No Place Like Gnome

With Mum and Zoe despatched to investigate his new love nest, this morning I start to wonder whether Alan will ever visit this house.

I find myself looking around objectively. If Alan ever falls on bended knee, does penance and begs forgiveness so that I deign to invite him over, what will he think of this place?

He might be expecting something more homely, more like we used to have. It’s not as if I haven’t tried; I painted, put up photos and bought some throws, but it’s difficult to stay enthusiastic when you’re only doing it for yourself and I have been rather busy with work.

I imagine Amanda launched herself into the full throes of romantic nest-building. I know that they’ve gone for an ultra-modern city apartment and I envisage it spotless yet filled with the aroma of baking. They’ve probably got an island in the kitchen and they stand chatting with a glass of wine while she ‘throws together’ something wonderful despite having been at work all day.

In my imagination, they’ve both got perfect white teeth too. This jars with the vision of them drinking lots of red wine but it happens on American TV shows. How does that work? On TV, they’re always drinking huge glasses of red wine before eating and yet they never get plastered and they never have stained teeth when they smile lovingly at each other. I must buy some of that magic wine.

Back to their love nest. I wonder if she makes him take his shoes off before he’s allowed near her perfect cream rugs and cushions (which I bet she has). They’ll have a balcony not a garden but she’s bound to grow herbs somewhere and they’ll all be perfect, not scraggy weeds like mine always seem to end up. Alan was always the gardener in our house, so I wonder how he’s coping with a balcony.

I look out at the scraps of lawn and earth that comprise my front garden and feeling guilty, I decide to take action. Two hours and an unjustifiable amount of money later, I return from the garden centre with plants, tools and a new doormat which shouts Welcome.

I know how ironic that is.

I get to work and am soon transformed into Angela Titchmarsh. Or Angela Sackville-West, because I don’t imagine that Mr Titchmarsh wears flowery gardening gloves or carries a lilac-handled trowel. I have the concentration of a surgeon as I plant the ready-flowering spring bulbs and shrubs that will transform this scrap of land into Kew Gardens. If I’d planned ahead, I wouldn’t have picked a very muddy day to start this and I might have tackled it in stages, but as it is, I’m filthy and groaning in agony when I eventually struggle up to survey my achievement.

Not bad at all. Alan will be impressed when he makes his inaugural visit.

One of my neighbours walks past and nods at my efforts.

‘You’ve got that looking good,’ he says as he strolls past.

I thank him, head indoors and then end the day by resting my weary body in a bubbling oasis of ylang-ylang – whatever that is.

The next morning I’m driven to ask myself why anyone bothers with gardening? One minute I have a perfectly potted green space and the next something resembling a rubbish dump. I know exactly when it happened; at 4 a.m. this morning I was dragged from my dreams by a raging storm. Outside the forecast gales had arrived a day early; wheelie bins were hurtling down the road in a bizarre break for freedom while fence panels and sheds battled to stay upright. There was nothing I could do at that time in the morning, so just turned over and lay awake while the cacophony raged on.

Now, on my way to work, I am exhausted through lack of sleep and truly hacked off to see several recycling bags and their contents flattening my recent efforts.

The ‘witty’ gnome I added to the welcoming décor looks as if he’s had a night on the town with several Stella cans at his feet and an empty hanging basket sitting on his head at a jaunty angle.

I give up and holding my lapels tight to my chest, I stomp into work; my hair also decides to get angry in the storm.

‘Love the Scissorhands look,’ says Charlie, admiring the coiffured rage on my head.

He is far too chirpy and in danger of wearing that coffee. I ignore him, sort out my troublesome hair, have a caffeine intake and calm down.

The gnome looked as if he’d had a really good night on the tiles I smile to myself. I think I’ll call him Norman – spelled Gnorman of course.

Today’s conversation is all about the dinner party; we want to know the details and fortunately Charlie is bursting to tell. We wait until the post-lunch slump and seat ourselves comfortably so the storyteller can begin.

‘He’s nice.’

Hardly a glowing reference, and not quite matching Charlie’s serene faraway smile.

‘Really nice, lovely. I feel as if I’ve known him all my life.’

This is sounding like love and as Charlie takes us through a night that ended with a little peck on the cheek and a promise of a ‘next time’, he looks like a puppy that’s just had his belly stroked. I think we’ll see much more of Peter; in fact, very soon, as it turns out that he’s offered to help us with the Mercury Travel Club.

‘They all liked the idea,’ Charlie says, ‘but Peter couldn’t see where we’d make any money.’

Peter is in banking, which is not something many people confess to these days. He helps people with ideas to secure funding, so knows his way around a business plan. He thinks my scrapbook needs ‘fleshing out a little’ – a very polite way of putting it. So, if I’m up for it, he’s going to help us work out whether the Mercury Travel Club could be profitable.

I never even considered that it might not be and all of a sudden I feel really stupid; it’s a scrapbook of pictures, that’s all. Peter wants me to bring along the costs and prices but I haven’t even thought about them or anything else that you might put on a spreadsheet. I’m sensing an evening of humiliation ahead – so much for Entrepreneur of the Year.

My guts are churning as much as they did when Patty told me the Grannies were reforming; now I’m thinking that a night onstage sounds a far easier option.

I feel a bit deflated as I walk home, but then I notice something rather bizarre as I approach the house. The debris from last night’s storm has gone. At first I think it must have blown on down to someone else’s garden but then I see that the plants have been tidied up and, most bizarrely of all, Gnorman has been joined by a female gnome. I look around to see if anyone is filming for You’ve Been Framed, but nothing. I sigh and go inside; I don’t know why I find anything unusual any more.

I’ll call her Gnora.