In search of perfect foliage...

[Dorsetman]

We have a law ... if enough people sign the petition ( we have an on-line YouGov petition system ), our Parliament MUST have a debate on the question. Problem is it needs 100,000 signatures to achieve that result....( we got there over the question of having too many speed cameras ! ) but as to getting that many orchid growers- I doubt it !

[mauraec]

We have a law ... if enough people sign the petition ( we have an on-line YouGov petition system ), our Parliament MUST have a debate on the question. Problem is it needs 100,000 signatures to achieve that result....( we got there over the question of having too many speed cameras ! ) but as to getting that many orchid growers- I doubt it !

Well, you must have a 100,000 friends, at least. But if I were you, i might start looking toward the tradition of stashing pirated horticultural disinfectants along the coast of Cornwall....

[Dorsetman]

Aha - the smugglers of Dorset revived ( you don't need to go to Cornwall - that was mainly in films etc I think - even the Smugglers wanted a fair number of locals to sell to , and Cornwall was only a collection of smallish villages - even today it it takes for ever to get there by road ( I do exaggerate a tiny bit) whereas here in Dorset, we have Southampton, Portsmouth, Salisbury etc, all a mere day or two with pack-mules, across the heaths and using the by-ways, where the Revenue men get lost...
A mile away from where I live, at the top of Smugglers Lane, there is a tree where , according to the local story, the inn-keepers wife put her red bloomers to hang out to dry, when the revenue men were in town...
But its a long way to row my little boat across the Atlantic to get supplied with goods I'd want to smuggle ! Maybe I'll have to go back to the idea of the New York Show !

[mauraec]

I suppose I was thinking of Daphne du Maurier's novel, Frenchman's Creek - and as all pirates know, they themselves do not travel to get the "booty" - they merely intercept it and reroute the contents - so worry not about reenacting The Old Man and the Sea. " Oh, a pirate's life life is the life for me...." Get out your bottle of rum and screw your courage to the sticking place - 3,000 orchids are depending on you! Nothing like a mishmash of literary allusions tp prove one's mind has ground up what once was learning and now is a fine hash of unrelated stories.

[Dorsetman]

Sorry Maura , all the rum went into the Christmas Pudding....

on the other hand, what a good excuse for going out to buy another bottle - or have we come full circle ? Whilst smuggling in a cask of Physan I could bring in one of rum. Must watch out which one the orchids get....Physan is just too expensive for me to drink...

[mauraec]

. Must watch out which one the orchids get....Physan is just too expensive for me to drink...

Just pour it into a sherry glass and take small sips - as long as you don't drink the whole cask, you should be fully cleansed by Boxing Day and plenty of Physan left for the others in your life - as for the rum, well, it might have a certain disinfectant quality to it as well.

Off to the hospital to sit with my ventilator-bound husband. Not yet breathing on his own, and the drs. still don't know exactly why - I may have to diagnose this whole mess myself if they don't come up with something better than wait-and-see. It's been a week and still no progress. He won't know me, but I'll read some of the OT posts to him anyway - he loves to hear them.