Guest writers
No, I’m not going to talk about contemporary politics, about people who walk in chains, following their ruler, sometimes licking their heels.
No, not right now, we’ll stay close for a while. “Come on,” I say to my other half, “we’re going to the garden center for a little bit of a break.”
Once there, I don’t look at the cheerful spring bloomers; no, I’m heading straight for the garden tools. “What do you want now?” says my other half. “A new pruning shears?”
“You have plenty, don’t you, and you can use mine now too, right?” Well, his pruning shears: for years I wasn’t allowed to touch them. His pruning shears, which he no longer uses since his illness.
He starts to look at me reprovingly, as usual, and says: “You don’t mean to say that in addition to your own, you have now also lost mine?” I look at him and don’t dare to admit that I have been trying to cut everything for a week.
It’s also terrible: red, green or brown flashes, they grow legs or hide. I looked in waste bins, under hedges and in bags, but those bastards are gone.
I quickly guide my husband to coffee and into the cart. When I tell my daughter about the incident, she says: “Be careful, Dad will soon put him in a chain, just like he used to with the comb.”
Oh well, my husband used to live with his mother, wife and three daughters. And whenever he wanted to comb his then luxuriant head of hair, the comb was gone. So he got a large chain from Welkoop and placed the comb near the mirror.
Well, how do I get rid of politics via pruning shears and a hair comb?
⭐ Hermien Bannink (77) from Barchem is a former farmer and gardener’s wife
