're cluttering up again. My prize purchase yesterday (from the shop at the recycling centre) was a coloured print of Field Marshall Lord Roberts of Kandahar with an inscription on the back to say it was reframed in 1952 by his (Lord Robert's) great great nephew. Lord Roberts was the greatest soldier of the high noon of the British Empire- and won just about every medal and honour it was possible for him to win including the V.C. and the Order of the Garter. The troops called him "Bobs". 


I dreamed I was arguing with my mother about my father. I had an almighty grievance with them both. Then my father came in came from the back room and I argued with him as well. High words were spoken and it didn't quite come to blows though it might have done. I had thought I had sorted out my parental issues long since but my dreaming self says, "Actually, no..."