Saving the Geraniums...

It's October; it's autumn, but the gorgeous sunshine is lulling us into a false complacency. It is time to pull out the geraniums and attempt to save them. If you're not interested in gardening, then go and have a cup of coffee, and a bun, if you so wish.
I have had mixed results with saving geraniums over the years. I have tried keeping them in bedrooms on window sills and almost asphyxiated the occasional guest with their heady scent. I have kept them in the porch where they have looked increasingly bereft and straggly by Christmas. They do not look any better decked with tinsel either. I have kept them in the windowless shed with only the merest squish of water for four months and in each instance they look straggly, etiolated, and sick.
The year I did what many gardeners do, ripped them from the soil and binned them, I felt such profound guilt that it was as if I'd been putting my own children in the green bin.

So, I decided this year I would purchase a small greenhouse from Wilco. Ten quid. Marvellous. It sat in the shed for eight months. But today was the day. Yesterday I cleared an area and lay down a paving stone. Not quite as Fatima Whitbread as it sounds. We had a large floor tile left over from recent renovations which was quite manoeuvrable.
This morning I emptied the contents of the box on the living room floor.
Normally, I would wait until my son-in-law was around because he can do this kind of thing blindfolded, being an aerodynamicist and all, which we all know requires an awful lot of small greenhouse erection. But he was at work, designing racing cars, and nowhere near.
Normally I would study the picture  on the box, get the general idea and proceed, only stopping when I had got in a pickle. But today, I channelled my son-in-law. I read the instructions. I arranged all the working parts in order, and yes, dear readers, I actually counted them. A total anathema to someone like me, but today I counted them and do you know what? They were all there. Result!
I had been expecting:


But instead, it went together like a dream. Obviously those early years spent assembling Quadro, the children's climbing frame, had not been wasted. So now I have an airy, frost-free home for my dear geraniums this winter. I am aglow with achievement.
I warned you, Mrs Lovely Bun-eater, only gardeners understand.









Yes, the shed needs some attention. One step at a time.