I remembered something the other day. I don’t know why, it just popped into my head after a long time of not thinking about it. Funny how that happens.  It was something my mother used to say. Some things stay with you while many others don’t,  I am obviously  guessing here  because I can’t remember any of the things that I haven’t remembered but assume that there must have been more. Anyway, my mother used to say, If you haven’t anything sensible to say don’t say anything at all…………………………………………………

I have found  today that two things are true:  computers are bad for my health and better late is definitely better than never, although I have to admit that sooner would have been preferable.

Having suffered with an excruciatingly painful neck and shoulder injury for over a year, the penny has finally dropped. The more I use the computer the more it hurts, that is my shoulder not the computer.

Now I have to decide: is it the chair that’s too high or the keyboard that’s too low? Do I cut the legs off the chair or jack up the keyboard? Difficult decision!

Eureeeeeeeka – got it!!

I have taken the keyboard from its little under-shelf and placed it on the desk top which is about 6 inches higher. What an ergonomic difference that makes!

Amazingly it only took me 18  months to work that out.

PS If you think I have just made that up, think again.

Or so my fishing obsessed sons tell me. They are camping and fishing one of their favourite Sussex lakes right now as I write this. It’s the summer holiday season and I feel ready to sleep as I usually do, much to Karen’s disgust, for three or four days. Then I will feel a lot better and can get on with the serious business of holidaying, if that’s the right word for it.

I know I should pace myself better over the year but I just can’t do it. When I have a project on the go like Chelsea I can’t and don’t want to slow down and take it easier. And when I get to this time of year there is a natural lull and I collapse in a heap. It’s crazy but it suits me if not anyone else!

This year has been a strange one though as after a quiet winter things started going a bit mad just before Chelsea and haven’t really calmed down since. Still, I will have my sleep and holiday before returning reinvigorated and ready to… well let’s see what turns up.

Life is like fishing, you never know what you are going to catch!

When I started this blog thing it was winter, a very bad winter, and I was finding it hard to get out of the house/office as much as I would like. In those dark, cold days writing was a great way to expend some excess creative energy. As you can probably tell from the sparsity of my recent posts  my creative energy has been diverted in many other directions; The Chelsea Flower Show and filming for Alan Titchmarsh forthcoming series to name but two.

It’s interesting how whenever things quieten down a little I seem to have an idea for a post. I decided from the start that I would only blog when I felt I had something to get off my chest and not just do it for the sake of I don’t know what.

Well that’s the point. Right now I am far too wrapped up in lots of other things to be wasting time writing posts that no one’s likely to read. Or perhaps that’s just how it seems to me. After all everything really is relative isn’t it! I have to concede that I may be struggling to maintain a sense of perspective. After all, while I was collecting an RHS gold medal at Tatton Park last week, for a collaboration with my friends John Humphreys and Derek Smith (photos on the gallery soon) plans are being drawn up to make half the country’s teachers, doctors, nurses, road sweepers, police persons and garden designers redundant and in one fell swoop plunge us into economic oblivion.

Wow! I seem to have rediscovered  my inner writer or should that be ranter. Either way I feel a lot better now!

One of the most conspicuous yet least seen human traits is the tendency, particularly when acting on mass, to swing (no not that kind) wildly, first one way and then the other.

For instance, in the world of fashion we move from drain pipes to flares and back, rarely stopping to think that perhaps somewhere in between might be the perfect cut.

When Gordon proclaimed that he had ended boom and bust for ever, I for one had a good laugh.

No one can end boom and bust in the economy, any more than I could make everyone wear the same jeans until they are worn out, and then go and buy a new pair with the same cut as the old. It’s not going to happen because we are predisposed to be swingers. It’s human nature to react to one extreme by heading straight at the other.

The point of this ramble:

For all our sakes someone should tell our new government to spend just a few minutes looking back at the last 13 years of new labour’s reckless spending and wonder if swinging to the opposite extreme is going to help or hinder the economic recovery.

Mind you, it’s an ill wind that blows no one any good. A double dip recession will delight the Greens. Up, that is, until they can’t afford new batteries for their hybrid cars.

Sounds like a subject from Just A Minute. I can almost hear Clement Freud listing fabrics.

It’s actually the title of a talk I gave  to students at The London College of Garden Design. They  invited 3 designers who are apparently well known for their innovative use of hard landscaping, each to talk for 20 minutes.

Well now, I know as well as anyone the rule that you should never bite the hand that feeds, but I just can’t help feeling the most interesting aspect of this scenario is the title itself and what it, I suspect, quite innocently suggests.

It would seem to intimate that designers will all have their favourite materials and will naturally be inclined towards specifying those materials before and above others.

This situation, if true, would seem to be extremely detrimental to the creative process.

For my part, the material is usually part of the original concept. The material comes with the idea whether I like it or not. For instance, I have a deep loathing for tarmacadam, yet I used it at Hampton Court Flower Show in 2008 because it was the right material for that situation.

Therefore I would ask you not for your favourite but for the right material.

Now I am wondering whether this way of thinking could apply to other aspects of the human condition.

I really should be driving a black cab.