Certain Seasonal Rituals

So, what if you are standing to attention and clutching your ceremonial dibber in readiness? No matter how eager you are, there are still certain formalities necessary before you are allowed into the garden shed to perform that annual ritual that we of the Noble Order long for and yearn for all through the drear dark days of the winter.

Still, at least the massed ranks of the ukulele orchestra have now finished admiring each others instruments and have formed up just to the left of the water feature that has – at long last – thawed out and resumed its desultory trickle, while the weeds once more provide ample shelter for the garden's quite considerable – for its size – crop of slugs.

However, some of the neighbours once again are looking on askance with fear and dread, each haunted by the prospect of the forthcoming ceremonial unveiling of the woman from number 32's rather inadequate bikini when the first rays of the sun are deemed warm enough for her to remove the dressing gown that seems to have been the only item of formal day wear she has been seen in since the clocks were put back last year.

Anyway, you know that somewhere deep in the dark heart of the shed lies what was once – so optimistically – called the lawnmower, a collection of mechanical disasters held together now mostly by garden twine, and tangled up in what seems like a breeding nest of superfluous electrical leads that may – one day – come in handy and a collection of gardening tools no-one has any idea how to use – apart from using them to massacre slugs.

Still, at least the rain has held off, long enough for the orchestra to begin the overture, and so, as they begin to play, you stand tall and proud, ready to march into the deep unknown that is the garden shed.