Pruning my rose bush

I am.

I made friends for life at school, played football, got the grades, went to university.

I made friends for life at uni, played drinking games (safely mum, safely),  got the grades, went to London

I made friends for life in London, I rubbed shoulders with the political elite, partied in the deepest of underground holes and ate canapes and drank from the classiest towers. My work literally took me to the heights.

A one-off visit to the top of Canary Wharf

From the window on the other side

I then took on a new life out west - less glamour, less Tube, more responsibility. Yet still young. still man.

So what has happened? Out alone in the garden? No hangover. No to being social. What about all my friends for life? Surely I'm not ditching them?

Maybe it's the stubborn side of me. Having dead-headed the rose, I was desperate to then hold it up so that it didn't drop its petals over the soil I need for veg. And then I needed to cut it back to stop if going crazy growth. I wasn't going to stop until it was sorted.

Or perhaps, its the slow appreciation that comes with age (and evidence) that your body can't take the heavy nights out Friday after friday, activities weekend after weekend, along with day after day of work pressures.

I promise you it's nothing to do with helping the rose to flower it's gorgeous creamy white flowers with that wonderful sweet vanilla scent. No, this is a veg garden where the potatoes rule and flowers are purely practical. A concession to the reality of bees.

Real men prune